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- 🥛 The 'iTunes Moment' for banking? 💿
🥛 The 'iTunes Moment' for banking? 💿
PLUS: What to look out for this month 📆
Chevy Cassar
March 31, 2025
Today’s edition is brought to you by Forta - an AI-powered security platform used by massive crypto firms.
GM. This is Milk Road, your crypto sherpa. We’ll ferry your bags to the top of Mount Gains.
Here’s what we got for you today:
✍️ Robinhood launches 3 massive new products
✍️ What to look out for this month
🎙️ The Milk Road Show: Robinhood’s CEO on the Future of Finance (And Where Crypto Fits In)
🍪 Crypto in Japan is about to get way more serious
ROBINHOOD LAUNCHES 3 MASSIVE NEW PRODUCTS 🔥
In 2003, Apple made iTunes available on Windows – which Steve Jobs likened to:
“Giving someone a glass of ice water in hell.”
Robinhood just announced a whooole slew of new products that have big ‘iTunes on Windows’ energy!
(Where their products are the ‘ice water’ within the ‘hell’ that is the modern banking system.)
Here’s what’s coming down the pike…
1/ Robinhood Banking: three-click bank account creation
Seriously – three clicks. That’s it. No additional information needed.
Robinhood will take your existing info and *bleep bloop bleep* you now have a bank account with – wait for it – 4% APY (compared to the US national average of 0.61%).
Want to set up an account for your kids and pay them an allowance? Launch a family trust? Send money internationally, instantly? You’ll soon be able to do it all in-app.
Check out the full walk-through here. 👇
2/ Robinhood Strategies: new actively managed wealth management
Want to be able to tell your Tinder dates that you have a wealth manager?
Previously you would have needed to meet a minimum balance, go into the bank, get paired up with a wealth manager, and pay through the nose for the service.
But soon, you’ll be able to do all of that in-app via Robinhood and instantly have someone actively managing your wealth (investing in a range of stocks & ETFs) with a 0.25% annual management fee.
3/ Cortex AI: AI powered investment strategies
File this one under ‘game-changer (if it works as smoothly as promised)’.
You type in the amount of money you want to trade, along with an investment time frame…
Then *bleep bloop bleep* the AI screens the market for potential strategies and spits out a range of automated options (along with their risk/return weightings).
4/ Honorable mention: on-demand cash delivery
Think ‘Uber Eats for ATM withdrawals’. You request cash → someone delivers it to your door.
How’re they going to do this safely? No idea – maybe buy some kevlar vests for their delivery drivers ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The big takeaways here?
👉 Robinhood aims to give everyone access to tools that were previously exclusive to the wealthy – like a personal financial team.
👉 The company is not just a broker anymore. It’s evolving into a full-stack financial ecosystem, offering investing, banking, credit cards, and even prediction markets.
👉 Robinhood plans to go fully global over time – this global strategy hinges on crypto rails to bypass traditional banking limitations.
…but these aren’t our takeaways – they’re Vladimir Tenev’s (Robinhood's CEO).
We know this, because we just sat down with him on today’s episode of The Milk Road Show to talk about all of the above, and a bunch more!
Click below for an absolute must watch episode! 👇
*details of this story may or may not be fictional*
During our recent crypto trivia night, we were asked:
“What’s the similarity between Lido, Compound and Mode?”
“They all use Forta”
My friend nudged me and asked “Yo, what is Forta and why are these big companies using it?”
And there I was, sitting in a pub breaking down Forta point-by-point:
It’s an AI-powered security platform
It prevents crypto hacks before they can even happen
Has a 99% detection rate and near-zero false positives
Massive crypto firms need strong security and Forta is the solution.
WHAT TO LOOK OUT FOR THIS MONTH 📆
If you’ve ever been at a raging house party that got shut down after a visit from the cops, the vibe shift markets saw in Q1 should be familiar to you.
One minute we were on top of the world…the next, we were out in the cold and asking ‘where to next?’
We don’t have the answer to that question (no one does) – but we can find hints to it within economic data.
Here’s what we’re looking at over the next 1-2 weeks…
1/ ISM Manufacturing PMI data released – April 01
Strong PMI reading = strong economic growth – and an ISM reading maintaining 50 or above is typically a good sign for crypto.
Right now, we’re dancing right on the line, at 50.3. 👇
2/ JOLTS Job Openings Data – April 01
Similar to PMI, strong Job Openings data can help to indicate future economic growth.
3/ Trump's "Liberation Day" – April 02
President Trump has dubbed this coming Wednesday as "Liberation Day" with rumored 20%+ tariffs to be placed on 25+ countries.
The uncertainty being driven by these trade wars could result in even more market volatility.
4/ Fed Chair Powell Speaks – April 04
When Jerome Powell speaks, the market combs his words, demeanor and overall sentiment for any forward looking insights.
(Hell, some people will even place trades based on the color of his tie!)
The question they’re all looking to have answered right now: wen rate cuts?
5/ Hearing on crypto market structure legislation – April 9
The US regulatory environment feels friendly to crypto right now (and it is) – but it won’t be official until clear/specific frameworks are passed into law.
This hearing is the first step towards that happening. 👇
5/ March CPI Data – April 10
Has the increasing cost of everyday items slowed the way we want it to throughout March? We’re going to find out next week!
The hope is that we see it fall inline with Truflation’s real-time inflation data (giving the Federal Reserve an excuse to cut rates sooner). 👇
Alright, that’s everything we’ve got for you!
All you need to do now is:
👉 Set your reminders
👉 Brace for potential volatility
👉 Make a blood sacrifice asking for greater market certainty
(That last one is optional.)
Security, Fees & Key Features. MoonPay’s simplified crypto experience, with seamless payment options (like Apple Pay) across 80+ tokens.
Weird pivot, but we’ll allow it. Tether, the company behind $USDT, is now building its own AI tools.
Hut8 and Eric Trump launch American Bitcoin and set a new standard in Bitcoin mining. Not a day goes by that this family isn’t getting deeper into crypto.
Water is wet. Ice is cold. Saylor is buying more $BTC. Strategy just bought another $1.92B in Bitcoin.
Crypto in Japan is about to get way more serious. Japan is set to classify cryptocurrencies as financial products!
Mark the date: May 30th. That’s when the FTX payments will finally begin. There’s about $11B that will be repaid to creditors. - DL News
The Ledger Flex now comes with $70 worth of Bitcoin. On top of getting top-tier security for your crypto, you also score some free $BTC along with it. If you ask us, that’s a pretty sweet deal.**
**this is partner content.
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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.