It’s Martin Luther King Day.

We know it’s more likely you’re waxing your skis for one last run or nursing a Monday morning hangover, but let’s pretend that you’re using this day off from work to visit museums and reflect on the life and work of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King.

And we here at Coffee & Crypto, we too, have a dream.

We have a dream that Ethereum and Bitcoin and SBF and the SEC can hold hands and walk on a mountaintop as brothers and sisters.

We have a dream. A dream you’ll read the rest of this newsletter.

And if you think this is in poor taste, you’re absolutely correct. But parody is our civil right.

Espresso Shots

☕️ Former FTX President Claims SBF Threatened Him 🤬 😰

Brett Harrison, the former president of FTX US, took to Twitter to claim that he saw instability and organizational issues at FTX, but was threatened when he tried to speak out.

“I never could have guessed that underlying these kinds of issues – which I’d seen at other more mature firms in my career and believed not to be fatal to business success – was multi-billion-dollar fraud,” Harrison wrote later in the thread.

Harrison has since stepped down from his role at FTX, but claims that he still sees curly-headed shadows everywhere.

☕️ Bitcoin Goes to College 🎓 🚌

With the increasing popularity and developing necessity for young professionals to be versed in crypto, Texas A&M is offering a new course, “Programming Bitcoin.”

The classes will teach undergrads in A&M’s College of Engineering and Mays Business School the fundamentals of building a Bitcoin library.

Texas A&M is following in the Web3 footsteps of Boston University and University of Cincinnati, both of which have recently added crypto education to their curricula.

It is only a matter of time before these colleges’ financial offices offer incremental Bitcoin-mining as a way to pay back student loans.

☕️ Dungeons and Dragons Scraps NFT Projects 🐉 ⚔️

Wizards of the Coast, the publisher behind Gary Gygax’s genre-defining board game, Dungeons and Dragons, has decided to pull the plug on plans for NFT projects and Web3 gaming.

And here’s us hoping our basement-dwelling communities could just get along.

This decision comes on the heels of the company’s restructuring of their Open Gaming License (OGL) which would charge third parties royalty fees for using Dungeons and Dragons IP in their own games.

The company has decided to do away with their royalties payments based on an unsurprisingly negative public response.

“It’s clear from the reaction that we rolled a 1,” read an official statement from Wizards of the Coast.

Though the OGL will now allow third parties to use Dungeons and Dragons content, it will not permit any Dungeons and Dragons NFTs or related Web3 functionality.

Though, if any Web3 creators want to persist despite the legal ramifications of adventuring further, they will have to drop their torches, take one D12 of damage, and roll for initiative.

Spilling the Beans

Crypto Winter Forges Winners ❄️ 🏆

Despite the recent Bitcoin rallies shining some bright spots on the grim darkness of crypto winter, it seems that the cold front is still raging on.

And how do you stay warm in the tundra?

Well, in an igloo, of course.

Like many American school children, we at Coffee & Crypto have always been fascinated by igloos.

We like drawing them, we like ice in our drinks, and we have a shared history of trying to build igloos on snow days before promptly giving up and returning inside for some soup.

But how can an igloo keep you warm?

Ice against ice? It doesn’t make any sense. An igloo shouldn’t be able to function and certainly has no hopes of being cozy.

But an igloo’s warm, effective power lies simply in the low, thermal conductivity of ice.

Those ice bricks create a powerful, insulating wall and the unmoving air inside the igloo work together as incredibly effective insulators.

The ice inside is keeping you warm and protected from the ice outside. Neat.

But what does that mean in regards to crypto winter?

Think of those blocks of ice around you, your igloo, as your crypto portfolio.

And that warm, unmoving air inside? That stagnant, walrus-blubber smelling interior that makes the whole thing work?

That’s hope.

Look, we’re all hurting. It’s not just crypto. There’s a recession on and it never feels good to watch your IRA go down instead of up. That’s not what it’s supposed to do.

But we can’t lose hope.

If you sell now, there’s a 99% chance you’re taking a fat L. We don’t know when you bought your crypto or what you’ve got, but we can pretty accurately guess you’d be walking away with less than you paid. That’s not a good investment.

Hey, if you want to withdraw your crypto from a larger exchange and switch to a self-custody situation, we’re not judging. It’s seeming like the biggest firms are committing the proportionally largest fuck-ups.

We’re not saying don’t move your crypto around, you withdraw and the exchanges get screwed? Who cares? That’s just your bank.

We don’t care about the institutions, we care about you.

And buddy-to-buddy? Our legally not financial financial advice?

Don’t sell. Hold.

Hold your position and hold on to hope.

As Harvey Dent and Florence + The Machine always say, “The night is always darkest before the dawn.”

It’s been a tough, cold winter for crypto. But we can feel the sun over the horizon and the heavy, padding gait of one of those massive St. Bernards with the whiskey barrel collar thing.

We’ll be coming in from the cold soon, and there will be a roaring fire back at the lodge and we’ll all toast to the crypto market with the whiskey that dog has been coating with drool for months.

Cheers. 🍻

Meme of the Day

An artists rendition of the moment crypto winter turned to summer.

The Last Sip

Before Martin Luther King Day became a federal holiday in 1983, January 16th was actually already a holiday, just not one ratified by congress.

January 16th was National Nothing Day.

A day, “to provide Americans with one National day when they can just sit without celebrating, observing, or honoring anything.”

This non-event was founded by columnist Harold Coffin in 1972, but of course, has since been usurped by MLK Day.

Good try, Mr. Coffin, but your holiday was a big nothing.

Stay Caffeinated,

Coffee & Crypto Team

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DISCLAIMER: None of this is financial advice. This newsletter is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. Please be careful and do your own research.