KelpDAO hack, Aave outflows and Saylor's $2.5B Bitcoin purchase

Transcript

You know, last week I said that Michael Sailor and Tom Lee were buying Bitcoin and Ethereum with bull market size during a bare market. This week they've both more than doubled the size of their purchases. What's up everybody? It's LG Ducad here and welcome to the Milk Road Show, the daily crypto show where we sometimes lose our minds because we're forced to record five podcasts in a single day. And today is one of those days. It is April 20th, 2026. Bitcoin at 75,600. ETH is at 2,300 and change. Last week we pumped. This weekend we dumped. Today we're kind of green. This has been the story every single weekend, every single Monday for months. We're literally living in crypto purgatory. Uh and maybe this time isn't so bad, right? The straight is closed. Uh but the market is

green. The S&P is at all-time highs. We're going to get into why and also ask the hard questions like is ETH at risk after another big hack. This time on a which is supposed to be uh highly vaulted and impenetrable and and it's supposed to be real DeFi and yet it finally got hacked. We're going to dig into all that along with John today on the show. Today's episode is brought to you by Ferros, the layer 1 built for real consensus Miami where the next cycle starts and Nexo earn interest borrow and trade crypto. John, what's up? Is your ETH okay? Are you safe? >> I just want to correct something you just said. A did not get hacked. Kelp, let me just hack. That's a really important distinction. And you know, fun's fun, but you don't want to go telling people that a got hacked when it

did not. A is fine. So, >> okay. Strike the script. Good morning. Hello. So, is my ETH safe? I don't even know where my ETH is, but it's somewhere. >> If you don't know where it is, then it's safe. Yes, >> it's safe. >> As long as you can't sell it, then it's technically safe. >> Nonfunctional, non-custodial wallet somewhere uh that only just got some L2s. Uh what what did happen, John? So, tell me tell me about this. I mean, most people maybe people that uh hang out on crypto Twitter and and just spend their weekends criticizing each other, they probably already know. But what for the people that don't, what um what did happen on a which bridge got compromised and is there any actual concern?

>> All right. Now, this is great. You're going to make me give a live playby-play breakdown of a very >> You don't have to give a playbyplay. You can just tell me in your own words. You can summarize it. If you get technical, people are going to stop watching. So you can just give it like you can TLDDR and then we can get to the bullish stuff as soon as you want. Man, >> there was a hack for around $300 million on kelp uh which is a protocol that's in Yeah. So basically what they did was they created around $300 million of bad debt on a now uh they because they were using a kind of like I think it was RST um as collateral taking out loans and so they they have $300 million or $293 million worth of loans that are made on

collateral that is that is not real collateral because of the hack that they've done. Um A to their very great credit uh froze the the pool the liquidity pools immediately. They're still frozen as far as I understand. Uh and they uh kind of contained the the the issue here. But making up the shortfall is the interesting thing. So uh a has something called the umbrell umbrella protocol or umbrella module whatever whatever the technical name of it is but it is a safety protocol to make sure that a is collateralized to prevent or to cover losses uh rather not prevent but to cover losses in the event of a hack or malicious activity or or bad debt like this. um they only have around $50 million or so of um of

Ethereum deposited in that right now. Uh and so there's like roughly I think the projections are somewhere around $140 million of a shortfall that has to be made up somehow. There are a lot of actors in the system right now um offering swaps for people to like um swap out of their a wrapped staked ETH um to like you know if they don't want to be potentially subjected to that haircut. There's a lot going on in the community and in the ecosystem right now to deal with this. There's a lot of stuff that's still emerging. But to me, I think the the main takeaways are that there's a lot of fear that this has created. So, we're seeing a lot of withdrawals generally from DeFi just like across the board. Not not that anything is really changed on any of this, it's just fear started to take

hold. um a I think lost around $8 billion of total um or total value locked on the protocol um because of withdrawals like Justin Sun who's uh anyway Justin Sun withdrew from a a lot of his Ethereum um but I think that you know my view on this is that the the long-term value creation of DeFi is still very strong. The market demand for it and need for it is still very strong and a is still in a really excellent position to capitalize on that and to bring that to the market. their safety protocols, their their um their all the mechanisms that they've put in place to deal with this handled it. Um it's a much larger shortfall than, you know, than their their reserves had planned for, but they'll they'll find a way

through this in in some form or fashion, I'm sure. But, you know, the gist of this is you kind of have an opportunity here uh to get an entry on a if you still believe in a for the long term, which I do. So, I'm kind of looking at this closely and saying like, okay, I want to see what the actual resolution is, where this stabilizes and so forth. What are the impacts of this, but I think this might be an opportunity to accumulate a if you still believe in DeFi and the long-term value there. Uh, but yeah, a lot of this is just fear created by this $300 million hack. And we're still kind of in limbo while we wait for what a final resolution to this looks like.

>> Wow. Everything you're listening to today is also covered in our daily crypto newsletter. And on Sundays, we even recap the best parts of the entire week's worth podcast. So check it out at the link below. >> So they went their TVL 2 days ago was $26.5 billion and now it's 17. So that is a near yeah like 8 and a half like you said $9 billion haircut and that's >> yeah what is it about a third that's about like yeah it's about 30% 33% uh of their total TVL. So that's how much money is fleeing it. Although their fees are up. This is actually what I like is that the protocol two to 3xed its revenue during that time from fees as people got out. So good for them. A couple an extra 10 million bucks

in the bank. Um damn. I mean I I guess that makes sense, but what So what what are they doing that's keeping uh people's funds safe then? Like or how does this not affect Maybe you can just circle back on that and keep it like super basic for us. I mean the only the only things that were exploited was this this bridge and there was a loan taken out with you know bad collateral but nothing else none of the other pools contracts nothing else on on a or around a has been compromised. The problem with this is that if you have a very large DeFi protocol like this all of the different participants themselves become additional attack vectors on the ecosystem. So a is got, you know, top-of-the-line security and quality and

uh a lot of like like I said like this umbrella module the the protocols in place to sort of like help cover losses in the event of of things like this. Um but they're only able to cover and control what they can cover and control and they can't really protect themselves against external vulnerabilities from other uh participants in the ecosystem. So again a is fine so far. Mhm. >> It's just a sentiment shift and a fear thing that has come because of this. Uh but they're working on resolving this and I think that there will be some kind of resolution and then you know from there I I don't know. I think it's it's one of those things where it might take a while for demand for faith to come back into the market here or for like people to feel comfortable with this again. Um but you know my two cents is

that this it just feels to me like a lot of this like this happens often in crypto where there'll be some kind of hack, some kind of market event. People will panic sell and freak out and then the fundamentals haven't changed. So eventually the market recovers and the capital comes back. It's not quite the same thing, but it's a little bit reminds me of what happened um with FTX and Salana. Like FTX going under, everybody sold all their Salana and it dumped really hard and I bought a ton of Salana under 30 bucks. I got one bid filled at $10 because I realized this doesn't have anything to do with the fundamentals of Salana and this this chain will come back and so will this asset. Um but yeah, it's it's that's the market is still kind of like sussing through the news on this and figuring

out how it feels and there's just a lot of fear at the moment. >> I was gonna see when there was so what when was the drift hack on Solana? Was that like two weeks ago, >> right? That was about two weeks ago. That was like a social engineering hack and everything. But I was just curious if they if similar protocols like something like Jupiter or Radium or at least the Dexes I guess in this case uh on Salana experienced a similar draw draw down around that time. Yeah, I guess so. I think it was around end of March, right? I think it was like maybe it was right. Oh, yeah. It was on April Fools. It was April Fools that they announced the hack. So, yeah. So, there was a dip. Let's see. Jupiter lost went from 1.9 about 2 billion to 1.6.

Okay. Yeah. So, they lost 20%. So, not not the same amount. It was a smaller protocol, but very similar um somewhat similar >> kind of idea. Um, John, is this um this is something you mentioned before and you've been talking about in pro uh all weekend from for milk road pro members uh and for the Milk Road pro curious the dollar trial is back just you can get it for 7 days for just a dollar. So if you want to go check it out and see what John says on Saturday nights when John is actually most active you can go check that out in the Milk Road Pro Discord or see his recommendations. Um, but you did you have been talking about a as a potential buy here. And I actually didn't even realize the price of A until you mentioned it this morning. Um, I

honestly still thought that A was still at like $200 or something like that. I didn't realize it had fallen to like a 1.3 1.4 billion market cap. um and and had fallen sub $100, although it was on a rally last week with the rest of the space, but is now fallen back to like a pre- rally price and actually going to dip below to like a could is seeing a low that hasn't been seen since August 20 2024 right now. So, an almost two-year low, 18-month low around $87. Um you can see tons tons of volume over the last couple days as this happened.

Um please share your thoughts, John. Is this is this a legendary buying opportunity for a with the FUD? >> The total value locked on the protocol has exploded since it was last at this price level. The fundamental value of the Ethereum and the DeFi ecosystem has exploded since it was last at this price level. And the only thing that's pushed it down here is lack of uh attention and fear. Um so I think it's a it's a buying opportunity. I think it's kind of up to you to decide if that's, you know, look, it's like it how long does it stay at these levels? I don't know. You can see it chopped around here a long time last time it was here. The upside potential to me is has never been stronger. Um, so to me, I I have a position in a rather than looking for an exit here, I'm

considering accumulation and, you know, trying to pick what level I think I'm comfortable at to start doing that. But, uh, everybody has to kind of make their own choice about these things. This protocol is not dead, though. It's it's growing. It's innovating. It's adapting. It's launching new things. It's bringing in new capital, new markets, new users, new products. So, it's just uh to me, I think it it represents one of the stronger um investment opportunities in the digital asset ecosystem. But this is this is something I've been saying a lot, right? Like I'm not recommending people buy this or not buy this. I like I said, I have a position, so I'm clearly biased. But what I would say is that we have this huge gulf between this institutional bull run and this all this capital and demand and products coming from the institutional side and then

retail being completely checked out and not really paying attention. As a result, I think the digital asset ecosystem is just littered with projects like a that represent a huge amount of value that is completely mispriced and misunderstood by the overall market right now. So that to me is an opportunity. Now, I'm not saying that a a has to be that specific opportunity and you know, whatever. Maybe this kills the whole dream of DeFi forever. I don't know. Maybe a $300 million hack was all it took, right? But um you know, the other side of that is that uh the the project has never been stronger. The valuation and the thesis for it has never been stronger. And so for capital that's patient and understands that thesis, I think this presents an opportunity. So I'm looking at that here. Um but you know, there's a lot of

risk and reward in all these things. And the market is telling you right now that it's it's scared. Um, but I don't I think buying fear is a good deal at any price. I've gotten, you know, push back on that from some investors, but generally speaking, if it's a strong asset, it's a strong thesis, and it's a strong market overall, you you want to look at huge extremes of fear causing price swings as opportunities. And that that's what people mean when they say buy when there's blood in the streets and fear, even if it's your own. So, um, yeah, I don't know. That's just how I'm looking at this right now. >> Maybe a maybe a pretty decent one on a here. Um, that's a good perspective. And that's, you know, all rules of investing would tell you that this is a good opportunity. Um, but all irrational

fears of the current market conditions would worry would make you would give you the irrational idea that it's going to go below its last bare market low, which it revisited four times before coming back just like probably a lot of tokens around $50. So that you're due for that kind of draw down at some point. And what if it never goes back up ever? What if that never What if What if it's all sham? What if Fidelity and Schwab, they're all lying and they just want you to buy these shitty tokens and then they're going to send them all to zero and get you so good and what you should have bought was Nvidia.

It's all a scop just for us, John, just to shake us out of this kind of stuff. I might be a buyer. I like this. I don't like this. You can see this big double top that the market did 2425 uh from I guess a very loose technical aspect, but um not something to be afraid of long term. So, I like that. It was um was there was there a bridge powered by layer zero? Was that a layer zero bridge? >> Uh I think it was involved in some way, but I'm not sure the exact specifics of how >> they tanked. I've been watching layer zero. I love layer zero. I think they're a great part of the infrastructure of of a lot of the bridging. I used them a lot in last bare market and and bull run and stuff and they've really integrated a

lot into a lot of products. Not a layer zero shield. I'm just saying that I've been tracking that token for a while and I saw it's a huge huge haircut uh about like 20% or 25% or so on this news. So I'm assuming it was a layer zero bridge. I just haven't had time to look into that today. So um maybe another place value. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. I I would assume so. Otherwise, I don't know why people would sell the token. Okay. Well, this has been your uh investigative report with John Gillan uh who's secretly Zack XBT. Uh thank you for the for the alpha. Um, let's jump to uh I mean, John, you know, last week people really loved our bullish takes. They loved hearing you tell us why there's good reasons to stay bullish. And I feel like we're going to keep needing that as we uh navigate

through this bare market and navigate through these uncertain war times. Um, and I feel like we always we I think people are going to come to rely on you every Monday to give them that dose. Uh, this morning in our creator meeting, uh, Chevy, who writes our newsletter and our our, um, Milk Road X account as well, um, shout out to Chevy. um he did point out the bare flag concerns right while we're talking technical levels. Uh and I think this is this is the best I mean I'm not I don't want to start drawing on a chart. I think that's the last thing anybody ever wants me to see do on a podcast is me drawing on a chart. Uh but I'm assuming these that he's that they're referring to these two look and I found this tweet from a totally unknown person uh which I'm going to

take as gospel um from this person basically showing us these two kind of like similar pattern bear patterns uh comparing what we saw after 1010 at the end of Q4 uh early Q1 this year where we dropped and then we kind of went up and this is a this is if you do any technical trading this is a very classic obvious pattern where you dip And then you kind of go upwards at about like a, you know, 45 degreeish angle before the next big leg down. Uh, and naturally it shakes people into thinking that it's like, hey, we're rallying. It's time to buy more. Let's get going right before that huge snap that brings you back down. John, uh, I I don't know if you're much of a technical person. Are we in a double bare bare flag pattern here?

>> Yes, but I think there's a lot of caveats to that, right? So, number one, I think that these are all probabilities and percentages. These things do not always break down in a Bitcoin bare market. They usually do. This is generally what happens. Ben Cowan talks about this a lot. He says that bare markets in Bitcoin make fools of both the bulls and the bears because for most of the time you see the market just sort of like slowly chopping higher. And the bears all look wrong and the bulls start to celebrate as they go to challenge new resistances. But then eventually the bears run out of the bulls run out of gas. They hit a resistance level they can't break. The market breaks down and you put in new lows and then the bulls all look ridiculous. So, um, it's a difficult market environment to trade

in, but it's all probabilities, right? Because there's there's no law that says that just because we've hit the top of this bare flag range, we have to go down to the bottom of it or to to break down lower. That may be what happens. But I, you know, like, oo, I'm shaking in my boots. We might go to 68K again. Big deal, right? So, like the other side of this is that there's a significant risk that it breaks to the upside and surprises a lot of people and everyone, you know, thinks that Bitcoin is going to zigg and it zags instead. Um, and I think that there's a lot of reasons to think that might be the case. The Clarity Act is materializing on the horizon. We've got a new Federal Reserve chairman having hearings this week. He could say something very bullish about Bitcoin in the hearing and touch

something off without meaning to. Um, you know, I think that there's a lot of reasons to think that the macro landscape is is is getting better. We've seen an enormous amount of tax refunds come back into the market recently. Some people are saying that might be partially responsible. You know, we just had tax day in the United States. So some people say that might be partially responsible for this huge short squeeze that we've seen in the equities market. Um so it's it's hard to look at the like enormous strength of of positive bullish market action that we've seen recently and get super doomerish at this moment for me. A lot of people can say it's a top. Sure, maybe it's a local top. Um but I think that this market trend, this momentum will probably continue throughout the rest of the year. Um and so even if Bitcoin does find some

resistance here, it hasn't collapsed or broken down. We're still over 75K. So, it's not been like a firm strong rejection and collapse. There's also a possibility that Bitcoin goes back and retests the top of the range again before it gets rejected. That hasn't, you know, that's not unheard of either. >> So, I think it's important to not get super dogmatic about calling what must happen here because that that bare flag is concerning. I've been watching it for >> now almost two and a half months. It's been a long Yes. Right. >> Well, since since February 5th was that was that mega candle down around then and now we've just been, you know, that's when we touched 60, right? And then we've been doing this thing back up and we're we're at the top of the range again roughly now or the other day around 77. Uh but yeah, it's a that kind

of shows you that >> it's been a long time. It's been this is a long ass bare flag. >> Yeah. And you know, I'll bring this back up because this is something I'm still watching because it's getting kind of it's really getting wild now. Um Michael Sailor, you know, last week I said that Michael Sailor and Tom Lee were buying Bitcoin and Ethereum with bull market size during a bare market. This week they've both more than doubled the size of their purchases. Um the Tom Lee and Bitmine bought um uh $235 million of Ethereum I believe and then Michael Sailor bought over $2.5 billion of Bitcoin. Um that is a a huge amount of buying support for these assets. And uh you know it's you know it's not one man can't lift up the whole market but he

has found a different product that has product market fit that is generating organic bull market level demand for bitcoin during a bare market. So you're seeing these bare market technicals playing out on the charts at the same time that you're seeing bull market demand from certain market participants starting to come back in with strength and size. Tom Lee to his credit has also been buying four weeks in a row and they're aggressively accumulating. They're now at like I think 4.1215% of the Ethereum supply and trying to get to 5%. So there's there's a lot of things here in the markets that are that are in favor of the bulls as well, which is why we've seen Bitcoin gravitate to the top of the range that it's been in.

I haven't flipped totally full-on bullish because it hasn't broken out of that range. And until it does, there's still a chance it goes down to the bottom. I've still got bids to buy Bitcoin at 60K and 58K just in case the bears are right and we do go sweep those lows again here. So, um, but I my bags are packed either way, so I'm not really hung up so much on which way it breaks. I'm just trying to be prepared for for either direction. And you have to kind of like weigh these probabilities. Like I did a podcast with Michael Naidal last week. He lays out why he thinks it's going to go lower. I, you know, learn a lot from Michael. I respect him a lot, but I'm a little bit more biased on the bull side right now just because of, you know, a lot of other things in the macro

and and we'll see who's right or wrong, but it doesn't really matter so much to me materially. Michael and I both degree agree directionally and we do a lot of the same analysis, but this is kind of like a little bit of a coin toss one way or the other. I think he's 6040 bearish and I'm like, you know, 40 60 bullish. So, we'll we'll just see how it plays out. But I I wouldn't get too hung up on this one particular flag. It could go on for another like two or three more weeks, too. So, we'll have to just watch here. >> Trillions of dollars in real world assets are stuck offchain. Real estate, commodities, private credit, all locked behind outdated systems that weren't built for a global 24/7 economy. The fix, bring those assets onchain. Problem is, most blockchains weren't designed for that either. Feros is. It's a layer

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wide range of assets all in one place with 24/7 support and institutional grade security. Oh, and by the way, Nexo is back in the US with new US clients getting 30 days of Wealth Club premier access. That means elevated interest rates, lower borrowing costs, and crypto cash back on trades. Benefits usually reserved for loyalty program members. Get started at milkroad.com/nexo. What about selling May go away? Come on. Listen, your your analysis is fantastic, but I'm a retail trader. I live by simple rules from simple people.

Uh, sell and may go away. Is that true? >> Nursery rhymes are not an investment thesis. Uh, >> wait. What about your What's your little nursery? Don't you have a little haiku? What's your little investment haiku about? Uh, >> stay safe, stay educated, stay bullish. >> That's it. It's like the end of Sesame Street. >> You know, I like to meet my audience where they're at. No, I'm just kidding. Look, um I I think that that's a historical trend that people have observed that the summer months tend to be lower volume, lower volatility.

That's also a myth. I think I don't think this is totally borne out by the data. It just sounds right. Um we do sometimes see corrections through May. This doesn't always hold though. I I look I I think that there's there's reasons to say that there will be continued volatility. I think that's what I'm expecting. conviction lies in elevated volatility is something a guest of one of my podcasts said recently that's like stuck with me. The only thing I'm sure of is that the market's not going to do what everybody thinks it's going to do and it's going to continue to be extremely volatile. We've seen historic volatility in all markets and I think that's going to continue.

>> What was the thing? What was the quote? >> Conviction lies and elevated volatility. >> Oh, okay. Okay. Okay. I thought you were saying that. Okay. Conviction li. Okay. So, I thought you meant lies as in like you're lying. Like I'm not the only Yeah. sounded like your conviction. I was like, what do you mean conviction lies to you when something happens and your conviction it lays it lays the act of lay resides in >> high volatility? That's what who said that? Who said that? Who said that? >> Uh Nikki Shields. She's a gold analyst. But I also did an interview last week with a great guy named Bob Elliot who is uh he used to lead Ray Dallio's uh investment uh analysis team at at Bridgewwater. And I asked Bob because I

was reading his his writing. He has a substack called non-conensus is a free plug for Bob. Everyone should follow Bob. But um Bob wrote a piece where he said that uh this entire market lacks conviction. And so I asked him do you have conviction in anything right now in any trade in any market? And he his flat answer one word was just no. Um and I think that speaks for that that tells you volumes, right? Like if one of the best macro analysts in the world is telling you that there isn't strong conviction in anything. Nobody can see beyond the weak in front of them. We could have a deal we reached with Iran by the end of business today or we could see escalation and and bombings of their power plants and infrastructure and bridges. We we really are not sure. It's hard to see into the future. Nobody

could have told you, you know, two weeks ago that the S&P 500 was about to go on a 99th percentile bullish tear, but that's what happened, right? And I think the NASDAQ traded positively for I think 14 days in a row, 13 days in a row, which is another market anomaly. So, look, I think that what I'm trying to get at here is that it's it doesn't pay to be dogmatic. It doesn't pay to get super bullish or bearish one way or the other. The most important thing to do right now, I think, is to keep your options, maximize your ability to be flexible and be tactile in this market environment. Take in new information as we get it because the market is going to be everyone's going to be getting new and really important information from the market as this these things these events play out and we start to get

actually some more certainty. things like the new chairman of the Federal Reserve being confirmed, the the Clarity Act being passed, the war being concluded, a lot of other things getting falling into place, the tariff negotiations being worked out, maybe a deal with China happens in the next month or so if Trump goes over there to talk to Xi. So, there's a lot of things that could bring some more certainty and that gives us a much clearer road to to ride in terms of investing and and strategy. But for the moment, I think it just pays to pay attention and learn as much as you can, but then maximize your ability to be tactile once certainty does come. Is he going to go >> who?

>> Trump to China. >> That's the plan. Yeah. I mean, unless >> Isn't that supposed to happen like on the 30th? >> It was supposed to happen in April. It they postponed it once because of the Iran war and they may postpone it again. But yeah, it's it's pretty imminent. Basically, I think as soon as they make this peace deal with Iran, Trump's going to go to to China to meet with Xi because they have business to conduct as well and deals to make there. So, I I think that there's a lot of major things that could move the markets uh coming here and they could move it in a positive direction because it'll it'll, you know, sort of give investors a lot of clarity, certainty, you know, some some things more chiseled into stone as opposed to just being batted around on Twitter. Um, so I think there's some

positive catalysts on the horizon. >> Okay. Okay. So, so a long roundabout way of saying that we shouldn't sell in May unless there's an obvious reason to. I'm saying let's get to May and see, right? Like look, you know, if Bitcoin breaks like gets firmly rejected, drops below 60K, yeah, you should have sold in May. I don't know. Um, it's hard. It's it's it's hard to tell you. I'm not I'm not going to like firmly say that one way or another. I think the the probably the most like um pertinent thing or let's say prudent thing would be to try to look through whatever the volatility is going to be in the summer months and and say what

are the assets that I want to hold throughout this and into 2027 and beyond where where do I actually have conviction and find that for yourself because you can't borrow it from Bob Elliot or from me or from anybody else right you can't borrow Michael Sailor's conviction on Bitcoin you have to have your own and one of the biggest mistakes you make in this market is looking at someone else borrowing their conviction their conviction investing investing and then volatility comes, you get scared, you get certain, you puke your bags, you end up getting chopped up by the market. Um, so you have to kind of develop your own thesis that makes sense for you, for your capital, for your timeline and, you know, etc. But, um, yeah, there's there's going to be volatility no matter where you where you put your capital.

>> Stay bullish, stay safe, stay John Gillan, listen to him in your sleep. Um, I have an announcement to make. People that don't know this, uh, if you want to know more, if you want to hear more of John's thoughts, I'm not going to plug Milk Road Pro yet. I got to do that later. Um, but I'm going to do I'm not going to do it again. >> You're going to plug the plug. That's very >> This is free. This thing is This part is actually free. You don't have to pay anything for it. Uh, you can get John's thoughts on the macro stuff for free now. John is now writing our weekly macro newsletter. It's twice per week. Tuesdays and Thursdays, it comes out. Uh, he wrote two fantastic editions last week. Obviously, there's kind of just one major story to really cover these

days, but John's doing a really great job of kind of covering a few different aspects of it. So, um, if you guys want to tune into that, uh, I don't know if the link will be in the description. We don't usually link to the macro newsletter, but if you head over to milkro.com, um you should be able to find it. Just try and find the newsletter somewhere on there or go to the Milkro Macro X account uh where we we're going to start we're going to try and post some of those on there as well as articles so you can read them just directly on X is that if that's where you hang out, but you can also subscribe to the newsletter uh if you want to get John directly in your inbox talking about uh all the geopolitical stuff you want to hear him. I I'm assuming if

Trump and she meet, you will write a newsletter about that or preemptively write about that at some point as well. Um, so John, uh, you know, thanks thanks for thanks for sharing your words every week, man. It's something we we love to see and we love to see in Milkroad Pro, but also now the public um, you know, all all macro enthusiasts can read your thoughts on a regular basis as well. On top of listening to you on the podcast, you do two podcasts a week on there, too, which is which are which are always fantastic. So, uh, kudos to you, John. What, uh, maybe give us a preview. What's what's going to be on your mind this week on the macro side? Obviously, there's there's one big story, but what what's what's the angle that we can read about tomorrow?

>> I think one of the things the market's going to be watching the closest is the hearings uh for Kevin Worsher's confirmation. Those are supposed to be, I believe, scheduled for this week. So, I'm probably going to be, you know, just like most of the rest of the market, tuned in pretty closely to that because I think, you know, whatever he says or doesn't say, people are going to read the tea leaves. They're going to try to draw conclusions about how he's going to govern um as the chairman of the Federal Reserve. That's probably the biggest thing happening in macro right now. I think that, you know, the other thing obviously is the the Hormuz uh situation, the straits still being closed, the US blockade still being in place, peace talks supposedly happening in Pakistan again. Um and and what the conclusion is of that. I'm definitely

going to write about whatever Trump and Xi agree to if that meeting happens, when that meeting happens, because I think you could make a strong argument that all of this conflict with Iran, with Venezuela, with everything has been about trying to uh give one side or another uh greater leverage in those negotiations. So, there's a lot that's going on in macro to cover right now. Um this week, I think it's Kevin Walsh. Um but in the near future, it'll it'll be something different. I think the the thing I wrote about in the last report was the the the straight is is still not open. The market doesn't care yet. I'm writing in that about how there has been this huge bullish movement in the markets, but the real impact of this conflict on the economy has yet to have its impact has yet to really be felt.

And it's unclear yet if, when, or how the markets are going to react to that because it it still hasn't really come through yet. So, I was talking to some of our pro uh community members in Discord this weekend about this exact thing. They're like, I don't understand why the market is getting so bullish if there's all these economic impacts that still have to come through. And that's sort of this gap. But like, you know, one way of looking at this, everyone's talking about the price of oil and watching that very closely. But the price of diesel and jet fuel are at all-time highs. Not like near all-time highs, at all-time highs. Europe, I think, is like 3 weeks away from running out of jet fuel. Um, and so there's kind of'll be a lot of rationing, a lot of uh inflation, price hikes. There there's

going to be a lot of impacts on the economy of of other countries first, but that will eventually filter through into the United States and into all the things that we do here. You know, just because you don't drive a diesel car doesn't mean you don't buy things that get moved on diesel trucks or flown around with on jet planes. So, like I said, there's a lot happening in macro right now. And the the lag between the impact of this on the economy and whether or not the market actually finally responds to that or not uh is something that I'm paying attention to because it there's there's sort of this like it's a sort of a economic sword of damicles that's hanging over this bull run now. And we'll see how this all settles out. But in the meantime, you know, all-time highs and, you know, no

no all gas, no breaks, and it all feels great until it doesn't. So, um, there's a lot to watch and I'm going to try to cover it for our community. >> Wall Street is here, the White House is here, all of crypto is here. We're talking about Consensus, the world's longest running and most influential digital assets conference happening in Miami May 5th through 7th. This is where 20,000 plus decision makers from 100 plus countries gather to shape the future of finance. 72% are director level or above representing over 4 trillion in crypto aum 3 days six stages 500 plus speakers including Michael Sailor Brad Garlinghouse Anatolia Yakoveno and Eric Trump tackling the three forces driving trillions on chain crypto at scale institutional integration and agentic commerce deals

get signed here funds get raised here the next cycle starts here register and save 20% with code milkroad at consensuscoindes.com we don't have that kind of outlook Look, man, we don't know that. Like, listen, people I think that's one of our biggest uh faults as humans is that we don't we don't we only take things at face values. You're totally right that you're just like, "Well, I don't drive a diesel freaking car, so why would I give a about diesel? I don't have it. I don't have Wait, what other things?" Uh, I don't have any I I don't use anything that's copper every day. I don't hold any copper in my hand. Why would I care about the price of copper? Like, we just don't really understand that kind of stuff. Copper is not really as related here, but you know what I mean? Is I

don't think we're like, "Well, I'll just drive less. Like that doesn't really affect the price. I'll take my bike to the grocery store. What if you need a new tire? How is your tire made exactly? You know, like stuff like that. People don't really realize how's your tire delivered to the store. Um so we don't really we're not able to really see that. So anyways, we're tracking that on Milk Road uh for anyone who wants to be ready for that. What did you call it? The not apocalypse cataclysmic something. What do you have >> the sword of damocles? It's a It's a Greek thing is there's this there's a king who is ruling and there's a sword that's dangling over his head by a thread and it's like this anxiety of like waiting for the other shoe to drop sort of thing.

>> And economically that's I think a little bit where we are right now. We've got this historic bull run in the markets but the economy is on shaky shaky ground by certain metrics. But it's like this it's the K-shaped thing, right? Like some parts of the economy are doing incredibly well and growing and thriving and some parts are struggling uh but pretty severely. So, we we'll see how this plays out. >> Which Greek Greek figure are you in all this? Who are you in all this? >> Uh, mythos. That's who I am. I'm Mythos. Is that a good answer? >> Claude Methos like from Anthropic. >> That's That's the joke. Yes. I didn't have anything better off the top of my head, so I went with that.

>> It's so dangerous. We can't let anybody have it. It's so amazing, but you can't see it. >> You can't touch it. That's code for we don't we don't have enough compute to support this if we gave this to you. and also would hack the planet. So, like we're just gonna leave this in a box for right now, even though it's smart enough to get out of the box. >> We we wrote a blog a couple years ago how it might be self-aware and then it read it and now it thinks it's self-aware. Wow, that's amazing. Okay. Uh last thing I do, okay, this end is a plug, but it's mainly to to to plug John. Um Okay, so a new thing that we have in Milkroad Pro, I'm going to give you get you guys preview. It is now watch list. And here you get a little

preview of the leaderboard where John was once again recently flipped. You were in second place at the start of the show. we started recording. Now you're in third place. Uh Melvin moving up the ranks with all his his uh well I won't tell you what he's buying. Uh but Melvin's moving up the ranks really fast with his purchases lately. Uh John solidly in third place though with a great portfolio which you can see in Milk Road Pro. Just a dollar for 7 days anytime you want. Um but we just added this feature called watch list. So now instead of u if there's anything that you guys are thinking about buying, uh you add it to the watch list. All pro members get a notification via email uh if you opt in or in Discord or wherever you want to get that notification or just check it on the website. So, John

has added a to his watch list, not a purchase yet. Uh, and you have not added a target price because I don't think it's it's that simple. Um, and there's a few other assets on this list, some crypto ones, some non-crypto ones, uh, from the rest of the team. So, we started to populate the watch list. So, if you want to check that out, head on over to the link below, Milk Road Pro. There's just a dollar to get in here. And it's I'm really telling you guys, if you have nothing to do on Saturday nights, that's when John's in the Discord ready to rumble. Okay? That's that's you want to you want to get his pure thoughts on what's going on. Total rambles. That's the time. It's Saturday. You pay a dollar, you can talk to John all night. Saturday night, come this weekend. Okay. Um John, uh I think we

got to wrap up here. Any final thoughts for us going into this week besides stay bullish, stay safe? >> I'm not sure that's the great sales pitch that you think it is, but I generally try to be responsive. People look at the comments from last week's episode, man. People, you want me to read comments from last week's episode? >> I know what I'm just saying. I am available at times other than Saturday night, too. Okay. It's not like Saturday night, let's go talk to John. >> No, but that's when you get your most pure form. That's when we get the raw John, you know? Otherwise, this is a polished John. This is noon. Noon on a freaking Monday. No, John is caffeinated. He's level everything. I want Saturday night, 2:00 in the morning, John. That's that's the time.

>> In in the in the watch list, I also wrote out a detailed analysis of the hack that that happened on kelp and why I think that Alve is handling this well, what the thesis is there. I wrote those those those those thoughts in much more detail and and clear language. Um so that's there for the community to review as well in a more structured way. Um but I I like these functionalities because it allows me to kind of communicate directly with our our community about these things in a way that's a little bit more structured than just a Discord message and and a podcast. Um and and it kind of allows me to lay out some of my thinking on that. Um so I I like this.

I'm enjoying it. I think the community is liking it, too. But um yeah, you can you can send me questions anytime. It doesn't have to be Saturday night at 1:00 a.m. >> Here are some comments from last week's episode. People love John. Okay, there's one. Uh, give John more airtime with three heart emojis. So, >> I wrote that one. >> And that person also wrote, >> that person also wrote, "Buy low, sell high. That's why you buy in bare markets." So, so this might that you know that that Thank you person for writing that. Uh, okay. The next one though is way more important. Best duo ever. Always my favorite shows with those two. John and the other guy. I keep forgetting his name.

That's a real >> I like the other guy, too. The other guy's trying his best. Yeah. >> That's that's that's that's how they don't even know who I am. They don't Oh, and whoever somebody from our team, I don't know, maybe this is Chevy. I don't know who wrote this, but they maybe maybe it's our our podcast producer, Adrian, they wrote they responded, "His name's LG, and I'm glad you're enjoying the duo." So, thank you, whoever the Milk Road team responded to that person. Uh, and shout out that person. I'm happy to be the other guy al alongside this this notable human in front of me here. Um, John, let's uh let's wrap up. If you guys have comments about John, uh, put them in the comments this week. Okay?

And if you listen to this on any other platform, go over to YouTube, write your little comment for John. Uh, or I guess you can leave you can leave comments in Apple podcast, too. You can actually leave a you can leave a comment there, too. So, make sure you write how much you love John uh and the other guy that he hangs out with every Monday. Okay, that's it. I'm gonna wrap up right there. Bye, John. >> That was great. One, another unawward ending to another great episode. Thanks, other guy. It was great talking to you this week. Want insights on what's moving crypto markets and how we're trading each event? Subscribe to our channel and join the Milk Road Daily and Pro Newsletters and start investing like the top 1%. This show is for educational purposes only. Nothing we say is financial advice. Investing is risky.

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