GM. This is Milk Road – we break down crypto news like an impatient toddler breaks their parents' will.

(With ease and precision baaaby!)

Here’s what we got for you today:

• ✍️ Coinbase’s secret master plan

• ✍️ Is $BTC about to break an 8yr trend?

• 🎙️ The Milk Road Show: Coinbase’s Plan To Disrupt Finance, Social & Payments w/ Base Founder Jesse Pollak

• 🍪 $ETH just hit $4k for the first time since December

Grayscale is the asset manager with 30+ different ways to invest in crypto. Explore all the funds offered by Grayscale.

UPDATING THE COINBASE SECRET MASTER PLAN 🤫

In 2016, our bald king (Brian Armstrong) wrote a blog post titled:

“The Coinbase Secret Master Plan.”

In it he highlighted the four-phases of global crypto adoption, and what role Coinbase would play in it, using internet adoption as a parallel:

…ok, a little on the nerdy side. 

Here’s a plain English breakdown of the four-phase plan:

Phase 1: Develop the protocol (1M people) ✅

This was the early phase, where people first began to tinker with Bitcoin, Ethereum, etc.

(No major role played by Coinbase here.)

Phase 2: Build a digital currency exchange (10M people) ✅

The creation of safe and easy-to-use exchanges that allow people to get their local currency in n’ out of crypto.

(Coinbase & Coinbase Pro were built to serve retail users and institutions throughout this phase.)

Phase 3: Build a mass market interface for digital currency apps (100M people) ✅

In this phase, the average crypto user gets access to an easy to use wallet that allows them to explore a growing ecosystem of apps powered by crypto.

(This is where we are today, with The Base App – formerly the Coinbase Wallet.)

Phase 4: building the apps of an open financial system (1B people) ❌

Here are the features they’re aiming to popularize, and the associated Coinbase/Base Chain products that are designed to power this adoption:

• Loans (Morpho Lending on Base Chain) 

• Venture Capital (The Base Ecosystem Fund)

• Investing (Coinbase CEX / Base Chain DEXs)

• Identity & Reputation (The Base App)

• Remittance (pay with $USDC via Coinbase/Base Chain)

• Merchant Processing (Base Pay online crypto checkout)

…notice something weird about Phase 4?

For the most part – the march towards 1B crypto users isn’t being driven by Coinbase as much as it is Base Chain.

It almost feels like this (nearly) 10-year old master plan needs an update, with an outlook that is centered around Base, no?

Well, good news: that’s exactly what we’re giving you in today’s episode of The Milk Road Show.

Kyle just sat down with Jesse Pollak, creator of Base Chain, to get an updated version of The Coinbase Secret Master Plan – covering:

• The Base App Vision

• The onchain social flywheel

• The recent regulatory flippening

• Coinbase eating its own dog food

• And what we can expect in the near future

It was an all-time banger of an episode, with an all-time banger of a guest!

Click below to watch the full episode now. 👇

YouTube | Spotify | Apple Podcasts

$BTC IS A ~10% MOVE AWAY FROM BREAKING AN 8YR TREND 🫡

Alright, pop quiz:

Who here thinks that Bitcoin will close out a month (any month) between $130k and $145k, from now until next August?

Ok, I see almost everyone has raised their hands.

(Makes sense – hitting that target from today’s price of ~$117k isn’t exactly crazy.)

Alright, now get this…

If Bitcoin closes out a month in the ~$130k to ~$145k range in the next 12 months (the target number shifts up with the more months that pass), it will break an ~8 year resistance line. 👇

Here’s why this is a big deal:

The longer the trend, the harder it is to break.

(Each of these candles represent a month of price action, so we only get 12 shots per year at breaking the trend. Less shots on goal = less chance of it happening.)

The good news: long-term breaks have long-term effects.

And if this were to break, the effect in question would be positive – because once a resistance line is broken, it typically flips into support. 

(i.e. instead of the price struggling to break above the line, it now struggles to break below it.)

In a sugary nutshell:

Bitcoin is a ~10% to ~25% move away from turning ~8 years of resistance into support – it just needs to hold that level once, at the close of one of the next 12 monthly candles.

(If that’s not a bullish way to start your weekend – I don’t know what is!)

BITE-SIZED COOKIES FOR THE ROAD 🍪

The $NIGHT airdrop is set to go live by August 10. If you hold $BTC, $ETH, $SOL, $XRP, $BNB, $AVAX, $ADA, or $BAT, there’s a good chance you’re eligible.*

Truce? Truce. The SEC and Ripple have jointly agreed to drop their appeals and bring an end to their 5-year long court battle.

Big-dog energy. Sky’s decentralized stablecoin $USDS just got rated by S&P (as in: the agency behind the S&P 500 index.)

Feels good, ya know? $ETH just hit $4k for the first time since December — meaning we’re now a ~22% move away from all-time highs!

500x leverage. Tokenized stock trading. No KYC for small transactions. Yep, BTCC offers all of that and we just dropped a full review of the platform.

*this is sponsored content.

RATE TODAY’S EDITION

MILKY MEMES 🤣

ROADIE REVIEW OF THE DAY 🥛

VITALIK PIC OF THE DAY