GM. This is Milk Road, the daily newsletter that goes down like an ice-cold Gatorade in 100-degree heat.

Here’s what we got for you today:

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ETHEREUM’S “COMEBACK TOUR” CONTINUES 💪

“Success is the best form of revenge.” 

Is this: 

A) A cryptic Facebook post made by my uncle Alan after his most recent break up (paired with a photo of him ‘spending big’ at the Casio flagship store in New York)?

OR

B) The current mantra of every Ethereum bull after half the industry spent the past two years calling it a ‘dead chain’.

If you answered “C) Both” – you are correct!

…oh, and while we’re on the subject of Ethereum kicking goals – we have updates: 

Our ‘$ETH will become a larger treasury asset than $BTC’ thesis recently made new progress, meanwhile Ethereum has been killing it in both onchain and offchain net flows. 

Check this out. 👇

1/ Bit Digital is rebuilding its entire business around Ethereum

Yuh. The publicly traded Bitcoin mining company is transitioning into an Ethereum-native treasury and staking firm.

27,000 $ETH is held as of this writing. 417 $BTC is being phased out. Ouch.

2/ The $ETH ETFs have been vacuuming up cash

Since May 16th, there has been a total of 4 days of $ETH ETF net outflows. 

Every other trading day has seen inflows, netting $1.37B+. This is *checks notes*... 

Bullish.

3/ Ethereum leads net inflows for 2025

Of all the chains out there, Ethereum has absorbed the most cash in 2025 ($6.7B in total)!

For context, Ethereum is outpacing Sonic (which holds the #2 spot for net inflows) by more than 5x!

The takeaway: Ethereum is about as ‘dead’ as my uncle Alan is ‘subtle’.

TOP 5 TAKEAWAYS FROM PERMISSIONLESS IV ✍️

This week we were at Permissionless IV, helping our Head of Sales, Jonny, achieve a long-held goal of replacing his entire wardrobe with crypto merch.

(Complete with a 2021-era FTX backpack.) 👇

Here are our top 5 takeaways from the event:

1/ Bitcoin yield and $BTC treasury companies dominated the conversation

A large part of our ‘$ETH will eventually outpace $BTC as a treasury asset’ thesis is based on the fact that Ethereum is a productive asset. 

(I.e. You can earn more of it just by holding/staking it.)

But it’s not as if this edge is lost on the Bitcoin investment community – they’re working hard to create third-party investment products that will generate Bitcoin yield. 

E.g. Maple Finance (which our PRO team wrote about here), or Bitcoin treasury companies like $MSTR.

Oh, and semi-scary side note: a lot of people are starting to worry that a glut of over-leveraged $BTC treasury companies could bring the next black swan event.

2/ Retail is out, institutions are in

How do we know?

DJ sets have been swapped for cocktail hours, animal onesies have been traded for collared shirts, and pseudonymous Twitter handles have been replaced with corporate titles.

3/ Crypto is building for TradFi

TradFi isn’t bending to DeFi, and DeFi isn’t bending to TradFi. Instead, they’re blending.

E.g. Crypto builders are already building fully compliant KYC’d (Know Your Customer) pools of crypto capital, allowing TradFi customers to lend and borrow crypto – without getting a knock at their door from the SEC.

4/ TradFi demand isn’t being met

While we’re on the topic of TradFi compliant crypto investment options: there aren’t enough of them!

Coinbase and Circle are reaching new financial milestones every other day, ‘cause they’re one of the only few publicly traded (aka: TradFi-friendly) crypto companies.

The takeaway here: expect a flurry of IPOs over the next 12 months or so.

5/ General sentiment on market peaks has shifted

At last year’s Permissionless, the general consensus was that 2025 would be the year of the crypto cycle top…

This has since been pushed back, thanks to the tariff-driven growth scare. 

2025’s outlook is still very much positive – but the collective sentiment is now leaning towards a 2026 market peak.

(“Higher for longer”? We’ll take it.)

Alright, that’s everything we’ve got for you this year.

Check back in 12 months for our Permissionless V recap. 🫡 

BITE-SIZED COOKIES FOR THE ROAD 🍪

We’ve dropped a review on TRES Finance that simplifies your crypto finances. It pulls in all your DeFi transactions and spits out clean, audit-ready reports. No more spreadsheet chaos.

Kraken is diversifying. It’s entering the global payments space with its new product called Krak.

Sell the news. Cathie Wood’s Ark Invest sells shares of Coinbase as $COIN hits ATHs.

Activity on Virtuals might be down but it’s nowhere near dead. Here are 3 tokens LG’s keeping a close eye on in the Virtuals ecosystem.

Top-up, purchase and withdrawal fees? Nope. Not when you use your MoonPay Balance. Get the MoonPay app and start growing your crypto, without the pesky fees!**
**this is partner content.

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