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GM. This is Milk Road – we’re here to drink milk, teach you about crypto n’ make you laugh.

(And we’ve just finished our milk).

Here’s what we got for you today:

• ✍️ The power of the DeFi mullet

• ✍️ CPI came in cold

• 🥛 PRO “Where are we in the cycle?” indicators

• 🎙️ The Milk Road Show: Tariffs Paused, Crypto Reacts & Why DeFi Gets Ignored w/ Kain Warwick

• 🍪 We’ve officially got a new SEC chair

THE POWER OF THE DEFI MULLET 💇

Lemme take you back to Jan 14th, 2025.

1. Bitcoin was hovering around $95,000. 

2. Sentiment was strong. 

3. Coinbase launched its first DeFi mullet. 

Fast forward almost 3 months, and Coinbase’s DeFi mullet seems to be doing well (can’t really say the same about the first two points though). 

Here’s a quick refresher on what DeFi mullets are: Fintech in the front, DeFi at the back

What do we mean by that?

• Fintech in the front = Coinbase’s Centralized Exchange

• DeFi at the back = Morpho Labs (3rd largest DeFi lending platform)

Here’s how it works: 

You interact with the Coinbase app → Coinbase interacts with Morpho Labs (and other complicated technical stuff) → you get a $USDC loan directly on your Coinbase app. 

(I.e. you access DeFi functions, using a super-simple centralized user interface.)

And thanks to that simplicity and general ease-of-use, we’re seeing $USDC supply on Morpho pop off…

The day before the Coinbase x Morpho integration launched, $USDC on Morpho was sitting at ~$34M…now? 👇

That’s a 4x in supply, in just 3 months!

Now, why is this important to your bags? It isn’t.

It’s just some cool-ass watercooler talk about how Coinbase is doing some cool-ass shit. 

And this isn’t the only cool-a…(okay, we hear you – that’s one too many) thing they’ve done, they’ve also shipped a bunch of new products/features:

• You can now invest in Base’s startups onchain 

• They’ve set up the infrastructure to trade stocks onchain (including $COIN)

• They’re quickly growing active wallets holding foreign-currency stablecoins on Base 👇

And all of that happened in the last 3 months! 👀

This line up of products may seem random at first, but there’s a core mantra behind it: 

The easier something is to use → the more people are likely to use it.

More users for Coinbase 🤝 more adoption for crypto.

CPI IS ON ICE! ❄️

If you’re born in December, you’ll be familiar with the ‘combined birthday & Christmas present’ grift.

(A combined gift? Uh uh. Double presents or your house is getting egged, aunty Anne.)

That’s sort of what we got with yesterday’s 90 day pause on tariffs and today’s cold CPI print. 👇

Every inflation metric came in below expectations – that’s rare!

But the cooler than expected print (something the market was desperately looking for) didn’t do much for asset prices – it was kinda just wrapped up in the gains made post-tariff pause.

(Combined gift.)

But that’s not to say this drop isn’t a great thing! ‘Cause right now, Truflation (a real time representation of inflation, compared to CPI, which is a lagging indicator) is sitting at 1.34%!

Which – for now – suggests that when April’s CPI data is released in early May, we could see yet another cold print, giving the Federal Reserve the excuse it needs to cut rates and push more fresh cash into the markets (floating asset prices).

As of today, the CME Group is pricing in 3-4 reductions (most likely 4) this year:

Meanwhile, Polymarket is pricing in 2-4 cuts (most likely 3) this year:

Either way you slice it – financial conditions are set to ease in the latter half of 2025.

Lower rates = cheaper loans = reduced repayments = more money in everyone’s pockets = more money to invest (e.g. in crypto).

Hell yeah! 🥲

PRO “WHERE ARE WE IN THE CYCLE?” INDICATORS 🤔 

Up, down, down some more, up again…

The market is in a weird, highly volatile spot right now – so to get a gauge of where we’re headed on a longer time frame, let’s check where we are in the broader cycle.

Knowing where we are in the crypto cycle is crucial for capturing the best opportunities.

The goal is to spot the bull market peak before the inevitable bear market hits your bags hard.

Since timing the top perfectly is almost impossible, we use various indicators to give us a better shot at taking profits before it's too late.

Below are the 6 indicators we track, with a color-coded system to show how close they are to signalling the market peak:

🟢 Plenty of room to run 🏄

🟡 Getting closer to the top signal, but haven’t yet reached the mark ⚠️

🔴 We’ve hit the market top indicator 🚨

Every Thursday, we update these 6 indicators exclusively for PRO members.

Our advice? Don't wait for all of them to hit 🔴. It's better to take profits as they get closer to that point.

BITE-SIZED COOKIES FOR THE ROAD 🍪

Earn passive income with stablecoins! We’ve dropped a page on how to earn yield on your stablecoins by lending them out.

We’ve officially got a new SEC chair. His name is Paul Atkins and he’s commonly known to be pro-Bitcoin. Lessgo!

Soccer teams are repping crypto companies. Every team still in the Champions League (famous soccer tournament) has a crypto sponsor.

Could the Ethereum ETFs be gearing up for serious inflows? It’s looking more likely now that the SEC has approved options trading on them.

We’re teaming up with MEXC for a special offer just for new users. Sign up with the exchange, make a few trades and you can win up to 250 USDT.**

**this is partner content.

MILKY MEMES 🤣

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ROADIE REVIEW OF THE DAY 🥛

VITALIK PIC OF THE DAY

“The blockchain movement’s biggest celebrity”. Well, this celebrity is now getting his own film and you can now pre-order it on Apple TV.