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GM. This is Milk Road, the newsletter that's cooler than the other side of the pillow…during a heatwave…with no AC.

Here’s what we got for you today:

• ✍️ Trade war updates

• ✍️ Corporate $BTC adoption peaks

• 🎙️ The Milk Road Show: Is This the Breaking Point? What the Fed, Trump & the Market Are Telling Us w/ James Lavish

• 🍪 More developments on the Mantra story

TRADE WAR UPDATES (TARIFFS INCREASED, NVIDIA BLOCKED FROM CHINA) 🥊

Like a 35 year-old in a new relationship and ‘looking to settle down’ – this trade war is moving FAST:

→ Tariffs have INCREASED

→ Nvidia chip exports to China have been BANNED

→ China has agreed to negotiate (if the US stops talking SH*T)

Here’s everything you missed in – what has it been – like, 3 days?

1/ 145% tariffs on China were dropped and replaced with…

Translation: for every $1M worth of Chinese goods that US suppliers import – they’re going to have to pay (up to) an additional $2.45M in taxes to the US government. 

2/ Nvidia banned from selling their H20 chips to China

Here’s the kicker – the H20 chip is an already watered down AI chip that Nvidia designed specifically for the Chinese market after the Biden government put restrictions on exports.

This $5.5B drop in expected revenue caused $NVDA to drop close to 6% as of this writing – which, in TradFi asset terms, is A LOT.

(E.g. That ~6% drop wiped out the equivalent value of the combined market cap of $SUI and $TON from Nvidia.)

3/ China is open to negotiating…on a few conditions

The jury is still very much out on whether or not the US government will agree to these terms – but here they are:

TRANSLATION:

Condition #1 – You n’ your friends stop talking sh*t, and put some respect on our name.

Condition #2 – Make your mind up with these sanctions. Pick a rule and stick w/ it. Also, can we take Taiwan back already?

Condition #3 – Send us a representative to work out a deal (just make sure it isn’t JD Vance – we hate that guy after the ‘peasants’ remark).

The broader takeaway from all of this:

👉 Global monetary conditions are easing (this is good for crypto & risk assets)

👉 But uncertainty is still high thanks to trade war fears (this is bad for crypto & risk assets)

If these talks can lead to some form of agreement/clarity around global trade, we should have the missing piece of the puzzle for a ‘number go up’ environment.

COTD: CORPORATE BITCOIN ADOPTION (Q1 2025) 📊

At first glance – this chart was giving off ‘nothing you haven’t already heard’ vibes…

But when we dug into some of the numbers – assumptions started to break…

So, here are the top 5 takeaways you might have missed in this chart:

1/ We’ve seen (almost) constant buy-pressure for 5 years

Outside of Q2 2022, corporations have been net-buying Bitcoin, quarter-on-quarter, for five years straight! 💰

2/ Corporate demand is out-stripping new supply

In Q1 2025, there were 40,815 $BTC mined. In that same time, corporations acquired 95,431 $BTC. That’s *counts fingers* 2.3x more demand (just from corporations) than there is new supply. 💪

3/ Corporate ownership of total $BTC supply is bonkers

In Q1, corporations gobbled up 95,431 Bitcoin – that’s 0.45% of the total supply in a single quarter. And in total, corporations own ~688k $BTC – or 3.27% of all that will ever exist! 😧

4/ Saylor is a madman

You may as well replace the words ‘corporate’ and ‘corporations’ in everything we just said, and replace it with ‘Michael Saylor / $MSTR.’

Of the 688k $BTC that is currently held by corporations – 528k of them are held by Strategy ($MSTR)! Meaning the man & his company own 2.5% of the total Bitcoin supply! 💸

In summary... 👇

THE FUTURE OF $SOL (W/ SOLANA’S CO-FOUNDER)! 🎙️

Whether you think Solana is “just a memecoin chain" or “a sleeping giant of global finance” – this conversation will change how you see it.

Yesterday, we sat down with Solana’s co-founder, Raj Gokal, to learn what’s really happening under the hood of the fastest blockchain in the game – including:

• How memecoins stress-tested Solana’s tech

• How Solana was built differently from Ethereum

• And why Solana’s bazaar model will win in the long run

It’s a banger of an episode – you don’t want to miss it! 👇

YouTube | Spotify | Apple Podcasts

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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.