GM. This is Milk Road, the crypto newsletter spicier than your group chat after someone says “Bitcoin is dead”.
Here’s a taste of this week’s hot takes:
- 🔥 Investing is as easy as ABCD.
- 🥵 Retail is waiting for the ‘Black Hole’ effect.
- 🌶️ OpenAI traded its "Soul" for coding skills.
Milk Road and Alumni Ventures are teaming up this week only to give readers early access to high-potential startup opportunities. Get access to VC deals for FREE now.
HOT TAKES OF THE WEEK 🔥
Investing is as easy as ABCD 📚
Mark Yusko’s core framework for 2026 is simple:
AI, Blockchain, Chips, and Data.
He views data as the "new oil", but points out it’s useless if it’s just sitting there - you need the other three to extract any value.
Instead of chasing flashy end-products, he’s obsessed with the infrastructure (the "picks and shovels") that actually lets these technologies talk to each other.
🎙️ Listen to the full Milk Road Macro episode here.
Retail isn't gone - they’re just waiting for the ‘Black Hole’ effect 🪐
Real Vision CEO, Raoul Pal, describes the younger generation as a "gaming culture" that feels totally locked out of the traditional economy, so they’ve moved their capital to other casinos like tech stocks and gold (for now).
The thing is, retail’s driven by the fastest possible returns, so as soon as crypto starts outperforming again, it will suck all that capital back in like a supermassive black hole.
In short: Raoul’s convinced they’ll be back the moment the casino starts paying out the best odds again.
🎙️ Listen to the full Milk Road Daily episode here.
OpenAI traded its "soul" for coding skills 😇
Our AI podcast hosts, Patrick & Duncan, see AI models as having "personalities” of sorts...
They mention that while GPT 5.2 Codex might be the "smarter" engineer for raw execution, OpenAI over-prioritized coding so much that they sacrificed the model’s "soul" and joy.
Sam Altman apparently even admitted in a fireside chat that they might have overshot on coding and now need to focus back on "soft skills" and creative writing.
🎙️ Listen to the full Milk Road AI episode here.
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HOT TAKES OF THE WEEK (P2) 🔥
The "Agent Economy" will be built on crypto rails 💸
Hoolie Tejwanie (Head of Coinbase Ventures) is betting on a future where billions of AI agents are bartering and trading with each other, contributing to a massive chunk of global GDP.
He calls it "agent-to-agent commerce", where machines pay other machines using internet-native money (crypto) because it’s the only thing that makes sense for them.
And right now, he’s actively looking at who’s building the "rails and piping" that will allow these AI bots to have their own identities and wallets.
🎙️ Listen to the full Milk Road Daily episode here.
Gold isn't a "Barbarous Relic" anymore (and BTC will follow a similar path) 🟠
Bitwise’s Matt Hougan pointed out that gold has pulled off a massive image rebrand.
It went from being the asset of "cranky uncles" in pinstripe suits to a central bank darling because the U.S. government started seizing foreign treasury reserves.
Matt’s big "aha" moment is that if gold can go from being mocked as a dusty relic to a must-have reserve asset, Bitcoin is on the exact same trajectory - attitudes can and will change.
🎙️ Listen to the full Milk Road Daily episode here.
PRO INSIGHT OF THE WEEK 🔮
We just released a sneak peek into our latest PRO AMA.
You can watch it below - but if you’re more akin to reading, don’t worry, we’ve got you…
Here’s our core insight from the event:
The era of ‘crypto casinos’, defined by the manic pursuit of memecoins and inflationary yields is ending, and the industry is growing up.
Retail investors may feel bored by the lack of shiny new speculative tokens, but this stagnation is actually a necessary pause before the next major migration:
The integration of Real-World Assets (RWAs).
The conviction among big-brained experts is shifting away from ‘number go up’ socially-backed tokens, and towards sustainable, credit-based finance.
The new value drivers:
- Onchain credit - Moving hundreds of trillions in global debt (from mortgages to corporate loans) onchain offers faster capital formation and superior yields.
- Quality over hype - The focus is no longer on printing tokens from thin air, but on bringing the world's most pristine assets (Treasuries, gold, and equity) into a 24/7 liquid ecosystem.
For 2026, the smartest bet is on infrastructure that facilitates this migration.
Specifically: Ethereum and established DeFi protocols like Aave, which are uniquely positioned to house the next century of finance.
Hell yeah!
P.S. Want direct access to our PRO analyst team, so you can get your burning questions answered in real-time and make the right moves?
BITE-SIZED COOKIES FOR THE ROAD 🍪
This seems too good to be true. Nexo’s “Zero-interest credit” lets you borrow $BTC or $ETH with no yearly interest or fee.*
New crypto sovereign reserve just dropped: Kazakhstan just made a $350M bet on crypto from its national reserves.
Yikes! China just dumped U.S. Treasuries to an 18-year low while stacking gold at a record pace.
Nice! WisdomTree just reported having $2.24B worth of crypto assets under management.
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MILKY MEMES OF THE WEEK 🤣
