🥛 First the tariff pause, now this?? 🎉

Today’s edition is brought to you by Sui Basecamp — the go-to crypto conference that gives you all the alpha on Sui!

GM. This is Milk Road – we’re here to drink milk, teach you about crypto n’ make you laugh.

(And we’ve just finished our milk).

Here’s what we got for you today:

✍️ The power of the DeFi mullet
✍️ CPI came in cold
🥛 PRO “Where are we in the cycle?” indicators
🎙️ The Milk Road Show: Tariffs Paused, Crypto Reacts & Why DeFi Gets Ignored w/ Kain Warwick
🍪 We’ve officially got a new SEC chair

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

THE POWER OF THE DEFI MULLET 💇

Lemme take you back to Jan 14th, 2025.

Bitcoin was hovering around $95,000.
Sentiment was strong.
Coinbase launched its first DeFi mullet.

Fast forward almost 3 months, and Coinbase’s DeFi mullet seems to be doing well (can’t really say the same about the first two points though).

Here’s a quick refresher on what DeFi mullets are: Fintech in the front, DeFi at the back

What do we mean by that?

Fintech in the front = Coinbase’s Centralized Exchange
DeFi at the back = Morpho Labs (3rd largest DeFi lending platform)

Here’s how it works:

You interact with the Coinbase app → Coinbase interacts with Morpho Labs (and other complicated technical stuff) → you get a $USDC loan directly on your Coinbase app.

(I.e. you access DeFi functions, using a super-simple centralized user interface.)

And thanks to that simplicity and general ease-of-use, we’re seeing $USDC supply on Morpho pop off…

The day before the Coinbase x Morpho integration launched, $USDC on Morpho was sitting at ~$34M…now? 👇

Source: Morpho Labs

That’s a 4x in supply, in just 3 months!

Now, why is this important to your bags? It isn’t.

It’s just some cool-ass watercooler talk about how Coinbase is doing some cool-ass shit.

And this isn’t the only cool-a…(okay, we hear you – that’s one too many) thing they’ve done, they’ve also shipped a bunch of new products/features:

You can now invest in Base’s startups onchain
They’ve set up the infrastructure to trade stocks onchain (including $COIN)
They’re quickly growing active wallets holding foreign-currency stablecoins on Base 👇

Source: @jessepollak

And all of that happened in the last 3 months! 👀

This line up of products may seem random at first, but there’s a core mantra behind it:

The easier something is to use → the more people are likely to use it.

More users for Coinbase 🤝 more adoption for crypto.

WANNA HIT TWO CONFERENCES IN ONE TRIP?

Two of the biggest crypto events are going down back-to-back in Dubai:

TOKEN2049: Apr 30–May 1
Sui Basecamp: May 1–2

You probably already know all about TOKEN2049, but here’s why it’s worth sticking around for Sui Basecamp 2025:

Get the latest Sui announcements before anyone else (alpha!)
See live product demos (including the SuiPlay0X1 gaming device)
Meet Raoul Pal in person (the macro guru of crypto)

We’re just 20 days out. Time to lock in your plans. 🤝

CPI IS ON ICE! ❄️

If you’re born in December, you’ll be familiar with the ‘combined birthday & Christmas present’ grift.

(A combined gift? Uh uh. Double presents or your house is getting egged, aunty Anne.)

That’s sort of what we got with yesterday’s 90 day pause on tariffs and today’s cold CPI print. 👇

Source: @Stocktwits

Every inflation metric came in below expectations – that’s rare!

But the cooler than expected print (something the market was desperately looking for) didn’t do much for asset prices – it was kinda just wrapped up in the gains made post-tariff pause.

(Combined gift.)

But that’s not to say this drop isn’t a great thing! ‘Cause right now, Truflation (a real time representation of inflation, compared to CPI, which is a lagging indicator) is sitting at 1.34%!

Source: Truflation

Which – for now – suggests that when April’s CPI data is released in early May, we could see yet another cold print, giving the Federal Reserve the excuse it needs to cut rates and push more fresh cash into the markets (floating asset prices).

As of today, the CME Group is pricing in 3-4 reductions (most likely 4) this year:

Source: CME Group

Meanwhile, Polymarket is pricing in 2-4 cuts (most likely 3) this year:

Source: Polymarket

Either way you slice it – financial conditions are set to ease in the latter half of 2025.

Lower rates = cheaper loans = reduced repayments = more money in everyone’s pockets = more money to invest (e.g. in crypto).

Hell yeah! 🥲

PRO “WHERE ARE WE IN THE CYCLE?” INDICATORS 🤔

Up, down, down some more, up again…

The market is in a weird, highly volatile spot right now – so to get a gauge of where we’re headed on a longer time frame, let’s check where we are in the broader cycle.

Knowing where we are in the crypto 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 signalling 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.

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! 🫂
Half Off the Crypto Investing Masterclass 📚️