GM. This is Milk Road, the daily newsletter that goes cross-eyed crunching data, so you don’t have to!
Here’s what we’ve got for you today:
- ✍️ Monthly Momentum Manifest.
- 🎙️ The Milk Road Show: Why the Clarity Act Still Puts Crypto on a Path to New All-Time Highs w/ Matt Hougan.
- 🍪 December’s CPI inflation came in line with expectations.
Bitfinex is the first major exchange to remove trading fees entirely. Trade on Bitfinex for free now.
Prices as of 2:00 p.m. ET. Trade today with Milk Road Swap.
MONTHLY MOMENTUM MANIFEST 🌊
Welcome to the Monthly Momentum Manifest (our new, Frankenstein of a segment).
The idea here is to give you a single monthly update that views the crypto market from three different angles:
- The token-backed apps driving the most revenue.
- The crypto sectors pulling in the most gains.
- How RWAs are driving crypto adoption.
Sound good? Great – let’s get into it, starting with…
The top 5 revenue generating apps, with tokens you can buy (30D)!
- Hyperliquid (HYPE) $52.32M: The home of onchain leverage trading.
- PumpFun (PUMP) $34.05M: Winners of the memecoin launchpad wars.
- Sky (SKY) $33.2M: The crypto savings account beating traditional savings returns by 10x.
- Meteora (MET) $11.88M: A major liquidity provider on Solana.
- Jupiter (JUP) $10.32M: The largest DEX aggregator on Solana.
Quick takeaways:
- New year, same leaders – Hyperliquid and PumpFun REFUSE to give up their spots.
- Solana tokens had quite the sweep this month (PUMP, MET, JUP are all Solana-based).
- SKY is becoming a permanent, high-ranking fixture in these lists (we hold/believe strongly in SKY, so we love to see it – check our allocations here).
Alright, next up…
Top 5 crypto sectors by percentage gains (30D)
- Privacy. Leading token: Monero (XMR) +60.6%.
- Social. Leading token: Chiliz (CHZ) +66.5%.
- File Storage. Leading token: Filecoin (FIL) +15.6%.
- Bitcoin Ecosystem. Leading token: Stacks (STX) +39.5%.
- NFT Apps. Leading token: Pudgy Penguins (PENGU) +18.8%.
… if you need an indicator of how strong the privacy meta is – this is it.
In a period where the leading Privacy coin (Zcash/ZEC) dropped ~25% and shed $1.5B from its market cap, the sector still remains #1 in gains, thanks to Monero picking up the slack.
Now, for the final piece of the Momentum Manifest puzzle:
RWAs… 👇
ZERO TRADING FEES
Most centralized exchanges charge around 0.5% per trade. That adds up fast.
Bitfinex just completely flipped the model.
They’ve removed trading fees entirely across spot, derivatives, margin, securities, and OTC, making them the first major exchange to go fully zero-fee across the board.
A bit of context: Bitfinex has been around since 2011 making it one of the OG Bitcoin exchanges, which in crypto years is basically ancient. They’ve survived every cycle, and now they’re cutting fees altogether.
Quick stats about Bitfinex:
- 250+ spot markets.
- Up to 100× leverage.
- 99.9% uptime.
And yes, all Bitfinex users are eligible.
👉 Trade on Bitfinex with zero fees.
MONTHLY MOMENTUM MANIFEST (P2) 🌊
Real World Assets/RWAs (think: cash, commodities, stocks) are the mother of all adoption indicators.
Growth in RWAs means more of the traditional financial system moving onchain.
And the more RWAs are traded onchain, the more fees will be paid in crypto.
The kicker? All crypto fees are paid in a chain’s native asset (e.g. more RWAs trading on Solana = more fees paid in SOL = more demand for SOL = number go up).
Here’s how the broader adoption curve is looking so far:
Now, let’s check which RWAs are leading the adoption charge, by looking at the top 5 asset types by total holders:
- Stablecoins (think: fiat cash onchain) – 220M holders.
- Commodities (think: oil, gold, energy) – 177.93k holders.
- Public Equity (think: stocks) – 154.2k holders.
- Institutional Alternative Funds (i.e. funds that invest outside of stocks, bonds, or cash) – 113.56k holders.
- Private Credit (think: non-bank lending – private funds or investors that provide loans to companies) – 73.21k holders.
It’s going to be a looong time before stables are even close to being knocked off their #1 perch…
In the meantime, we can glean insights from the runner ups.
While Commodities have held the #2 spot ever since they entered the running – the segment’s dominance in total holders looks like it's starting to be challenged by Public Equities.
From the start of December until today, the total holder count for onchain Commodities grew 6.10%, while onchain Public Equities grew 30.31%.
(This will be a fun race to track!)
Alright, that’s the lot of ‘em.
Now, we want to hear from you:
How did you like this new segment?
PRO ALL ACCESS PORTFOLIO UPDATES 📊
Yeeew!
The Milk Road PRO All Access Portfolio is up $8,756 so far in 2026!
Wanna know how we’re doing it, and get notified on which projects we’re allocating to, in real-time?
Join Milk Road All Access and read our “How To Build a Crypto Portfolio” report to learn more about our portfolio strategy.
GO ALL ACCESS AND UNLOCK:
- The Milk Road PRO All Access Portfolio: See what we’re investing in, how we’re allocating capital, and what actions we’re taking each week (buy, sell, hold, watchlist) ✅
- Weekly “Where are we in the cycle?” Indicators: Signals that help you stay bullish long term and spot the top when it comes 📈
- Weekly reports across crypto, macro & AI: Deep dives, token breakdowns, market analysis, and investing frameworks that give you the edge 🧠
- Access to the Milk Road Community: Full Discord access including signals, AMA invites, portfolio update calls, and exclusive All Access channels 💬
- FREE Crypto Investing Masterclass: Included with all annual All Access subscriptions (30% off for monthly) 🎓
PRO REVIEW OF THE WEEK
BITE-SIZED COOKIES FOR THE ROAD 🍪
Zero trading fees. Bitfinex is the first major exchange to remove trading fees entirely.*
Good news: December’s CPI inflation came in at 2.7%, in line with expectations.
Bad news: The Senate Banking Committee managed to get stablecoin yield removed from the market structure bill.
Trump vs Powell: What’s going on and what does it mean for markets?
Come work with us (we dare you)! We’re currently hiring for a Head of Product @ Milk Road and a Crypto Investor Relations Lead @ Impact3.
Tired of juggling multiple AI subscriptions? Okara brings 20+ open-source AI models into one secure, private chat.*
*this is sponsored content.
MILKY MEMES 🤣
ROADIE REVIEW OF THE DAY 🥛
VITALIK PIC OF THE DAY
