🥛 Onchain markets don’t matter... yet! 🧘♂️

GM. This is Milk Road, the crypto newsletter equipped with a wide-angle lens (so we can show you the full picture).

Here’s what we’ve got for you today:

✍️ Onchain markets don’t matter… yet!
🎙️ The Milk Road Show: Crypto Is Crashing… But The Macro Data Says a Massive Rally Is Coming w/ John Gillen.
🍪 Saylor won’t sell…

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Prices as of 2:00 p.m. ET. Trade today with Milk Road Swap.

ONCHAIN MARKETS DO NOT MATTER… YET 🧘♂️

A quick update on our ‘what to watch’ list from Monday:

Can BTC hold $74k as support? 🔴 It couldn’t.
Fed commentary on future rate paths? 🟡 All quiet on the Western Front.
How quickly will the shutdown get resolved? 🟢 It ended yesterday.
Any de-escalation in Middle East tensions? 🟢 Iran and the U.S. are holding talks on Friday.
Next month's ISM print (needs to show continued momentum)? 🟡 TBD.
ETF flow directions this week? 🟢 Mon +561.8M, Tue -$322M, Net: +239.8M. 👇

Source: Milk Road Research Hub

The takeaway: we’re in limbo right now, and prices are reflecting it.

Which isn’t exactly a revelation. So what’s the deeper lesson we can pull from the current market weakness?

Zooming out slightly, if this last week’s broad market movement has taught us anything, it’s that onchain markets do not matter.

… at least, not yet.

$9T moved in traditional markets last Thursday alone: $5.4T down (mostly in precious metals), $3.6T back up.

All of it happening on legacy rails.

And all of it highlighting how onchain markets are still just a very small player on a very large field.

But what makes onchain markets different is that they’re on a trajectory to become the field itself.

That's why we keep harping on about the Total RWA Value chart being the most important chart in crypto right now. 👇

Source: RWA

Every basis point of growth represents another slice of the global financial system moving onto blockchain rails.

Think about what happens when the likes of last Thursday’s $9T move happens onchain, with every single trade paying fees in native tokens.

Whether markets are crashing or ripping higher, the volume will flow through crypto infrastructure either way.

That's the unlock people miss.

We're not betting on crypto to win against traditional finance. We're betting on crypto becoming the settlement layer underneath it all.

The higher the RWA chart climbs → the more of global finance gets tokenized.

The more gets tokenized → the more structural demand exists for the chains processing the transactions.

And it means the chosen native tokens will not only weather rough storms - they can grow throughout them.

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ONCHAIN MARKETS DO NOT MATTER… YET (P2) 🧘♂️

HYPE has ripped over the last 10 days while everything else has bled:

Source: TradingView

… and it's all thanks to RWAs!

Last week, Hyperliquid captured 2% of the world's primary silver market.

But they only listed silver ~30 days ago.

2% of global silver trading volume, on an asset they listed just a month ago!? That’s INSANE.

This is what we’re getting at when we say nothing else matters except RWA adoption.

Fees on Hyperliquid are paid in HYPE.

All that silver trading volume didn't just help HYPE survive the crypto market nuking - it meant it thrived.

HYPE moved +76.32% from bottom to top while the rest of the market burned.

Look at these comparative % returns for BTC, ETH, SOL, and HYPE…

Year-to-date - HYPE is +39% while BTC, ETH, and SOL are down 18-29%. 👇

Source: TradingView

And the recent divergence is all thanks to the RWA silver trade.

We're watching the early formation of a new model where crypto tokens derive value from processing real-world financial activity, not just speculation.

The more RWAs get tokenized, the more insulated these infrastructure tokens become from pure crypto sentiment.

Identify the chains this new financial system will be built on → find long-term winners.