🥛 Tariffs: should we still be worried? 🫣

GM. This is Milk Road – the ‘Tums of crypto’. We help digest crypto news, so you don't get an information belly ache.

Here’s what we got for you today:

✍️ Should we still be worried about tariffs?
✍️ Stopping the next Gary Gensler
🎙️ The Milk Road Show: Is This the Start of a New Crypto Bull Cycle? Market Radar’s Macro Outlook Explained
🍪 Mark the date: July 12th

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Prices as of 2:00 PM ET. Click here for our Fear & Greed Index.

SHOULD WE STILL BE WORRIED ABOUT TARIFFS? 🫣

Happy tariff deadline day to those that celebra—oh, wait. No.

Ladies and gentlemen, it seems ‘tariff deadline day’ has been moved to August 1st.

Ok, well – whenever / if ever they show up – how worried do we need to be about US-imposed tariffs as a whole?

We stole a bunch of insights from Milk Road Macro to decipher where we’re at, and what the market is telling us:

1/ The deals 🤝

We were told to expect 90 deals in 90 days. So far we’ve got 3 trade pacts (the trade deal’s broader, less focused little cousin) with the UK, China and Vietnam.

Though as of this morning, we got this:

Source: @MilkRoadMacro

(Good news: as of this writing, the markets are shrugging it off.)

But what happens when we zoom way out?

2/ Market reaction 🤬

Here’s what you need to know in order to read the chart below:

The MOVE index measures the implied volatility of US Treasury bonds (aka – are folks buying/selling US government debt in bulk? Increased volatility = increased uncertainty).

The VIX does the same for the US stock market over a forward-looking 30 days.

And high yield credit spreads measure the difference in yields between government bonds and high-risk corporate bonds.

If these corporate yields increase faster than government yields (widening the 'spread'), it indicates investors are worried about the risk of recession.

Source: Milk Road Macro

Yuh. So far, the market’s reaction is “meh, no need for alarm – we’re good”.

Which makes sense when you look at where we are right now…

3/ Market health 🩺

When comparing the market returns of Trump’s first and second terms, the second term’s returns are pretty much back on track with the first at this point. 👇

That’s *checks notes* a good thing.

Source: Milk Road Macro

Here’s our thinking on all this:

The US financial market is essentially one big prediction market, where big-brained investors place bets on the future health of the US economy.

Up = positive outlook. Down = negative outlook. Unchanged = neutral outlook.

So as long as we’re not going down in reaction to tariff-related news, we’re not going to worry ourselves.

P.S. If you want bi-weekly macro breakdowns that give you a full view of the global market and where it’s heading – that exact format is coming to Milk Road PRO All Access next month!

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STOPPING THE NEXT GARY GENSLER 🛑

If you were in our Telegram group, you would have already heard me harp on about this…

(So apologies in advance, but…)

It’s time to talk about the CLARITY Act – ‘cause it’s massively important for the long term health of the US crypto market. 👇

Source: @Cointelegraph

Here’s the problem:

Yeah, the SEC has taken a huge chill pill and dropped most of its enforcement actions against US-based crypto companies – but what’s the #1 rule of Crypto Club?

(It’s that you don’t talk about Crypto Club. Damn, ok, you got me there.)

But what about the second rule: you never accept “trust me bro” as a reliable source of truth.

And right now, the SEC is telling us “trust me bro, we’re not going to hurt you anymore”.

Which is fine, for now. But what happens if/when we get a Gary Gensler 2.0 heading up the SEC down the line?

We need new, crypto-specific regulatory guidelines in place that stop them from doing anything rash – and that’s what the CLARITY Act aims to do.

Here’re the cliff notes of the Act’s proposed changes:

Clearly define the roles played by the SEC and CFTC in regulating digital assets (it’s crazy that this isn’t already a thing)
Require devs to provide accurate disclosures, segregate customer funds, and note any conflicts of interest (helping us, as consumers, to identify dodgy behavior)
Give builders clear rules to play by (so we stop driving crypto innovation overseas)
Clarify that not all tokens are securities and create exemptions from SEC oversight for new projects (so builders don’t get sued before they fully decentralize)
Set new registration requirements for crypto exchanges, brokers, and dealers (to better monitor for bad actors. *cough* FTX *cough*)

The intended result:

No more ambiguity around what builders can/can’t do with crypto in the US
Less room for 'regulation by enforcement' from any future SEC chairs – aka: suing the sh*t out of any/all companies using crypto

(Sounds good to us.)

Now, in order to become law, the CLARITY Act needs to pass a few more 'final bosses' across different levels of government: