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GM. This is Milk Road, we make understanding crypto as easy as tying your shoes - loop, swoop, and pull!

Here’s what we got for you today:

4 PHASES OF THE BULL MARKET 👀

What. A. Ride. 

If you’ve been in crypto over the last 2 years, you know… sh*t’s been rough. 

Prices were dropping like bricks in the ocean (in this case, the Red Sea).

Crypto companies were going bankrupt left and right. 

My Twitter feed looked like the graffiti on a middle school bathroom stall…

Well, it looks like the worst is behind us…

If you’ve been here the last 2 years… congrats, you survived! You deserve one of those Purple Heart Awards. 

If you’re new… welcome to the bull market, baby! 

To get you prepared, we’re gonna share one of the best things we read all day yesterday. It’s a post by Jason Yanowitz, founder of Blockworks.

Jason explains how the bull market is split into 4 phases. Here they are…

Stage 1: Rebirth

The exhaustion from the bear market still exists.

Sparks of hope pop up, then fade. A few new narratives arise but are quickly killed by apathy.

Your friends and the media still focus on the bear market blowups.

All the while, prices are quietly recovering.

Your investment that was down 90% in the bear just went up 5x. But you barely notice because you're still down 50% off the high.

Only the deepest crypto natives who have seen 2+ cycles realize that the bull market has begun.

Most people are still in disbelief that this is the bull market.

Stage 2: Excitement

(Btw, this is where Jason thinks we are now). 

The bear market has officially ended. Your coins are nearing all-time highs. Some have even blown past ATHs.

Everyone in crypto understands that we are officially in a bull.

But it's funny, your normie friends still aren't texting you.

You're a weird combo of excited and anxious. Your stack is growing but you feel like you don't own enough coins.

Your company starts hiring. You start ordering guac at Chipotle again.

Life is good. All your crypto friends are winning.

This is the calm before the storm.

Stage 3: Euphoria

Everything you own blows past ATHs. There used to be a new narrative every week, now there's a new one daily.

The private market gets crazy.

VCs announce $500m funds. They skip DD (due diligence) and race to deploy.

Every week a new company announces a $100M raise.

We’re mainstream again.

Forbes, Bloomberg, CNBC... they love crypto. Then weird things happen.

Fortune 500s buy Bitcoin. Athletes and artists get involved – crypto permeates mainstream culture.

Everyone starts to believe it’s going up forever; delusion seeps into decisions.

Stage 4: Disconnection

This stage could also be described as Insanity. Nothing makes sense anymore.

You have more money than you ever thought you'd have in your life.

Your friend, who knows nothing about crypto, launches a token. He's worth hundreds of millions overnight.

A crypto person buys a sports team.

Justin Bieber joins a decentralized social platform.

Crypto companies spend billions on marketing.

Unfortunately, none of it is real.

If you're not careful, your arrogance and laziness in this stage will cause a tough next two years.

So buckle up.

The next 18 months will be madness. You'll experience higher highs than you ever have before.

Make sure you take time to enjoy it every once in a while.

When you get overwhelmed, step away from the computer, slow down, and go for a walk.

THE RULE OF 10 BEST DAYS 📖

Check it out. I just learned about something called the “Rule of 10 Best Days”.

Here’s what it says:

This has been a trend since 2013. And, so far, it’s happening again this year…

The tricky part is…you don’t know when those 10 days will be. 

The lesson: Stop trying to “time the market”. 

Timing 10 out of 365 days a year, perfectly, is damn near impossible. 

Most people are better off buying, holding, and accumulating over time.

WILL BTC HIT AN ATH BEFORE OR AFTER THE HALVING? 🧐

Earlier this week we ran a poll…

Do you think BTC will hit a new all-time high before or after the Halving?

Well, the results are in… 62.67% of you think it will happen BEFORE.

Here are some of the best responses:

TCleary (voted ‘Before’): “Degens gunna degen… extra guac MF’s.” 

P.S. - I don’t know what’s more epic… TCleary’s one-liner or the fact that they have a 99.7% Milk Road Newsletter open rate. 

Rodolfo (voted ‘After’): “Some government or whale BS will get in the way of BTC reaching ATH before the halving.”

Rusty (voted ‘After’): “It should be after… simply because an afterparty sounds 10x more fun than a beforeparty.”

Pierre (voted ‘Before’): “The game is getting thicker and juicier.”

…*tries to hold it back*.... that’s what she said! (sorry, had to)

We’ll check back in ~50 days (or sooner!) to see who was right and who was wrong.

BITE-SIZED COOKIES FOR THE ROAD 🍪

Liquid staking derivatives here, and restaking protocols there, but are you still stuck on what exactly is crypto staking? Check out the Milk Road guide to Staking, which includes an explainer and answers to a ton of FAQs. There are no dumb questions.

Coinbase saw a massive surge in traffic yesterday. As a result, the app went down and multiple users had issues with their accounts. (On the outside, this looks scary. On the inside, this is music to our ears. It shows retail’s back, baby!)

Gemini will return $1.1B to customers affected by its failed ‘Gemini Earn’ program. If the settlement is approved, then “Earn users can expect to receive approximately 97% of their assets in kind within about two months.” 

Bitcoin ETFs saw $7.6B in trading volume - a new daily record. Plus, Bitcoin ETFs saw a net inflow of $673M… another daily record. BTC’s eating up records for breakfast, lunch, and dinner (and the occasional midnight snack).

The U.S. government moved $952M in seized BTC. Fun Fact: The U.S. government holds $8B+ in BTC. (Uncle Sam is loaded).

Marathon Digital is launching a new platform called Anduro to help users develop Bitcoin sidechains. The Bitcoin miner has already started building its own sidechain, Alys, which focuses on issuing and trading tokenized real-world assets (RWAs). 

Morgan Stanley is thinking about adding spot Bitcoin ETF products to its brokerage platform. Well, well, well… how the tables have turned. From “We wouldn’t touch BTC with a 10-foot pole!” —> “Hmm… maybe just a kiss!”

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DISCLAIMER: None of this is financial advice. This newsletter is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. Please be careful and do your own research.