GM. This is Milk Road, the newsletter that’s ringing in the new year with a large helping of hopium!
Here’s what we’ve got for you today:
- ✍️ What will it take to see an alt season in 2026?
- 🎙️ The Milk Road Show: Coinbase’s 2026 Crypto Outlook: The Forces That Will Define the Market w/ David Duong.
- 🍪 Is this the next “sneaky liquidity tool”?
Bridge helps businesses send, store, accept, and launch stablecoins instantly. Learn how Bridge is powering stablecoin-backed money movement.
Prices as of 2:00 PM ET. Trade today with Milk Road Swap.
WHAT WILL IT TAKE TO SEE AN ALT SEASON IN 2026? 🤔
How’s your head feeling post New Years celebrations?
(Oof! That bad, huh?)
You know what could remedy that headache of yours? A nice, generous dose of hopium.
That’s right – we’re talking about a potential alt season in 2026 (and what it will take to get there).
Let’s start with the basics:
As more money enters the global economy, investors tend to take more and more risk.
E.g. The first step might be them moving from boring old government bonds, into tech stocks and Bitcoin.
(With each step getting riskier and riskier, as the returns in tech and BTC dry up.)
That’s when we typically see an alt season – when investors are game enough to venture way out along the risk curve and hunt for returns in smaller cap digital assets.
(Driving solid gains in the process.)
… so what would it take for us to see that in 2026?
Simply put: we’d need the regulatory haziness around crypto to clear further, and to see a bunch of money pushed into the economy/asset markets.
With that in mind, here are the 4 alt season signals to watch for over the next 12 months:
1. Rate cuts
Lowered rates = cheaper loans = more people taking/spending them = a growing economy = risk assets (like altcoins) absorbing some of that capital.
There are 8 FOMC meetings scheduled in 2026, which means there are eight potential rate cuts on the table in 2026 – here’re the dates:
- Q1: January 27–28, March 17–18.
- Q2: April 28–29, June 16–17.
- Q3: July 28–29, September 15–16.
- Q4: October 27–28, December 8–9.
2. ISM PMI
ISM's Purchasing Managers Index tracks how much manufacturers are spending in expectation of future economic growth or contraction.
When the ISM is above 50, the economy is expanding (and altcoins tend to do well).
When the ISM is below 50, the economy is contracting (and altcoins tend to struggle).
It’s been a long time since we’ve seen a real alt season – and the charts reflect that:
So keep your eyes peeled for a strong/consistent break above 50 on the ISM PMI in 2026.
Ok, next up, we’re talking U.S. Dollar strength, and federal legislation.
Don’t worry, it’s not as intimidating as it sounds!
Keep scrolling to the next article to get a simple explanation on each.
STRIPE JUST BET BIG ON STABLECOINS
Stablecoins are arguably the biggest use case in crypto right now.
But let’s be real, using them onchain is still way too complex.
That’s exactly the problem Bridge is solving.
Recently acquired by Stripe (yep, that Stripe), Bridge helps businesses send, store, accept, and launch their own stablecoins instantly.
Here are the three facts about Bridge:
- Users can seamlessly transition between fiat and stablecoins.
- Businesses can launch a custom stablecoin in as little as one day.
- All Bridge-built stablecoins are interoperable with one another.
Stablecoins are going global, Bridge is powering that shift.
👉 Learn how Bridge is powering stablecoin-backed money movement.
WHAT WILL IT TAKE TO SEE AN ALT SEASON IN 2026? (P2) 🤔
Alright, where were we….
Ah yes, the DXY – aka: the strength of the U.S. Dollar. 👇
3. The DXY
This is an oversimplified explainer, but in short…
When the U.S. dollar drops in value, investors move out of dollars and into other assets in order to maintain their buying power and find returns.
The lower the DXY goes, the further out along the risk curve investors tend to go (e.g. into alts).
If the DXY can break below its current range (red) and continue to fall, that will be good for alts.
4. Market Structure bill
Right now, from a regulatory standpoint, institutions can't invest in most cryptocurrencies. There's only a small handful of tokens/coins that have the regulatory green light.
The Market Structure bill looks to fix that.
When/if it passes, it should open up a whole bunch of new capital to altcoins.
Take all of the above, add it all up, and you have your recipe for an alt season in 2026.
Now, that said – if this alt season were to happen, we don’t think it will be broad based.
The institutional investors that will likely fuel this run aren’t going to be interested in the wider spectrum of altcoins. They're way more picky than retail buyers.
But if/when the above stars align, we expect the major altcoins to see some solid gains!
CRYPTO PRO “WHERE ARE WE IN THE CYCLE?” INDICATORS 🤔
It’s a new year, and with it, comes new outlooks!
So what does 2026 have in store for us?
Let’s check in with our trusty cycle indicators to see where they’re placing us…
The goal is to spot the bull market peak before the inevitable bear market hits your bags hard.
We believe we are still in a bull market, and 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.
⚠️ CLICK HERE to view the Crypto PRO “Where Are We In The Cycle” Indicators.
GO CRYPTO PRO AND UNLOCK:
- Full access to the 6 bull market peak indicators above to help you stay bullish long term and spot the top when it comes. 📈
- Weekly reports that help you spot early trends, navigate the markets by limiting risk & catch those sweet cha-ching moments. 💰
- Access to the PRO Community, where the Milk Road crew & 1000s of fellow PROs talk crypto. 🫂
CRYPTO PRO REVIEW OF THE WEEK
BITE-SIZED COOKIES FOR THE ROAD 🍪
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That’s a lot of dough: $74.6B was just injected into the U.S. banking system.
Is this the next “sneaky liquidity tool”? What is the ‘eSLR’ and how could changing it affect markets?
BTC-mining-to-gulag pipeline: The Russian ministry wants to punish illegal Bitcoin miners with hard labor and jail time.
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*this is sponsored content.
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