GM. This is Milk Road, we collect daily crypto insights and serve ‘em to you farm-to-table fresh.

Here’s what we got for you today:

• ✍️ What everyone’s missing with Solana

• ✍️ 1/3 crypto bills down – 2 more to go!

• 🥛 Milk Road PRO Portfolio updates

• 🎙️ The Milk Road Show: Altcoin Season Heating Up & The Most Bullish Bitcoin Setup Ever w/ Scott Melker 

• 🍪 DeFi Mullet 2.0

Bitget is one of the fastest growing centralized exchanges. Sign up to Bitget and access the platform.

WHAT EVERYONE’S MISSING WITH SOLANA 🤫

“I put all our savings into memecoins.”

Vs.

“I invested our savings into a fast moving asset class in hopes that we can build a better life.”

Two pieces of information telling the same story.

Two VERY different reactions from your fiance.

The lesson: narrative matters.

And right now – Solana doesn’t really have one… but herein lies the opportunity. 

‘Cause Solana is quietly putting up some of the strongest numbers in the entire market, and it feels like no one is paying attention.

We’re talking: real usage, relentless application revenue, and a booming developer base.

Here’s what most are missing on $SOL…

1/ Activity 🏃‍♂️‍➡️

The narrative momentum around Solana may feel sluggish compared to this time last year, but transaction count and total trading volume is still up year-on-year. 👇

And before you say it – we know, these numbers can easily be manipulated (you could send 100,000 transactions to yourself, totalling billions in volume, for ~$50 in fees.)

But you know what’s WAY harder to fake? Stablecoin supply. 

More ecosystem use = a greater need for stablecoins (which play a large role in most blockchain applications).

And right now, stablecoin supply is in good health on Solana. 👇

2/ App revenue 💰

Don’t let the revenue spikes from the Trump Pump of Q4 2024 and the $TRUMP token release of Q1 2025 skew what you’re seeing – Solana’s app revenue is growing.

Quarterly app revenue increased ~2x when comparing Q2 2025 to Q2 2024, and ~468x when comparing to Q2 of 2023. 

3/ Developer ecosystem 🧑‍💻

More developers = more products/applications = more use cases = more users.

(That’s the theory at least.)

And right now, the amount of full-time devs working on Solana and Solana-compatible (SVM) products are up ~35% over the past 2 years.

Meanwhile, the full-time devs building Ethereum/Ethereum-compatible (EVM) products are down ~9 to ~13% over the same time frame. 👇

Hell – even without a fresh narrative, Solana is outperforming all other tokens in the top 5 cryptocurrencies by market cap over the last 7 days (excluding stablecoins).

Now to balance things out – ‘cause $SOL isn’t perfect (not by a long shot).

Here’s our ‘milestone wishlist’ for Solana:

• A BlackRock ETF – sure, $SOL has an active ETF, with further filings from VanEck, 21Shares, and Fidelity. But the party doesn’t really start until BlackRock arrives

• Fire Dancer client – Solana’s uptime hasn’t exactly been pristine over the years. Having a second ‘client’ (think: operating system) would lower the chances of future outages

• A new dominant sector – memecoins are fun… but sometimes (a lot of times) it feels like it's scaring off the big-dogs. A new dominant (less insane) sector would be nice

1 OUT OF 3 CRYPTO BILLS DOWN. 2 MORE TO GO. 💪

ICYMI: last week, this happened…

But there’s a catch – ‘passed’ does not necessarily mean ‘passed into law’.

So here’s a quick run down of where each bill is at, and what it’s trying to do:

1/ The GENIUS Act – passed into law ✅

Purpose: sets regulatory guidelines for stablecoin issuers in the US (essentially giving banks/builders the green light to begin developing their own stablecoins).

Status: signed into law by President Trump on July 18.

2/ The CLARITY Act – not passed into law yet ❌

Purpose: similar to the GENIUS Act, but sets regulatory guidelines for the entire US crypto industry (so the SEC can’t use vague rules set in the 1930s to go after crypto companies).

Status: Passed the House with a bipartisan vote of 294-134, on July 17. Still needs to pass the Senate. 🤞

3/ The Anti-CBDC Surveillance State Act – not passed into law yet ❌

Purpose: this is essentially a privacy measure – it aims to stop the launch of government-run stablecoins (which could allow Uncle Sam to track/potentially restrict our spending in real-time).

Status: Passed the House by a narrow margin (219-217), on July 17. Still needs to pass the Senate. 🤞

So far, so good – let’s keep this momentum going!

MILK ROAD PRO PORTFOLIO UPDATES 📊

One of our portfolio tokens has ripped +45% in the past 7 days!

Wanna know what it is, and what we’re allocating to next?

We’re answering exactly that in this week’s Milk Road PRO Portfolio update! 

Disclosure: We are not a day trading portfolio so don’t expect a high volume of trades. Read our “How To Build a Crypto Portfolio” report to learn more about our portfolio strategy.

Portfolio performance 📈 

The Milk Road PRO Portfolio saw a significant increase over the past 7 days. Our portfolio value is at $209.6K, up 8.79% since last week.

We’ve officially crossed the $200K mark in our portfolio and looking at last month’s performance, we couldn’t be happier. It’s been almost a straight line up.

But here’s the thing: markets don’t move in one direction forever. 

At some point, this momentum might cool off, and we could see a short-term correction. Maybe it won’t happen right away, but we’d rather keep you prepared than caught off guard.

That said, the bigger picture still looks solid — no red flags or major concerns on our end.

Portfolio changes 👀

We made two updates to our portfolio last week.

BITE-SIZED COOKIES FOR THE ROAD 🍪

Don’t want to pay capital gains tax on your crypto gains? IRA Financial lets you invest in Bitcoin & over 40 other tokens tax-free within a Roth IRA.*

DeFi Mullet 2.0. Kraken is bringing onchain loans to its platform using Aave. It’s the same playbook as Coinbase x Morpho.

$SOL is back at #5. After its latest surge, $SOL flips $BNB to become the 5th largest cryptocurrency by market cap.

The Trump vs. Powell showdown is heating up. Here’s how various assets (Bitcoin, S&P 500 and Gold) are reacting to the drama.

Crypto cashback, baaaby! The Gemini Credit Card gives you 4% back on gas, 3% on dining, 2% on groceries and 1% on everything else.**

*this is sponsored content.
**this is partner content.

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ROADIE REVIEW OF THE DAY 🥛

Today, we’re shining the spotlight on a standout review from Milk Road Macro:

VITALIK PIC OF THE DAY