Today’s edition is brought to you by Flare - a full-stack layer-1 blockchain designed for data intensive use cases, including DeFi for non-smart contract assets.
Check out Flare’s DeFi carnival live now
GM. This is Milk Road. If crypto is its own language – we’re Duolingo.
(Except our mascot is a sentient milk carton).
Here’s what we got for you today:
- ✍️ Robinhood is a crypto company now?
- ✍️ What’s a beta play and how do you spot one?
- 🥛 PRO “Where are we in the cycle?” indicators
- 🎙️ The Milk Road Show: How Do You Time Altcoin Season Based on Macro? w/ Andreas Steno Larsen
- 🔥 Want to put your brand in front of 300k+ of the smartest/coolest people in crypto? Apply to sponsor Milk Road here!
Prices as of 2:00 PM ET. Click here for our Fear & Greed Index.
CRYPTO MAKES UP 35% OF ROBINHOOD’S QUARTERLY EARNINGS 😧
Finish this sentence: Robinhood is a…
Stock trading platform?
That’s the answer we would have given too. But after today, it doesn’t feel all that accurate.
Robinhood just released their Q4 earnings report and it was a DOOZY – thanks in most part to crypto.
1/ Robinhood's quarterly crypto revenue surpassed its previous all-time high by 53.6%, hitting $358M
And get this: the last peak was set in 2021 – the golden era of low-interest rates and insane money printing! That’s a tough act to beat. But it happened. 👇
This helped Robinhood to post some crazy impressive quarterly/yearly stats, with crypto revenue up 733% year-on-year, and 487% quarter-on-quarter.
Which is cool and all…but how does it stack up to the rest of Robinhood’s revenue drivers?
(Spoiler, very well 👇).
2/ Crypto made up 53.3% of Robinhood’s transaction-based revenue, and a third of its total revenue!
Crypto beat out the transaction-based revenue of equities, options, and other trading products combined – helping it to make up 35.4% of Robinhood’s total $1.01B Q4 earnings.
(At this point, is Robinhood a stock or crypto platform? We can’t tell 👇).
Source: Robinhood Earnings Presentation
3/ They had the crypto volume to match…
Crypto trading volume was up 455% year-on-year, and 393% quarter-on-quarter across the platform, (again) setting new records. 👇
And all of this bullish data was reflected in the pro-crypto sentiment on the earnings call, which included:
- Multiple mentions of how tokenization is going to be a game-changer for the traditional asset space (once regulations become more clear)
- How they’re planning to leverage their Bitstamp acquisition to onboard institutions into crypto, the same way they onboarded retail investors to traditional equities
- How yield-bearing stablecoins are the future, as they allow 24/7 settlements, including weekends (something that TradFi is still yet to figure out).
- And that they expect other companies to adopt stablecoins (signalling a potential increase in demand from TradFi companies)
The craziest part?? This ain’t even the main event!
Later tonight we’ll have Coinbase’s earnings in our hot little hands – which means tomorrow is going to be another big day of (hopefully) bullish break downs.
So make sure to rest up!
ONE-STOP DEFI CARNIVAL
If we asked you to describe DeFi in one word, we’d most probably get “complicated”, “confusing” or something similar.
But DeFi doesn’t have to be any of that—and Flare is here to prove it.
They’re launching Flare Fair, a DeFi carnival to learn more about Flare’s DeFi ecosystem. 🎉
The best part? You can win rFLR rewards along the way.
Here’s how:
- Bridging
- Lending
- Staking
- Swapping
And if that’s not enough, you can also earn FlareDrops just for participating.
Wait, what are FlareDrops? They’re monthly airdrops for everyone who stakes $FLR, holds $WFLR (Wrapped Flare) or indeed claims their rFLR rewards.
👉 Win rFLR rewards in Flare’s DeFi Carnival!
WHAT’S A BETA PLAY, AND HOW DO YOU SPOT ONE? 👀
Ooft! Right out of the gate, we’re in jargon territory.
What the hell is a ‘beta’ play?
Lemme break this down with an analogy that’s so easy to understand even our General Manager, Tyler, could understand it.
(He’s sweet, but simple).
Source: Chevy’s iPhone.
Think of it like this…
There's a big ol’ stadium (major blockchain) down the street from you.
Whenever there’s an event on (memecoin mania, AI agent pumps, DeFi booms), everyone in your city flocks to this stadium (increased demand).
To profit from this new foot traffic, you’ve got two choices:
- Invest in the stadium (aka buy the major blockchain token).
- Invest in the hot dog stands and car parks in/around the stadium (aka the app tokens that will benefit from this surge in traffic).
Option two is the beta play.
Ok…but why buy the hot dog stands (app tokens), when you could buy the stadium (major tokens)?
Well, major tokens are ‘major’ for a reason – they have huge market caps! Which means it takes a whole lot more money to move their price.
Here’s a breakdown of how that affects things:
Say you see a whooole bunch of renewed interest hitting Ethereum…
If you put $1k into $ETH and its market cap goes up $10B (from ~$318B to ~$328B) – you’ve made a ~3% return on your investment.
But if you put $1k into Uniswap’s $UNI (Uniswap = the largest decentralized exchange on Ethereum) and its market cap moves +$10B (from ~$5.7B to ~$15.7B)...
You will have made a ~175% return.
…and in case you think those kinds of short-term returns are out of the realm of possibility – we’ve come with receipts!
CZ, co-founder and former CEO of Binance, has been bull posting on X a whole lot lately, talking about all of the new upgrades coming to Binance’s BNB Chain ($BNB).
As a result…trading (demand) has picked up on $BNB, helping to push its price up ~15% over the past 7 days, and flip Solana in total market cap.
Which is cool! But you know what’s cooler?
The effect it had on the largest BNB Chain-based decentralized exchange (DEX) – PancakeSwap ($CAKE).
PancakeSwap has seen a spike in trading volume over the past 7 days, with ~$3B being notched in the past 24 hours alone – making it the #1 DEX by trading volume right now. 👇
As a result, $CAKE has moved up ~90% in price over the past 7 days (adding ~$400M to its market cap), making it the biggest gainer of CoinMarketCap’s Top 100 cryptos in the same time frame.
So, to recap:
- $BNB is up $13 BILLION and has returned 15% to investors over 7 days.
- $CAKE is up $400 million and has returned 90% to investors over 7 days.
That’s beta baaaby!
Now, how do you spot a beta play? Look out for big announcements surrounding major tokens that could have downstream effects on the apps/platforms that are built on top of it.
Like, I don’t know, say a massive crypto figure posts the name/photo of their dog, and opens the floodgates for degens to create memecoins around it…
Stuff like that.
(It doesn’t guarantee anything, but it does increase the odds of further demand).
PRO “WHERE ARE WE IN THE CYCLE?” INDICATORS 🤔
Half of Crypto Twitter is screaming “🔴 We’ve hit the market top 🚨” right now…
But how accurate is this ‘trust me bro’ information?
You’ll find the answer hidden within the crypto cycle indicators.
See, crypto moves in cycles, and knowing where we are in the current 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 signaling 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.
Let's dive in and see if we're anywhere near the top of this bull market. 👇
Already a PRO member? Log in here.
GO PRO AND UNLOCK:
- Full access to the 6 bull market peak indicators above to help you spot the bull market top before it’s too late 📈
- NEW: Unlimited access to the Milk Road PRO Token Center with token ratings and insights. 🔓
- The Milk Road PRO Portfolio, our yield strategies & weekly updates to help you manage investments, allocate capital, take profits, and stay ahead in crypto 📊
- 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. Don’t miss the monthly live events! 🫂
- 50% OFF the Crypto Investing Masterclass 📚️
PRO REVIEW OF THE WEEK
BITE-SIZED COOKIES FOR THE ROAD 🍪
OKX is throwing a “February Fest” giving you a chance to win gadgets like an iPhone 16 and iPad Pro. As the name suggests, it's only running in February, so you better hurry if you’re interested.**
PPI comes in higher than expectations. Yesterday it was CPI, today it’s PPI—but the takeaway stays the same: inflation is running hot.
OpenSea has announced a token: $SEA. If you’ve ever used OpenSea, there might be some rewards coming your way.
World Liberty Financial has announced a strategic token reserve. Check out their announcement, it’s just plain-old PR fluff.
The Ethereum Foundation invests in DeFi. They’ve deployed capital across protocols like Aave, Spark and Compound.
We’ve got 3 open positions up for grabs! If you want to be part of one of the fastest-growing media companies, now’s your chance.
Crypto funding rates can be a powerful investment indicator. Yeah, we know—funding rates = nerd territory. But don’t worry, we break it down quite well (at least we think we do).
**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.
