# Strategic De-Risking Amid Geopolitical Oil Crisis

**Podcast:** The Milk Road Show
**Published:** 2026-03-20

## Transcript

Are there gonna be some people who are buying ETH because everyone's building on top of ETH?
Well, if oil prices are 150 dollars, I don't think so.
What's up, everybody?
It's LG D Set here, and welcome to the Milk Road Show, the daily crypto show, where if you've been pretending not to look at your portfolio this week, this episode might ruin that for you.
Today is March 20th, 2026.
And one of the hardest things in crypto and investing isn't buying, it's selling and knowing when to take a step back.
And today's guest just sold 50% of his portfolio earlier this week.
And that wasn't because the market crashed and not because of some obvious top, but because the signals he watches started flashing yellow.
So today we're gonna break down what made him de-risk, what he sold and what he held, and how he's thinking about what happens next.
Martin, our Milk Road Pro researcher, is on the show to share his portfolio with us, and you can check it out for yourself along with our portfolios from our other four Milk Road analysts in the new Milk Road Pro, which is available for just a dollar right now because we want you guys to come in and check out what we have built.
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The link is below.
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Martin, welcome back, man.
Hey, thank you.
It's good to be back.
Uh yeah, okay, let's talk about this.
Okay, let's dive right into it because we've had we're all scared of the oil crisis and following the war, and we've all become geopolitical experts in the last month.
But nobody on the show, of all the experts we've had, all the guests, nobody has said I'm totally de-risking the way that you have.
So just just tell me what made you realize, and this you did this like Monday morning on my time.
What made you realize realize you needed to cuss cut your risk right now?
Let me just start by saying that I'm not geopolitical or macro expert either.
Um I'm just, you know, crypto guy who is trying to find his ways in in crypto and sort of take advantage of this whole secular trend.
Um, but uh I think if if you would have asked me um a couple months ago, I would be like, Hey, I I'm super bullish here.
I think the business cycle and like the whole ex economy is just accelerating, and you know, crypto will will do just fine.
And I was 100% allocated in the market.
I changed my view pretty quickly because I think my general framework is I want to be allocated fully in the markets when there is a good environment to be fully allocated.
But then when I see some things happening which might uh you know create a risk to that framework, then I need to adjust.
And because there is a conflict in Iran and all that stuff that's going on right there with the oil mainly is affecting everything else.
So it just gave me sort of a signal and like, okay, Martin, let's let's stop for a second and let's revisit whether we are still in that, you know, accelerating a business cycle, or whether that might be at much higher risk right now, whether it's happening or it's not.
Then one of our uh macro experts, Thomas, he also shared his concerns on Sunday, and he also showed a bunch of leading charts, which were all flashing red.
And I was like, okay, this is it.
Um I think the the odds of the growth accelerating are now much lower, and so I wanted to de-risk, and I sold 50% of my portfolio as a result.
So, like, if we go up, I'm fine because I still have 50% in in the markets, and if not, then I am happy that I sold, you know, half of my portfolio as well.
So I'm playing it safe, and uh I think like right now there is uh you know, there are two camps, like some people are like really bullish, some people are like very skeptical right now.
And just if if you listen, if you are listening, uh Paul's talking tomorrow, he was saying, like, hey, we don't really know where the economy is gonna be in like a couple of months.
So, like, you know, how should I know when he doesn't know?
Uh so you know that's a pretty uh basic analogy, but you know, that gives you that uncertainty that it's currently in the market, and I think many people are still ignoring that uh fact, and just like you know, uh, well, crypto was so distressed lately, so it needs to go up from here.
So I'm staying all in, but uh yeah, I decided to sell half half of my portfolio.
And then and then crypto did pop a little bit.
Did that make you reconsider or doubt what you had done because you sold and then and then we went up?
Like Bitcoin went from like 68 to 74, and now we're now we're back to 69.
So now I I doubt you are doubting yourself, but in those couple days where things went up, did you question your decision at all?
Like I wasn't trying to time the very top, like I have no idea.
I've like, you know, we might still go up a couple more days.
I I have no idea.
It's just when I did that decision, I already knew that it was right decision, and it doesn't matter what the output is gonna be, like, okay, that was the right call, it was bad call.
No, uh, I'm just following my framework, so I don't have any emotions, I don't have any ego.
So it's just like okay, it was the right decision, and I'm happy either way, you know.
So who knows where we go from here, but again, it was it was a good call.
And I think many people actually don't have any framework in place, and they are just you know, just uh trying to navigate through crypto Twitter or um some YouTube channels, and like, oh shit, what should I do?
Like, there are two camps, and like, you know, you can always just uh diversify, or you don't need, you know, it's never black and white.
You can always do a things that like okay, what are the odds that this is going to happen?
And like, yeah, I I think people are not doing that exercise at all, and it's uh visual thinking rather than um, you know, like really doing their homeworks, I would say.
So yeah, who knows?
But for me, I'm I'm pretty sure that at the end of the year, when I always reflect my um the whole year and how my portfolio performed and how did I behave, and like did I make some clear mistakes or not.
I'm pretty sure I'm gonna just check this decision as as is a good one because I got data backing that decision.
So uh yeah.
And just for people's information, that signal from Thomas actually came directly in the Discord in the macro channel.
So pro members can have access to our entire community in there, uh, where people like Thomas and Martin uh are available every day basically for questions.
But Tom has hit us like like Sunday morning.
I guess it's probably Sunday afternoon in Europe, but Sunday morning for me at 4 a.m.
with literally a huge message with like six, seven different charts, and the title of the message, which things are deteriorating rapidly, uh, and that he's now essentially risk-off.
You can he even said you can ignore everything I wrote in my recent pro report, which was at the start of the month, which is why I wanted to give this update.
So um, you know, Martin, you're kind of changing uh your thinking here, and also uh, you know, kind of based on Thomas also changing his and and getting inspired a little bit by that.
But he made this case that everybody else has been making that um, or that we've been hearing a lot that Brent Crude was back above a hundred dollars, and that he doesn't see how things could get better anytime soon, and that he doesn't think that this is a taco situation either.
And he showed a lot of different charts showing that the market is starting to react to this, right?
And that that could indicate that things are are are going to deteriorate soon.
So um anybody wants to see that?
It is available in uh in the pro Discord.
Um, and and we can link you to the message after as well.
So that's very helpful.
And and thank you to Thomas for writing that.
Uh, here's a question for you, Martin.
Um, how at this point in time right now, how likely do you think it is that we will see this pullback that you you are kind of anticipating with your move?
Well, I I just shared uh pro report like a couple days ago, and I listed three scenarios.
I think one of them is uh bull case, which is still sort of a base case for me, which means that all the conflict uh will get resolved pretty soon, and the all prices will go back down, and you know, it's still um it might still just slow down the the economic growth, but it won't affect it like significantly.
So that's still my base case.
But the longer the longer the stride is closed, the the lower the chances that we are gonna see uh a bull case.
So I said like maybe remove a couple percentage of that uh probability every day if this trade keeps closed, so you know the probability just decreasing uh over time.
Then there is a base case, which is uh sorry, uh chopping markets where I think the markets will go sideways, and it it's just the oil prices might be around 90 or 100 bucks uh for a couple of months, and I think it would still uh not bring recession um to the markets, but it will certainly uh cause a significant slowdown and you know uh cause some hiccups on on that trajectory that we were all hoping that's gonna happen.
Um so not the best scenario, but also not the worst one.
So um it's pretty decent.
I think maybe stocks will go sideways, you know, crypto was quite distressed, and I think some crypto projects that have you know traction and frag market fit and revenue and buybacks can can do well even in that in that environment, probably something like stablecoins and perpetuals and you know, um, those those projects can still do well, and but then there is a burcase scenario, which is getting more and more uh likely, I think, and that's when all oil prices are just gonna explode, and we are gonna see oil, you know, uh sustaining level price levels around 120 or even more, and that's gonna affect the whole economy because you know, obviously, oil is uh is significant input into the economy, and if oil prices are just that high, the economy is not likely gonna grow, and that's gonna affect everything else, including you know, prices of stocks and liquidity, and of course crypto as well.
So that's something that I'm quite afraid of, and that's why I I sold uh part of my portfolio.
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Okay, let's let's actually reveal what you sold.
I feel like this is what people want to know.
And again, you can see this at your leisure in pro.
You can see what Kyle did and Melvin and Vincent and John, who also hosts the shows.
You can see what John's portfolio looks like.
He did not sell anything, although you can go in and ask him about that.
But Martin, I'm gonna pull up your chart of what you sold and how much of it you sold, okay?
So this is it.
This is in the report uh that Martin wrote this week.
50%.
I sold 50% of my portfolio.
Just look at the chart here.
Uh Martin, talk me through these holdings and why you chose to sell a hundred percent of some, 50, 80% of others, and why you kept some down, you know, you kept quite a good amount of some other tokens.
So we can start what I sold, like everything.
And I sold cow and pendulum, all my positions.
Well, the reason is for people who follow me or who are in the community, they know that I love cow.
I'm quite active there in the in their uh governance and on the aforementioners as well.
Um but I simply don't want to hold something that doesn't have a significant buybacks that create a constant sell buy pressure on the price.
There are buybacks in cow, and but those buybacks are just there to offset the new emissions.
Um so the net buy pressure is there is still some net buy pressure, but not that much that should you know reprice this token regardless of the environment.
So unfortunately, sometimes it's hard to sell your your positions where you you are somehow actively contributing to um, but you know, I'm always trying to put emotions aside, and it just tells me I don't want to hold any token that again is not buying back their own tokens and creating a significant buy pressure, and by significant buy pressure I mean how much money they are spending on those buybacks compared to their market caps.
Okay, so if if if the market cap is 100 million and they are buying back 10 million, 10 million per year, that's significant uh buy pressure, and I want to hold that token, but that's not happening here.
Panel, panel's business is very dependent on yields that are available on chain.
And right now, there is still a lot of yield that's coming from um the traditional uh borrowing markets in crypto, which is like Ave, uh, Morpho, um, or Athena or Syrup.
Like, and those yields are right now generating pretty low yields, so the whole volatility and trading volumes on yield markets, which is what Pendle provides, are quite low, and therefore their revenues are also quite sick quite down quite sharply, to be honest.
So they are sort of correlating with with the whole sentiment, what's going on in the markets.
So, and the buy the pressure of buybacks is you know quite minimal.
And then um Sky, 80%.
Again, like I have been bullish on Sky forever, feels like um, but the thing is that right now Sky reduced their buyback buybacks by 90%.
Um I like their business, it's I think they they are gonna going to have a huge growth um ahead of them.
Um but right now we are in the face of the market where people don't really care about fundamentals, they only care about okay, what who is going uh who is doing uh a huge buybacks, and and so am I, because they are not new buyers yet.
So, and you know, because I sold 50 percent, I also don't expect that we are gonna see a new wave of investors coming in, because if we are uh going into recession or you know, the the broader markets SP 500 is going down from here, like people are not gonna reallocate their capital from SP 500 and buying you know Sky.
So I I'm not naive here, and if there are no buybacks, like okay, um I'm still like I'm still bullish and I still like the project, but I just don't want to hold that much right now.
This is pretty much similar case, they reduce their buybacks, there are some internal wars and key contributors are leaving, so I'm not like super happy what's happening there again.
I remain bullish long term, but uh in the short term, not really.
And if the whole if if the whole narrative of economy going into uh reduced growth or like you know, going into uh a fear, I don't think people are gonna buy uh Ala either, and again, their buybacks are quite minimal compared to market cap, and then there is Syrup, which is still getting um a nice uh nice growth and resilience despite the market turmoil, but uh their uh buybacks multiple is just not that big, so I'm like, okay, again, a good project, good business, but um who's gonna buy my syrup bags?
Um, I don't know, and then there is you know, layer ones, ETH and so all, and a lot of people asked about that.
I think they both have huge premiums.
Um I think Solana uh specifically is more uh driven by fees, and the valuation of Solana can be uh more justified by the fees it generates, yet the the multiple is is pretty high.
So, you know, when there are tough times, it's gonna be hard for Solana to justify even high fee multiples.
Um, so I'm not really sure what's going on there, and uh I just sold you know almost 70 percent.
And for ETH, I think it's similar story, but I think ETH might not, it's not trading uh based on how much fees it generates, it's more about is it really a better um store of value?
Like uh is it gonna replace Bitcoin as a digital gold or well, not necessarily replacing uh Bitcoin as a digital gold, but is it maybe a better version of Bitcoin?
Because there's a staking yield, and you know, the monetary policy is much better and sustainable, uh, which is not case for Bitcoin.
So it all makes sense, but at the same time, are there some people who are gonna change their minds and who are gonna buy ETH in like the next few months because of it's better than Bitcoin?
I don't think so.
Are there gonna be some people who are buying ETH because everyone's building on top of ETH?
Well, if oil prices are 150 dollars, I think people doesn't really people don't care about Ethereum at all, or you know, who is the best infrastructure for this new digital economy.
Again, remain bullish, but um struggle to see uh near-term catalyst for ETH to uh significantly outperform and figure and then and hold on, I'm just gonna interrupt you there because that's that's everything that you sold more than half your holdings, right?
Because that's ETH 56%, Sol 63%, 64%, Syrup, Ave, and Sky between 65 and 80, and then pendulum Cal, you sold 100%.
So everything from here on is stuff that you sold less than 50% of your holdings, so you're still holding a good amount of it.
Yeah, exactly.
So there is figure 50%.
I just uh I made a report about Figure a couple of weeks ago, and I just loved their business.
I think that the market's still not really know this company, but I think the founder and their whole business is very strong.
But the problem is that their business is around lending.
And we also know that there is a problem in in private um private credit.
And I'm also not sure what if we are heading into you know economy recession or um some downturn from here I am worried about their business whether it can also sustain and survive if they are going through sort of a situation where some people might not be able to repay their debts and how that platform is gonna survive that because you know in the previous cycles it was it was much much lower and it wasn't such a big company yet.
I I I want to believe that they are resilient and they are gonna survive and they have proper risk management in place but uh I don't want to just bet my money on it and like hope for the best.
So you know i if if the risk in the markets is um less apparent then I'm gonna um add more figure but at this point it's the same story as with the whole uh cycle pretty much.
And then so you sold 50% of figure and then you have eight more tokens that you're still holding quite a bit of okay Dan Robinhood.
I think Robin Hood is is a great stock but it's like the majority of their business is just retail trading and I don't think that retail is gonna trade like crazy when there are not good times and people are losing jobs and you know so not really sure about hood.
I also I also sold um almost 50% of Galaxy and um it's simply because this stock is still priced just based on their crypto business so if uh things are not doing well I think galaxy will will go down as well but this is the first stock I wanna uh buy uh back in because um for me galaxy is not just about their crypto business but it's more about their AI business and I think they are gonna bring first um ai revenues in Q2 so you know we might have like three more months um and then I think the stock will be um repriced uh significantly so um once I decide to to start deploying back to the markets um I want I want to make sure that galaxy will be uh one of the the biggest ones uh I'll deploy into again.
And then um Bitcoin, um I think there's still chance that if everything is doing poorly and going down, some people might just go and buy Bitcoin and you know, similar story story to to gold.
So like when everything's going down, people tend to go to either cash or gold, and maybe we are already in in the state where people might prefer Bitcoin because it's a better version than gold.
Tesla, that's my only AI stock because I think that the whole AI sector is quite uh expensive and overpriced.
Well, to be honest, Tesla is overpriced as well.
But if you look ahead and think about what Tesla is building today, it's really amazing.
And now robot taxis are hitting serious production, and you know I think they're already uh manufacturing them right now.
So I'm very bullish on that part of the business.
Plus, they also finally figure out the ARM arm for um humanoid robots for Optimus, because that was the last thing that really needed to be fixed, and it's super hard to build the the human arm.
And I think um Musk said in some podcasts that Optimus 3 um is in production and it it should have like very capable um hand as well.
So um I just don't want to sell a Tesla and then see Tesla going up because I think it's it might be ignoring economy when they just keep shipping Optimus 3 and Robo taxis with everything else they are doing, improving FSD and improving their batteries.
So I just don't want to miss that train.
And like I'm DCA ing into Tesla pretty much all the time.
And then there is pump, which might be surprising to some people, but because many people still see pump as a meme coin casino, and they're probably right, but that casino still has a lot of customers, and they are still making a shit ton of money, and it's not slowing down.
You can see the charts of their revenues and buybacks, and it's just super resilient, like much more than people would expect, and they are doing um something around 500 million uh worth of buybacks per year, and their market cap is maybe 1.3 billion right now.
So the multiple of buybacks to to market cap is just like 2.3 or something like that, which is telling me like at some point the buybacks itself are just gonna pump the price like significantly.
And then there is Coinbase.
I think Coinbase can get an narrative even in markets go down because they're building um all the infrastructure for companies who want to move on-chain.
They're uh also getting that stablecoin narrative.
They're providing stable coins as a product as well.
So if anyone wants to uh build their own stable coins, they can use their their services.
And just in general, I think Coinbase build a lot of a lot of products that are still not translating into the company earnings, but eventually they will, and it's it will need to be repriced.
Uh, because again, those are invisible today, but we know that they are building them, and they might be minor today, but in three years, they they could be you know pretty significant.
And then the last two are hype and lighter.
Those are perpetuals protocols, both of them.
Hype is obviously a leader.
Um, and I think just yesterday, volumes on hyperliquid real-world assets volumes just surpassed like you know, crypto's volumes.
So that's pretty that's pretty sick.
So I think perpetuals exchanges can outperform even if uh markets go down.
Because if if that's happening, it means that more volatility is coming through the markets, and more volatility and volumes means like better, better um revenues and buybacks for for those protocols.
So I think those can sort of still return some value to investors despite the market conditions.
Thanks for explaining all that, Martin.
And uh yeah, obviously a really big week for hyperliquid uh with the SP futures trading on there as well, right?
Probably driving a lot of that volume, and it's pretty wild to see that they're their their volume for non-crypto things is now bigger than their actual crypto volume.
Uh so it gives you sense of the state of things.
Uh, I'm just gonna flip over to to kind of just show you guys a little bit more.
Actually, first of all, I want you guys to know that you're listening that Martin wrote a pro report this week that was basically detailing all this, and that every week he writes a pro report about similar things.
Uh uh, there was the figure report a few weeks ago.
Next week you're writing a report about SoFi as well, which I've gotten a preview of, which has been nice.
Uh, and you even wrote a report a month ago, Martin, that was four tokens I'm buying right now that had a lot of these tokens.
It had Jupiter, Pendle, uh, pump and syrup in there.
And you kind of gave us the yes or no on those, but obviously that thesis has changed, but uh very valuable when it came out.
I want to flip over really quick to the actual portfolio leaderboards.
This is another fun part of the new Milk Road Pro.
Martin is in the lead, he is absolutely annihilating everybody else right now.
So Martin is definitely, if you want to pay a dollar to go pro and see what else Martin is up to, that's that's really the value because Martin is absolutely just destroying these other guys.
This leaderboard is literally just like three weeks old.
We just started this uh in Milk Road Pro a few weeks back, so obviously it'll evolve over time.
Um, but what's really interesting here, Martin, is that you and John are the leaders.
Melvin and Vincent, who are on our AI team, our AI researchers, are at the bottom, and Kyle is in the middle.
And that really reflects kind of the state of how things have moved in the last couple weeks, right?
Because when we started this, I think we kind of started it at a bit of a local top for the AI stocks uh and a bit of a local bottom for crypto.
And as a result, now you're seeing them kind of fluctuate.
Uh, and I'm really keen to see how this kind of plays out over time, right?
Where we have we have clear AI people, we have clear crypto people, we have Kyle right in the middle.
Uh, and we'll see how this kind of you know plays out.
But for now, for now, Martin's in the lead.
And if you want to see what the rest of these guys are holding in their portfolios, uh, you can go and check that out uh in Milk Road Pro.
So uh Martin, one last question for you uh before we wrap out here and let people get on with their weekends.
What would make you buy back in?
You gave us kind of like the bullish choppy bear case, but at this point, you're sitting, you're sitting nicely in cash.
You that's a nice position to be in uh in a very uncertain market.
So, you know, looking at it that way, that's really nice.
You have fifth 49% of your portfolio here in cash.
What would make you redeploy that?
Well, taking checking oil today, it's plus two percent, spy is down one percent.
So uh it suggests a just uh I'm not gonna.
I think once I see that the risks of the business cycle improving or like going down significantly.
So I feel much more confident about the business cycle, you know.
Um, um keep accelerating or just growing.
I already deploy, but it's not happening yet.
And and I'm not looking just at oil prices, and if if they just you know um go back to uh decent levels, let's say to 80 or something, I'm not gonna like okay, this is it, and I'm moving back.
I also want to see all the leading indicators that you know some of our macro guys are um presenting and commanding regularly that those improved because those are at the end of the day, those are the inputs into the the business cycle sort of formula.
So if those are not improving, they are still flushing red while uh oil is trading at you know 80 80 bucks, I'm still not buying it.
I'm also not buying it when Trump is gonna say, okay, we found a solution, tomorrow war is gonna be over, uh, all good.
Um, like I want to see it in in raw data, and I'm not just buying any of this.
I don't want to say noise, but you know, like I'm not I'm not indexing just to one specific metric.
I just want to see that the broader picture is improving and that the risks are also on my side, and my confidence in in uh markets going up from here are much much higher.
And until that changes, I'm I'm staying uh in a way that I have 50% portfolio out, and it might also happen that I might also sell even more and get more into cash.
So, you know, like I'm open to to like both moves or just staying where I am right now.
Um, so I know that it's not probably answer you wanted me to say, like, hey, I'm doing this when this exactly happened, but like it's never that.
Um, so you always need to adjust, and um, that's what I'm trying to do.
Well, I mean, that's also, you know, we don't know when these things could change, right?
So even what you're describing, it's like that could happen next week, very unlikely, but it could.
Um, and I think I'm personally really curious to see when and if that happens, what you're gonna redeploy back into, right?
Are you gonna buy back the same stuff you're talking about, or is enough time gonna have passed that maybe you'll be bullish uh on other items, other tokens that you want to check out.
And I think that that's um unfortunately for people who listening, listening who aren't pro members yet.
That's stuff that's only gonna be for pro members.
You guys have to go in and check it out.
Uh, and if you want to see this portfolio or anything else, again, it's a dollar for two weeks.
So um, you know, we really want you guys to check it out.
Our loyal listeners.
Um, we've talked about Milk Road Pro a million times on the show.
We always promote it, but this is this is a significant upgrade that our team's been working on all year.
Uh, and there are a lot of other upgrades coming up.
Um, and and in there you can you can finally see what Martin is actually holding, uh, as well as everybody else and a lot of other cool features.
So, Martin, uh thanks for coming on the show, man.
Good to see you again.
And uh everybody else have yourselves a great weekend.
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