🥛 "2025 wasn't the bear (now is)" 🐻

GM. This is Milk Road, the crypto newsletter that’s spicier than your uncle’s opinions at Sunday dinner.

Here’s a taste of this week’s menu:

🔥 2025 wasn't the bear (now is).
🥵 The banks are using "Big Crypto" as a boogeyman.
🌶️ AGI is old news (like, 2020 old).

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HOT TAKES OF THE WEEK 🔥

2025 wasn't the bear market (but now we’re in it) 🐻

CryptoQuant’s Julio Moreno says that while some analysts claim we’ve been in a bear market for a year, he firmly disagrees.

He points out that Bitcoin hit all-time highs and maintained an upward trend for most of 2025, making it a "bull year" despite closing with negative performance.

According to him, the real regime flip didn't actually happen until early November 2025, meaning we are actually in the early chapters of this current pain.

Yikes!

🎙️ Listen to the full Milk Road Daily episode here.

The banks are using "Big Crypto" as a boogeyman 👻

Our very own John Gillen got fired up about the CLARITY Act, claiming that big banks are terrified of stablecoins offering a 4% yield.

He says the banking lobby is framing Brian Armstrong as "Big Crypto" to protect their own monopoly on the financial system.

To him, this isn't just about price:

It’s an ideological war over whether we use the next century of finance to stay in "handcuffs" or move toward individual sovereignty.

🎙️ Listen to the full Milk Road Daily episode here.

AGI is old news (like, 2020 old) 👴🏻

Dr. Alexander Wissner-Gross dropped a total bombshell by saying AGI arrived no later than the summer of 2020 with ChatGPT-3.

While the rest of the world is waiting for some "God in the machine" moment or a massive scientific breakthrough, he argues that the "big unlock" was simply realizing we could get general intelligence by predicting the next token.

To him, everything since then (reasoning, coding, and chatting) has just been incremental window dressing on a door that was already wide open.

🎙️ Listen to the full Milk Road AI episode here.

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HOT TAKES OF THE WEEK (P2) 🔥

Most L1 tokens are "pure speculation" with no utility link 🤦♂️

Yuval Rooz, CEO of Digital Asset Holdings, took a direct shot at the current state of Layer 1 blockchains.

He says there is often no "mechanical connectivity" between a token’s price and the network's actual activity.

He claims many tokens are just speculative vehicles because they don't have a programmatic way to accrue value.

Canton’s "spicy" counter-model is a system where fees are burned based on USD value.

(Meaning if the network isn't actually being used, the token has no fundamental reason to go up.)

🎙️ Listen to the full Milk Road Daily episode here.

Your macro models are trash 🗑️

Well this was a pretty candid admission…

Real Vision’s Andreas Steno Larsen says the traditional models he’s used for 15 years (yield curves, energy prices, etc.) have completely broken down since 2020.

Because the economy is now so highly politicized and driven by "geopolitical sport", he’s stopped trying to forecast 6–9 months out.

Instead, he’s strictly "nowcasting" (looking 2–3 weeks ahead) because political whims are now more powerful than economic signals.

🎙️ Listen to the full Milk Road Macro episode here.

PRO INSIGHT OF THE WEEK 🔮

On Thursday, when markets absolutely nuked, one of our PRO All Access members asked:

“When do you expect this to stop, and at what point would you be really shocked?”

And one of our NOPs (Nerds On Payroll), John Gillen, stepped up to the plate with an answer:

“I want to be very clear - this is shocking right now. This is shocking to everyone.

The deviation we've seen in U.S. software equities is a historically unprecedented downside shock at a time when the rest of the S&P seems relatively solid.

It is further shocking that the market is treating all of crypto as software tech. Not as a speculative asset (like it's doing with gold and silver) and not as a debasement hedge.

I think that 2026 is going to be marked by a lot of volatility and swings in volume and price:

The range we are in now - between $60k - $69K should serve as at least some short term support. $60k should be strong.
But there is a lot of historical volume at these levels so there should be strength here IMO”.

… and wouldn’t you know it: in the hours after that post, BTC rebounded from $60k, all the way back up to $69-70k.

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