🥛 Rate cut incoming? 🤔

GM. This is Milk Road, the newsletter that allows you to keep up-to-date with crypto, without staying glued to your Twitter feed.

Here’s what we got for you today:

✍️ What to look out for this week
🎙️ The Milk Road Show: The Biggest Ethereum Risk No One Wants to Admit w/ Aryan Sheikhalian
🍪 Strategy just dropped close to $1B on Bitcoin

Arc is a new Layer-1 blockchain designed to support real-world economic activity and it’s now live in testnet. Dive into Arc and start experimenting.

Prices as of 2:00 PM ET. Trade today with Milk Road Swap.

WHAT TO LOOK OUT FOR THIS WEEK 📆

We can finally run ‘What To Look Out For’ again!

There’s a whooole bunch of government data finding its way back to us now that the government shutdown is no longer preventing it from being collected.

Here’s everything we’re looking at this week:

1/ Macro 🌎

The macro calendar looks a little something like this…

September JOLTS Job Openings data – Tuesday – How many job openings were there in September? (More openings signals a growing economy)
December Fed Interest Rate Decision – Wednesday – Will the Fed cut interest rates?
Fed Chair Powell Press Conference – Wednesday – We get a glimpse into J-Powell’s economic outlook, allowing us to gauge the likelihood of future rate cuts
Initial Jobless Claims data – Thursday – This tracks the number of people who filed for unemployment for the first time over the past week
U.S. 30Y Bond Auction – Thursday – This helps us gauge the market’s appetite for long term U.S. government debt (more buyers = more confidence in the U.S. long term)

There are five bullets listed above, but only one of them will really be focused on this week, and that is Wednesday’s rate cut decision.

(ICYMI: rate cuts are positive for risk assets like crypto).

Good news is, there’s currently an 89.6% chance of a cut, and only a 10.4% chance of no cut.

Source: CMEGroup

Plus, there’s a cherry on top here: there are rumors that the Fed is about to announce balance sheet expansion.

Which is finance nerd-talk for “The Federal Reserve may soon start pumping cash into the economy by purchasing government debt”.

(This typically results in investors going more ‘risk-on’ and buying dicier assets, like crypto.)

2/ Earnings 💰

Here’s what we’re looking at this week:

Animal spirits: GameStop.

AI: Oracle, Cognyte (an AI services company), UEC (Energy.)

Btw – we have our debut AI PRO Report coming out this weekend, and it’s all centered around the potential winners of the AI energy race.

It’s going out to anyone/everyone that signs up to our free, twice-weekly Milk Road AI newsletter, sign up here to make sure you get the PRO Report!

Source: @eWhispers

3/ Charts 📈

*wipes sweat off brow*

It looks like BTC’s lower ascending trend line is holding (for now) – indicating that Bitcoin’s multi-year uptrend is still intact on the weekly timeframe.

Source: TradingView

Alright, next up: regulatory movements, conferences, and podcasts to watch for.

Keep scrolling to the next article to get everything you need to know. 👇

ARC IS NOW LIVE ON TESTNET

Circle is already one of the biggest names in crypto…

But most people still haven’t heard much about Arc, the Layer-1 blockchain built by Circle.

Arc is a new Layer-1 blockchain that’s now officially live on testnet.

It’s built to bring real-world economic activity onchain. And with full Circle platform integration at its core (e.g., USDC, EURC, USYC), it’s positioned to do exactly that.

Here’s what stands out:

Low and predictable gas fees paid in stablecoins
Instant settlement & deterministic finality
Native FX & Privacy infrastructure

Developers and institutions have already started testing on Arc. Now it’s your turn.

Dive into Arc and start experimenting.

WHAT TO LOOK OUT FOR THIS WEEK (P2) 📆

I know we harp on about regulatory shifts a lot, which can be tough (it’s a dry, dry subject).

But damn if it isn’t an important factor in the ‘number go up’ formula!

Here’s what movement we’re seeing:

4/ Regulatory 🏛️

We got further insight on two big needle movers for crypto adoption in the U.S.: The Market Structure Bill and the Innovation Exemption.

Source: @Vivek4real_

Quick refresher on what each one means/offers:

The Market Structure Bill will define clear guidelines for crypto investing in the U.S., allowing institutions to invest in a wider range of cryptocurrencies, without breaking the rules
The SEC innovation exemption will allow new crypto projects to legally operate as unregistered centralized entities for a set amount of time (allowing them to innovate without worrying about getting sued by the SEC)

Both are due to be enacted in 2026 (with the innovation exemption hitting first, likely in January).

Any forward movement here is net-bullish.

5/ Conferences 🤝

Solana Breakpoint is happening in Abu Dhabi this week, from Dec 11-13.

We’ll be watching for any/all major announcements coming from the conference including (but not limited to) updates on:

Firedancer (which would largely solve Solana’s downtime issues)
The Q1-scheduled Alpenglow upgrade, which is rumored to see Solana beat or match the Nasdaq’s 500k+ maximum transactions per second (max TPS)

6/ Podcasts 🎙️

Here’s a taste of this week’s guest list across the Milk Road podcast ecosystem:

Tue: Haseeb Qureshi, Managing partner at Dragonfly – Milk Road Daily
Wed: Kim Isenberg, Editor-In-Chief of the Superintelligence newsletter (210k+ subs) – Milk Road AI
Thu: Jamie Coutts, Chief Crypto Analyst at Real Vision – Milk Road Daily
Fri: William E. Quigley, Co-founder of Tether – Milk Road Daily

Alright, that’s everything on our radar this week.

As always – mark your calendars, make your offerings to the crypto gods, and say a little prayer.

WHY YOU SHOULD CARE ABOUT A ROBOT SETTING A RECORD 🥛

The second edition of the Milk Road AI Newsletter dropped today.

If you missed the first one, we broke down the drama unfolding between Google, Meta, and NVIDIA.

And today's edition dives into something even bigger: the global, trillion-dollar showdown between the U.S. and China in the robotics race:

The PR That Changed Everything: We break down why Tesla's Optimus robot suddenly learning to run is a massive, market-moving breakthrough.
Government Panic: Find out why the Trump administration is preparing to go "All In" on robotics.
The Royal Flush: We show exactly why Tesla's vertical integration gives it the Royal Flush over competitors.

The next industrial revolution is already here. Don't be the last to get the playbook.

👉 The Milk Road AI Newsletter is free. Read today's edition now.