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GM. This is Milk Road. The newsletter that DID NOT launch its own token. This ain’t us 👇

(We will only ever contact you from @mail.milkroad.com or @milkroad.com addresses – stay safe out there folks). 

Here’s what we got for you today:

BITCOIN BREAKOUT: CONFIRMED 🫡

👉Bitcoin…

👉The McRib…

👉That rash on your forearm…

They’re all back baaaaaaaaaaby! 

Dialing in on that first point: around this time last week, we wrote the following…

The only thing that was holding us back from reaching ‘shadow boxing in public’ levels of excitement in that moment was the fact that the weekly candle (pictured above) hadn’t closed yet.

And breakouts can’t be confirmed until the candle closes.

…well – at exactly 8 pm Eastern Daylight Time last night – we got that confirmation.

The descending channel has been broken and the weekly downward trend has come to an end! 💪🎉

And it looks like the rest of the crypto market wants to follow suit:

We’re not in the business of counting our chickens before they roost…BUT!

If the $BTC ETFs continue their inflow momentum ($2.13B, last week alone) – we could well see the total crypto market cap confirm its breakout…

And with it, bring us into a “long yellow fruit-like” zone of price appreciation 🍌.

STRIPE ACQUIRES STABLECOIN PLATFORM BRIDGE FOR $1.1B 💰

This is a big one! 

Literally. It’s the largest acquisition in crypto history.

Stripe just acquired Bridge (a stablecoin payments platform, previously valued at $200M), for $1.1B. 

So what does that tell us?

1/ The big dogs want in

Stripe is one of the world’s largest online payments companies – second only to PayPal (who have already aped into the stablecoin space with their $PYUSD stablecoin).

Together they own 62.72% of the payment processing technology market:

Why do they want in? The instant settlement and low fees offered by stablecoins is cool – but it’s most likely to ensure they’re not getting left behind.

2/ They’re in the market for tech n’ talent (not users)

Stripe’s probably not going to see any meaningful bump in user count after this acquisition (if the above graph tells us anything, it’s that they’ve pretty much got that on lock).

What they’re buying here is time. Time saved hiring/organizing talent, and building a stablecoin platform that can compete with the likes of Bridge.

3/ This is a big flashing neon sign, pointed at VC’s: “There’s more than one way to exit”

Translation: more investment and more innovation, incoming.

The view from 1000ft?

The two largest payment providers in the 5.82 trillion dollar global ecommerce space are adopting crypto as quickly as regulators will allow. 

(Say it with us now).

“Bullish!”

BITE-SIZED COOKIES FOR THE ROAD 🍪

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Global crypto investment products saw $2.2 billion in weekly inflows, the largest since July 2024. This was driven primarily by strong ETF inflows over the past week. - DL NEWS

Vitalik Buterin has identified staking centralization as one of the biggest risks to Ethereum. This issue stems from the fact that platforms like Lido control a significant portion of staked $ETH.

Leader of Japan’s Democratic Party has pledged to lower crypto taxes to 20% if elected. Currently, crypto gains in Japan can be taxed as high as 55%.

Transak recently disclosed a data breach affecting over 57,000 users. The breach involved sensitive user information, and the attackers are demanding a ransom for the stolen data.

* this is sponsored content and not financial advice

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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.