This is Milk Road, the daily newsletter that's the good kind of nosy neighbor, always got the scoop.
Here’s what we’ve got for you today:
- ✍️ The bull market is back!
- 🎙️ The Milk Road Show: Bitcoin at $86K: The Crypto Bull Market Is BACK.
- 🍪 Crypto Prediction Market giant Kalshi might be fudging its perp volumes.
On Sept 23, Milk Road's Martin sits down with Alumni Ventures to talk about blockchain and private markets. Save your free seat here.
Prices as of 2:00 p.m. ET. Powered by CoinGecko.
NO ARGUMENTS THIS WEEK - WE’RE BACK BAAABY! 📈
Every Monday, the team gets on a call to work out what we're watching for the week. As always, you get the fly-on-the-wall version.
This one ran twelve minutes.
John opened by saying there wasn't much to talk about, because we're in a bull market, so everything's fine.
… then he talked for ten minutes straight.
The call was short for the same reason it's worth reading: the bear argument that has defined crypto all year just ended.
This morning Benjamin Cowen, one of the most-watched analysts in crypto, posted "I was wrong," after he'd spent most of 2026 arguing Bitcoin's four-year cycle had one more leg down in it, and would bottom in early October 2026.
John's been on the other side since February, mostly because of how crowded the trade got. When every analyst points at one date, the market tends to get there first.
He didn't take a victory lap though. "Ben isn't as wrong as everybody says he is. He's been buying since July, too."
What John's watching now are two dates: October 6th, hoping to see Bitcoin above $90,000, then $100,000 before month-end.
That’s the dream scenario, at least. We're at roughly $85.8K as I write this:
… ok, but how? How are we here!?
We went into September with two catalysts - both of which landed terribly!
On the 15th, the CLARITY Act failed 49 to 50 in the Senate, then the next day the Fed hiked rates - its first increase since 2023.
Bad news + bad news = BTC up roughly 13% since??
John's answer: price is the catalyst.
Every analyst who called for a lower low has to say out loud that we're in a bull market, and that does its own marketing…
FREE SEMINAR ON BLOCKCHAIN & PRIVATE MARKETS
Is VC capital still flowing into crypto or has AI taken it all?
Where is venture capital actually deploying across crypto and fintech right now?
Join Sophia Zhao (Partner at Alumni Ventures) and Martin from Milk Road for a live fireside conversation covering:
- Where capital is moving across blockchain and fintech
- What the next generation of blockchain companies are actually building
- How accredited investors can get exposure to private markets
The best part? It’s completely free to attend and takes just one hour.
NO ARGUMENTS THIS WEEK - WE’RE BACK BAAABY! (P2) 📈
It’s not just Bitcoin moving.
Uniswap touched almost $9 after the SEC opened a five-year window for tokenized U.S. stocks to trade onchain…
Zcash cleared $1,000 for the first time in eight years…
Solana is trading at ~$117 (from its lows of ~$60)...
It’s a beautiful thing to see!
But before you get too bullish… John actually poured some cold water on his own case.
Crypto was oversold for so long that he sees this entire move as mean reversion.
Bitcoin is sitting near its average price for the last calendar year, having finally caught up with where everything else has been.
"We're not overvalued. We're not in exuberance. This is kind of like where crypto should be."
Which brings us to the least glamorous (but still very important) lesson here:
John is ahead of most of our other Milk Road PRO analysts right now, not because of some complex trading strategy, but because he embraced patience.
He put his capital into Bitcoin and Ethereum and sat on his hands.
Or in his words:
"I'm not smart. I'm just dumb enough to buy crypto and shut up."
We'll see if October agrees.
LESS THAN 1% IS ONCHAIN: CRYPTO'S BIGGEST OPPORTUNITY YET
Karl Floersch, co-founder and CTO at OP Labs, joined us on The Milk Road Show:
- Deep dive into the Optimism L2 Network and its ecosystem.
- How Does Optimism Defend Its Moat in a Million-Chain World?
- How OP balances its relationship with Ethereum as an L1 and global settlement layer.
Watch here.
BITE-SIZED COOKIES FOR THE ROAD 🍪
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Kalshi: Is the prediction market giant fudging its perp volumes?
Crypto assets with real cash flows are outperforming the market.
BTC is defying real yields.
*this is sponsored content.
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