🥛 Our lead analyst just sold BTC 🤨

GM. This is Milk Road, the crypto newsletter that's like IKEA instructions for your portfolio (but actually readable).

Here’s what we’ve got for you today:

✍️ Our lead analyst just sold BTC.
🎙️ The Milk Road Show: The One Catalyst That Could Send Crypto Soaring Is Happening Now w/ Alex Thorn.
🍪 Circle just launched Circle Agent Stack.

Bridge just released a free guide called the “The Stablecoin Playbook” that covers the most prominent real-world use cases for stablecoins. Download the free guide now.

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OUR LEAD CRYPTO ANALYST JUST SOLD BTC TO BUY UBER 🤨

(Yep, you read that right.)

This week, our lead crypto analyst (Martin) trimmed his Bitcoin, Coinbase, and Tesla positions - rotating the proceeds into cash and one stock: Uber.

For a guy whose whole identity is "crypto analyst" - this feels weird…

Source: Milk Road

But lemme walk you through the why, because there's a clear thesis underneath it.

First, the problem he was solving:

His book was sitting around 65% crypto, cash was uncomfortably low - and the "diversification" inside the crypto sleeve was largely cosmetic.

(Because when crypto sells off, basically everything in it sells off together.)

Source: TradingView

Trimming Bitcoin and Coinbase (partially, not fully) did two jobs in one move. It raised cash, and it helped to break the correlation problem that was building up in his portfolio.

So then the question becomes: why Uber specifically?

He'd been holding Tesla as an autonomous vehicle (AV) bet, basically a wager that self-driving cars would become a giant market. In his view, Uber is the cleaner version of that same bet, because Uber wins regardless of which company ends up building the cars.

He calls it a world-class business trading like a mediocre one - and the Q1 2026 numbers back that up:

$215B in annualized gross bookings across 70+ countries.
Trips grew 20% year-over-year.
Gross bookings grew 25% year-over-year.
Headcount grew just 3%.

The headcount line is the one to focus on.

When your bookings grow 8x faster than your headcount, it means your costs aren't scaling with the business.

(That's operating leverage baaaby!)

And it's why Uber's mobility margins just hit fresh records last quarter…

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OUR LEAD CRYPTO ANALYST JUST SOLD BTC TO BUY UBER (P2) 🤨

The cash side of Uber’s books is where things get fun:

Q1 2026 free cash flow (the cash left over after running the business - FCF if you’re nasty): $2.3B, a record high.
Full-year 2025 FCF: $9.8B, up 42% year-over-year.
Total CapEx (money spent on equipment and infrastructure) for all of 2025: $336M.

A 20%+ growth business that barely spends money to grow. That's a rare combo.

And it's funding the $6.5B buyback program they ran in 2025 (where Uber repurchases its own shares to boost value for existing holders).

Then there's the AV question, which is where most people get hung up…

The common fear is that self-driving cars will eventually disintermediate Uber. Robotaxis show up → riders skip the app → Uber gets squeezed out of the middle.

He sees the opposite playing out. AV fleets need demand, and nobody aggregates ride demand like Uber does.

Source: Backlinko

And the partnership announcements are already piling up:

Waymo, Rivian, WeRide, Lucid, Baidu…

Robotaxis still need riders during peak hours, in complex routes, in cities they don't know well. Uber's network is the layer that solves all of that.

So the platform stays intact. Uber stays asset-light (meaning it doesn't have to own the cars) - and the total market it can address gets bigger, not smaller.

Put it all together and you get:

20%+ growth, ~6.4% free cash flow yield, widening margins, an AV story that helps Uber instead of killing it…

All available at roughly 23x forward earnings - which is hard to find anywhere else in tech right now.

That's why he was willing to trim crypto positions he's held for years to fund the position.

Martin’s full book is up 41.26% over the past three months, and this Uber trade is just one piece of how he's positioned right now.

If you want to see the exact sizing, his new portfolio weighting, and the full thesis on what comes next, get access to Milk Road PRO for a buck.

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The trend continues: Circle just positioned itself around AI agents, launching Circle Agent Stack - here's what it does…

Oil is the culprit: U.S. inflation came in at 3.8% last month - highest reading since May 2023.

Trump’s Chinese field trip: The President is heading to China to talk tech and rare earth elements with President Xi.

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