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GM. This is Milk Road, the newsletter that just launched its own Telegram community, so we can all hang out n’ chat in real time!

Here’s what we got for you today:

• ✍️ BTC is missing 1 vital ingredient

• ✍️ What to look out for this week

• 🎙️ The Milk Road Show: Turn Bitcoin into Cash (Without Ever Selling It)

• 🍪 Update on the trade war

BITCOIN IS MISSING ONE VITAL INGREDIENT 🥣

Bitcoin’s core price influences are BOOMING!

→ BTC/Gold Ratio (low ratio = room for $BTC to run) ✅

→ Global liquidity (fresh cash in the system) ✅

→ Gold price (Bitcoin’s real-world proxy) ✅

…but we’re still missing the SECRET INGREDIENT that will fuel the next leg up.

The ingredient: a risk-on appetite across the market. 👇

Here’s how each factor influences $BTC’s price – and how risk-on appetite could turn everything around!

1/ BTC/Gold ratio

BTC/Gold ratio = how much Gold will your $BTC bags buy you. 

Rising Ratio: Bitcoin is outperforming gold.
Falling Ratio: Investors are leaning towards the stability of gold.

Right now, the ratio is falling (that’s bad) but is about to come in contact with a multi-year upward trend line, meaning we could be on the brink of a reversal (that’s good).

2/ Global Liquidity

Here’s how it works:

More money (liquidity) enters the system → it eventually finds its way into financial markets → some of it lands in $BTC → number go up.

Here’s the bullish part:

Global liquidity is hovering around all-time highs right now, and a component of that is global M2 (i.e. money in circulation + checking accounts), which started increasing roughly three months ago…

The cool part is – global M2 tends to lead $BTC’s price – aka: anything that happens to M2, tends to be reflected in Bitcoin around 10-12 weeks later.

And this is where M2 says we’re headed from here…

3/ Gold price

Bitcoin and Gold’s price over the last 6 or so years has been directionally correlated, though $BTC is much more sensitive to risk-off sentiment, which can cause deviations.

Translation: Bitcoin hits ‘pause’ on growth when the market gets risk averse, then rushes to play catch up when everything flips back to ‘risk-on’.

Which brings us to…

4/ Risk-on appetite

Bitcoin has shown amazing resilience in the face of the past weeks’/months’ market volatility – but it’s still missing its secret ingredient:

Investor Risk Appetite.

Even if every other systematic $BTC price influence is looking good – Bitcoin has a much higher likelihood of grinding sideways if risk appetite isn’t in the mix.

So what’s going to usher in the next leg up, if/when it happens?

We see two options:

• Bitcoin remains coiled up, while 3 of its 4 price influences continue to rise → once the missing ingredient hits (risk-on appetite) everything is unleashed.
  To go risk-on, we’d need to see a resolution in the current trade war or a Fed pivot (aka: rate cuts).

• Bitcoin finally decouples from crypto and plants its flag as a ‘safe-haven’ asset like Gold, shedding its status as a ‘risk-on only asset’.

That last option is the least likely, but would be a monumental development for Bitcoin and massively change how it operates within the broader market.

Either way you slice it – $BTC is looking strong right now!

Let’s see how it plays out! 🎲

WHAT TO LOOK OUT FOR THIS WEEK 📆

This week we’ve got ~20% of S&P 500 companies reporting, eight Fed speaker events, one SEC crypto round table, and some key macro data being released.

Here’s what’s on the schedule:

1/ Monday

👉 Eating Easter Eggs, texting your Catholic relatives to say ‘sorry about the pope’, and listening to Adam Reeds (founder and CEO of Ledn) talk about a potential Bitcoin decoupling on The Milk Road Show!

2/ Tuesday

👉 The IMF World Economic Outlook report drops. This shows projections of the world economy in the near and medium term.

👉 Tesla (one of the ‘magnificent seven’ stocks driving the bulk of S&P returns over the past few years) reports its earnings.

🎙️ Laura Shin, crypto podcast A-lister / host of the Unchained Podcast joins The Milk Road Show!

3/ Wednesday

👉 S&P Global PMI data is released! This tracks how much purchasing managers are spending on behalf of their companies – if they’re increasing their spend, they’re planning for growth (and vice versa).

👉 New home sales data is released – are people buying new builds? More demand for new builds = a healthier economy.

👉 The PRO team will be sitting down to host a live AMA in our Discord. Got questions you need answered? Go PRO to join the discussion!

🎙️ Adam Back, creator of Hashcash (aka: the backbone of Bitcoin) and early associate of Satoshi Nakamoto, joins The Milk Road Show!

4/ Thursday

👉 Intel & Alphabet (aka: Google) report their earnings, helping to give us an early indication of how the tech sector held up in Q1.

5/ Friday

👉 The SEC hosts its second public roundtable, this time focusing on custody issues. Previously they spoke on ‘Tailoring Regulation for Crypto Trading’ – and guess who was on the panel…

🎙️ Austin Reid! Who is also Global Head of Revenue & Business at crypto prime brokerage firm FalconX, and our scheduled guest for The Milk Road Show!

Alright, that’s everything! 

Mark your calendars.

Peel your eyes. 👀

WE JUST LAUNCHED A TELEGRAM COMMUNITY! 👀

If you’ve ever wanted to: 

👉 Chat with the Milk Road team and broader community...
👉 Swap new ideas/memes/takes/learnings in real-time…
👉 Dissect our intern Raul’s poor investment choices…

We now have a Telegram channel where you can do exactly that! 

(Go easy on Raul though, he puts up with a lot from us already)

Click below to join now. 👇

BITE-SIZED COOKIES FOR THE ROAD 🍪

What’s the best platform to lend your Solana? We’ve put together a page on Solana lending that answers exactly that.

Two things are weakening right now. First, Trump’s relation with Jerome Powell, and the second is the DXY. Both could have big implications on the markets. - DL News

Tokenized real estate, baaaaby! We’ve been saying it — this is one of the biggest real-world use cases for blockchain, and it’s finally starting to take off.

Update on the trade war. China warns that it will retaliate against countries siding with the U.S.

We’re hosting meetups, baaaby! In case you’re heading to Consensus Toronto or Permissionless in New York, come grab a beer with the Milk Road crew. We’ll see you there!

What do stock trading, sports betting, and crypto baskets have in common? They’re all available on Crypto.com.**

**this is partner content.

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ROADIE REVIEW OF THE DAY 🥛

VITALIK PIC OF THE DAY (FROM THE LATEST MOVIE)

The Vitalik film is now live! You can now watch “Vitalik: An Ethereum Story” across multiple digital platforms worldwide.