GM. This is Milk Road, your trusty toolbox for building crypto know-how.
Here’s what we’ve got for you today:
- ✍️ If BTC breaks this level, we’re so back.
- 🎙️ The Milk Road Show: How Aerodrome Plans to Win the Race to Tokenize Everything.
- 🍪 Tom Lee: AI agents are already buying more tokens than humans.
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IF BTC BREAKS THIS LEVEL, WE’RE SO BACK 🤝
Every Monday our team gets on a call to argue about the market - and as always, you get to listen in.
Today, one number was the star of our conversation: $82K on the BTC chart.
Get a weekly close above that level, and the bull market is back on.
Fail to reclaim it on the weekly, and we could be looking at more near-term pain.
Bitcoin teased us by running to roughly $81.4K last week, before pulling back to $77K - and now sits near $78K, with the daily candles compressing (which usually precedes a bigger move). 👇
… but which way will this ‘bigger move’ go?
If you’re hoping we move up, there are some hurdles you should be aware of.
Between $81K and $83K there’s a pile-up of resistance - aka: levels where sellers keep showing up and dumping BTC.
That’s also close to where the 50-week moving average (the average weekly close over the past year or so) sits at ~$81.5k.
As John put it: Bitcoin has been range-bound since late January, and this rally is a failed attempt to climb back into that range from underneath.
If that same green candle had pushed through to $82K and gone quiet above it, he'd have called the setup wildly bullish (as consolidating above support would indicate that we’re coiling for the next leg up).
But because it stalled below resistance, it reads as a failed test.
So we went looking for the floor…
John has three levels mapped: $74K, $71K and $65K.
His bids already sit at $71K, but it’s $74K that matters the most here - if we go below that, you're buying Bitcoin roughly below where it has averaged all year (aka: at a discount).
Weirdly enough, the thing most likely to drag us down toward that level has nothing to do with crypto…
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IF BTC BREAKS THIS LEVEL, WE’RE SO BACK (P2) 🤝
John's biggest worry isn't on the BTC chart.
It's the S&P 500, aka: one of the best gauges of how much risk investors are willing to hold.
Fed Chair Kevin Warsh gave a hawkish speech at Jackson Hole on Friday and Bitcoin dropped 2.5% on it. If stocks roll over, crypto usually goes with them.
Markets are now near a coin flip on whether the Fed hikes rates in September. Before Warsh spoke, a rate hold was priced around 70%.
John doesn't buy it though. His view is that Warsh and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent have a plan, and that Warsh will hold (better for crypto) rather than hike rates (worse for crypto).
The date to circle in bold red permanent marker is September 15.
That’s when the Fed's two-day meeting opens and the Senate votes on whether to even start debating the CLARITY Act.
Right now, CLARITY sits at a 14% chance of passing. Which (as John keeps reminding me) is bullish - in that, if it gets passed, it’s going to surprise the market and likely see an outsized bullish reaction.
So with all of that, where does John stand, and what is he doing with his money right now?
A weekly close above $82K for BTC and he deploys hard, possibly running his cash pile to zero.
Below $70K and he does something similar off the assumption that the July 1st low of $57.7K won’t be broken, and the worst is behind us.
Anywhere between, he’s mostly sitting on his hands. Or as he put it: you wait and make the market prove to you that it's out of this bear trend. Either by breaking resistance at $82k, or making a higher low (anywhere above $57.7K) before moving up again.
Outside of that, he's nibbling at alts based on fundamentals rather than charts.
I watched the dude place a trade on Uniswap at the breakfast table when we were on our retreat last week, and thought to myself:
“If I had my cold wallet with me, I’d copy trade him right now. But it’s all good - he’s famously early to most trades. It can wait till I’m home.”
Unfortunately for me, that thought was misguided.
The mf’er is already up 15% on the trade - and that’s on top of the 30%+ gains he’s recently seen across his ETH, SOL, and SKY positions.
(Lesson learned: listen to Mr. Gillen.)
P.S. If you don’t want to miss John’s next pick - join Milk Road PRO for $1. You’ll get his trades in real-time and avoid putting yourself in the position I am in right now.
BITE-SIZED COOKIES FOR THE ROAD 🍪
Tom Lee: AI agents are already buying more tokens than humans inside some models.
Saylor: "We were very good at selling STRC at 100 and we’re very good at buying BTC, but now we’ve illustrated to the market that we can sell BTC and we can buy STRC."
Novogratz: The U.S. debt situation, described with one word? 'Pray.' "Annualized interest just crossed $1T. The average coupon went from 2% to 3.3% in 3 years."
MILKY MEMES 🤣
ROADIE REVIEW OF THE DAY 🥛
VITALIK PIC OF THE DAY
