# Geopolitical Risks and Ethereum Governance Shifts

**Podcast:** The Milk Road Show
**Published:** 2026-05-26

## Transcript

So if you're willing to give up your right to own your own assets, to custody your own assets, to have any degree of individual liberty and sovereignty, if you're willing to give that up to get security from someone else, eventually you're going to lose both.
What's up, everybody?
It's LGD said here and welcome to the Milk Road Show, the daily crypto show.
They can't decide if privacy is a real meta in crypto because who the hell would want to see me be down 80% of my coins?
Today is May 26, 2026, I think.
The war in Iran is over.
Or is it?
As many enjoyed their long weekend, we were greeted by the potentially...
uplifting news that the conflict was resolved and that it was finally time for the great golden pump of 2026 but alas nothing is ever as it seems in today's political climate Speaking of war, today's guest and co-host has a brand new name.
WartimeEthereum.eth is on the show, aka John Gillen, my wonderful co-host, is here to spread the gospel about the world's ultrasound money after the infidels finally called it quits last week.
Today's episode is brought to you by CAPE, the privacy-first mobile carrier, Nexo, Earn Interest, Borrow, and Trade Crypto, and Kalshi, where your takes finally pay out.
What's up, wartime?
I like how you make this sound like I'm a religious leader and like some fanatical zealot.
But that is a little bit of the vibes here.
Yeah, well, Ethereum lost their religious leader, one of their religious leaders last week, man.
So I feel like it's an appropriate way to introduce you.
You have a new ENS domain, which is wartimeetherium.eth.
So congratulations on that.
That's a big 10 bucks spent.
And, you know, I'm excited to chat.
We have a lot to go through.
Yesterday, I had a scene on the show.
We did discuss the Ethereum quabbles.
And John, I do want to save a lot of time in our show today to discuss that.
Usually we do these episodes on Mondays.
We didn't have the chance to yesterday.
So we're doing it today on Tuesday.
We always look to you as our macro guy to kind of walk us through what's happening on the geopolitical side and on the Fed.
So I would like to just spend a few minutes just covering that.
Last night in our Milk Road Pro Discord, you went on a couple of hilarious rants, one of them being about kind of what I said in the intro that, you know, we thought this thing was done, but it is not, and that the whole planet is burning reserves and that it can't go on much longer.
John, what is the status of the situation that we are monitoring?
Well, first of all, LG, it's great to be back with you.
We usually do these on Mondays, but I'm glad we waited until Tuesday because a lot of things happened on Monday.
Yeah, so there's a lot of pieces.
There's a lot happening this week.
It's a really exciting time to be in markets and as a market commentator in digital assets and other places.
Okay, so the conflict with Iran, there was an announcement by President Trump that a peace deal had been, quote, largely negotiated, which is different than bigly negotiated, which is a pun that I made in our Milk Road Macro newsletter today.
But after the announcement that this ceasefire had been extended and that they had largely come to terms on a lot of things that they'd been negotiating over and sort of put time boxes around further negotiations around Iran turning over their nuclear materials and so forth.
Immediately after that, there was a strike by Israel in Lebanon.
Iran started laying mines in the strait and the United States launched what they called, I think, self-defense strikes, which is.
It's just anyway.
So they did that.
And then they said that that doesn't violate the ceasefire.
So there's still a ceasefire, even though everybody started shooting.
And so that's kind of the state of play right now.
The reason that the market is so bullish on this and why we've seen oil sell off and the markets rally so hard is that this does look like the first time we've seen some actual concrete steps towards peace.
But I do think it's another example of Iran really trying to draw this out as long as they can because they know that this is sort of like their one shot to use this leverage to get the best deal that they can.
The longer this goes on, the greater the pain becomes.
The closer we get to midterms, the higher the risk for President Trump.
And the less likely he is to put boots on the ground because they know that that will be a longer-term operation if they do that, and that will hurt him a lot in the midterms.
And he doesn't want to do that.
Nobody in America wants to do boots on the ground over there.
There's just a lot of uncertainty still about when this resolves, but the markets are looking through it and saying this seems positive.
It seems like oil is going to begin to move oil and a lot of other things are going to begin to move through the strait.
So that should be positive.
The reason why this is so important for markets is and why this is becoming a fight at the Federal Reserve.
The inflation impact of this energy shock that we're seeing is starting to really mature materialize in the data.
on inflation and the forward-looking data on inflation, the CPI and the PPI prints, as we discussed in prior episodes, came in really hot from April.
And so we're expecting that to continue.
Yesterday, Fed Governor Waller, Chris Waller, who's the New York Fed governor from the New York Fed, he gave a speech in Germany basically saying that the easing policy stance of the Federal Reserve has to change, that cutting rates here is a crazy thing to do, and that he thinks that it's now time to start considering rate hikes.
So it looks like Warsh coming into his first FOMC meeting, this is what I wrote about in our Milkord Macro newsletter today, but Warsh coming into his first FOMC meeting in July might have a situation where he's been appointed by a president who wants him to cut rates, and he wants to cut rates, and the Fed Board of Governors might say, well, if inflation is this high, We're going to favor a rate hike here, actually.
And so there's going to be a fight amongst the board of governors and the Fed about what to do over policy.
Between now and July, if this conflict can actually resolve, if oil and energy do start to move and those inflation pressures seem like there's reason to believe they'll come down, maybe the Fed will look through this and they won't hike rates.
But there's just a lot at stake.
And this has gone on so long now that there's starting to be an impact on policy.
and the potential path of policy, both monetary policy and fiscal policy.
So that's just a little bit of what's going on there and the updates from the weekend from Memorial Day.
But yeah, there's a ceasefire and the explosions in the straight-up form moves have been mostly peaceful this weekend.
So that's all progress, I think.
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Peaceful explosions.
Self-defense, peaceful explosions.
Yes, that's a new term yet again.
Yet again, in this type of presidency, we're greeted with new terms that didn't exist before.
This time coined by you, Mr.
Wartime.
John, did you mention in there, did you mention about anything about the, and again, we're getting very into geopolitics here, but this is my only other question on this.
Did you mention anything about the nuclear side of the deal.
Cause I feel like that's just the only thing that is really sticking.
Like everybody wants oil to flow through.
Like there's no contention about that.
It feels like, or that if there is, it's very little, but that's always a sticking point is, is that done or not?
And it, that doesn't feel like either side would ever budge on it.
It seems like Iran is now open to.
a negotiation around this, but the terms of that haven't been figured out yet.
So the way I understand this, and this again, just my reading of this, but the way I understand this, they have 30 to 60 days to negotiate some kind of an agreement around this and turning this over.
Now, whether that.
involves the United States going in and extracting the materials or Iran turning them over to Russia or to some other third party entity, non-governmental agency that supervises nuclear materials that wants to go in and supervise the destruction or removal of them or whatever that looks like.
They have a month, two months to sort of figure out what that looks like.
But I think that Iran is intentionally trying to drag that out as long as they can as well because they know that that's a big goal for Trump.
And as long as they have that, they have some sort of leverage on him.
So it's just nuclear dust that they're not really going to be able to enrich ever.
But they also know that as long as they don't give it up, even if it's just in a hole in the ground that they can't get to because the United States shoots anybody who goes to that hole in the ground, they know it's a negotiating tactic.
It's a poker chip.
It's one of the few pieces of leverage they have left.
a thing that'll be continued to be negotiated around.
And there's a lot of different, maybe we'll do this, maybe we'll do that about how to handle that.
But Iran hasn't agreed to anything yet.
And I think they're trying to delay that agreement as long as they can for strategic advantage.
I see.
Okay.
And last week, I think you had Andreas from Real Vision on our macro show.
And you guys largely discussed this, but I think you also discussed what I've asked you many times as well.
And I feel like you're a good source for this.
I would love to kind of hear a little summary preview of that episode for anybody who wants to check it out.
But the effect on resources from this, right, which is something that we know is going to creep, continue to creep into people's wallets and into the economy, regardless of what happens from the conflict from this point forward.
And that basically right now, everybody's burning reserves, like I said, and that it really, that really cannot continue.
Yeah, so.
The episode with Andreas is, I think, a really good one and very helpful.
He is a fantastic analyst, world class, from Real Vision, which is a friend of the channel.
Just everybody at Real Vision is a friend of Milk Roads.
But yeah, he called us.
He and I both have facial hair or had facial hair until he shaved.
And he said we're the two Chewbacca's of macro, which is another term that I think is hilarious.
So I'm accumulating nicknames pretty fast here.
So Andreas' thoughts on this.
I think he can speak for himself.
Go watch the episode.
Go check out his work because he's putting out a lot of great content on this.
But I think that the way I view this is this gets back to, I think, something that Governor Waller said in his speech, which is that it's not just an energy shock.
There seems to be structural increases in inflation across a lot of things because energy is an input into everything else that we produce.
All these goods and services take energy to bring to market.
And because rising energy costs have been sort of a systemic thing.
That's sort of being felt in almost every aspect of the economy and in consumer goods and so forth.
And so they think that the Fed governor is basically saying, hey, it looks like there's structural increase in inflation here and not just an energy shock.
So that's something where I think the Fed is going to watch that to see how that plays out, because that's not something where you get one month of data and you can make that determination.
Andreas basically said that we, in his estimate, have four to six weeks.
for this conflict to go on without a clear ceasefire before he gets to the point where he thinks that the Fed is going to actually seriously pivot towards rate hikes.
Now, that will be before the July FOMC meeting.
So basically, like we have basically up to about two weeks before the next Fed meeting to get a resolution in place, or he thinks that it's going to be more likely that the Fed does ultimately.
tilt in that direction of rate hikes.
And, you know, I think that I agree with Andreas and I think that's what governor Waller is doing by making this speech is sort of like a little bit of informal forward guidance.
And it's not coming from Jerome Powell himself because he does Powell doesn't want to be seen to like.
be subverting Warsh's leadership openly, although behind the scenes, I'm sure there's debates about that.
But Waller's making this to sort of give overtones to the market that, hey, this might be bigger than just an energy shock.
This inflation risk might be more systemic and structural than we previously thought because they've been looking through this energy shock for months now.
And they're starting to say, hey, we may have to hike here because there's so much rising costs of everything else.
But again, I think it's still depending on.
Do we get the straight open?
Maybe the conflict keeps going, but we reach some sort of compromise where the straight is moving and things are going through there.
So we'll have to see.
I think it's just like getting really close to that decision point and the Fed starting to make noises of like, hey, we might have to take action here.
But the thing that Andreas points out and a lot of people have pointed out, which is that.
Raising interest rates doesn't help with the supply-side crisis.
It's not going to print more oil.
It's going to destroy demand and the economy.
And this is what matters for people who are investors in digital assets and in AI stocks and technology.
Because if we do see this pivot on monetary policy towards a more of a hawkish tone or rate hikes and a more restrictive monetary policy and fiscal situation, that will reduce the appetite for risk assets.
It'll reduce the size and growth and speed and velocity of growth of the economy.
And so it just kind of puts a damper on things.
The Fed can only do demand destruction through raising interest rates.
It can't.
print oil.
It can't, you know, open the straight.
It can't do anything like that.
So, um, it's not a great outcome.
It's kind of like pumping the brakes on the whole global economy because we don't have enough fuel to keep running this hot.
Um, and so I don't think anybody in the West wants to see that.
So we're all hoping that this peace agreement comes through and that we get the straight open.
And that next fed meeting is in on June 17th, right?
On June 16th, 17th, I think.
I haven't looked exactly, but yeah, it's coming up.
I think it's about that.
Right.
Okay.
Wow.
Okay.
So that is definitely like a pretty big looming kind of catalyst.
I do want to kind of pivot to crypto in a second and kind of talk about what it means for that.
But shout out to one of our sponsors, Calci.
I'm just looking at their dashboard right now.
And the chances, the Fed decision in June, the Fed maintains the rates is at 96% so that nothing would change and that a cut has 4% and a hike has 2%.
tabulation works on Cal Street.
I guess each of those are individual questions on Cal Street.
But anyways, the chances of a hike is literally like one to 2% on Cal Street.
So if you think that that would happen, that's a pretty good opportunity.
That's a nice, you're going to get a nice 50, 100 X return.
And even just to kind of, you know, circle back around to what we said, the chances of a U.S.
Iran nuclear deal before September are only 47% and only 61% before it.
uh december so and only before june i mean that's only five days to six percent so not not something the market is really the pricing the market is not or at least whoever's betting on this stuff is not anticipating a nuclear deal anytime soon but also not anticipating much action from the fed at the first meeting with with kevin warship right yeah i realized i missed earlier.
I said July, I meant June.
So that's, yeah, the June is the next meeting.
That's correct.
Yeah.
Yeah, it is in June.
Yeah.
So it's pretty, well, that's what I'm saying.
It's pretty soon, but doesn't look like at least this part of the market anticipates.
much to change just yet.
John, let's pivot to crypto.
It's a great time to pivot to crypto for anybody who likes equities or anybody who likes anything really, or if you've been here the whole time, it's also a good time to pivot to crypto.
Let's play a nice case scenario here, which we kind of had over the weekend.
We saw some nice resistance form for Bitcoin.
We saw a couple of pumps up to like 78K in the last day or two.
If this deal or some form of a deal did become relatively official, John, would this be like we're blasting off to the moon from here I don't know if we would blast off to the moon but it's definitely going to be a tailwind for risk assets it's going to be a signal to the to the market that the Fed is not going to hike rates that they're going to be able to continue to see this momentum play out I think there have been several times where I think this has probably happened half a dozen times or more by this point.
But Andreas actually joked about this.
He said, I popped the champagne many times thinking that this conflict was over because so many times the president has said we're close to a deal, we're close to the end.
But he's been saying this for months.
Every time he does say that, though, the market, we see the same thing.
Oil sells off, futures rise, the market goes higher.
And we've seen this enormous, just unrelenting growth and rise in the S&P 500 and in other AI-related investments.
So I think that that all just continues, right?
And the market is just looking for certainty and clarity to make sure that, you know, we're not going to have rate hikes that pump the brakes.
And so I think that there will be a very constructive thing.
Bitcoin might break out of its range back to the upside.
But I think that we're Bitcoin is kind of looking for one of these catalysts, right?
Like either the Clarity Act becoming a law, the United States adopting a new policy on the Bitcoin strategic reserve or like accumulating Bitcoin or the into the Iran conflict, something that kind of gives us that sort of catalyst and market confidence to move higher and to say that the bull run is going to continue here.
So I don't know if we go to Valhalla, but it would definitely.
to be a really strong tailwind for all risk asset markets.
You wrote in the Milkroad Pro Discord yesterday, Bitcoin has been in this channel ranging like a drunk stumbling down an alley for 109.
Earth days.
I guess that channel is what, like the 70 to 80?
I'm assuming that doesn't account for 60.
Do you think, John, from here that there's still a chance that we flush down to 70?
Because it is something that you said.
I've seen a few other analysts call for that.
We flushed to 74 and held there.
What are the chances we see kind of one more pop down and hopefully not much more after that for the short term?
Yeah, well, I think that that's on the cards for sure.
I think that's what the market is anticipating.
I think we've got a window of weakness here while we wait for one of these catalysts to play out, one of the ones I just listed.
And, you know, look, I think we made the February lows around 60K.
and then have been in this range, like I said, for over 100 days now.
And that usually means, I mean, the longer a bear flag lasts, the more likely it is to resolve and to pick a direction.
They usually resolve to the downside, but they don't always.
And I think this is one of those situations where we've tested the top of the range.
We've tested the bear market resistance band.
We haven't been able to flip from a bear market into a technical bull market on that.
And so now we saw Bitcoin come down.
It tested 74K.
bounced up really hard, really fast off of that support.
And now I think, you know, just today within the last hour or so, we saw Bitcoin go up to 78K really quickly and then come back down to 76K.
So there's some volatility.
Yeah, things are swinging.
But I think it's possible, if not likely, that we'll see a retest of that 74K and see if that holds.
If it breaks, I think the next stop to look for is at 70.
But there should be some support there.
But see, these are things that's like...
How strong is that support?
And what are the catalysts that drive us one way or the other?
It still kind of remains to be seen.
But to me, I think that 70K should be strong support.
74K has shown to be some support here in the short term.
But how long does that hold up?
How many times do we retest it before we break it or retest it before it holds and the bulls are able to push us back higher?
We'll see.
I don't know if we go to the top of the range or the bottom of the range, but it looks like right now the momentum and the circumstances favor the downside for the moment.
You also said in the Discord, it's a good time to keep your powder dry and your eyes open for opportunities.
What do you mean by opportunities, John?
I think that if Bitcoin does go below 70k, that's an opportunity.
Because I think that no matter who you are or what your outlook is, you're going to be able to see the...
The thesis on another Bitcoin bull run starting on digital assets having lasting value and long-term value in this agentic economy that we're seeing arise and this relentless bull market that we're in continuing.
I think that Bitcoin eventually participates in that.
A lot of people are expecting a bottom in October.
Some people are thinking it'll happen sooner, later, etc.
But in any event, I think that no matter how you look at it, below 70k is a great opportunity to accumulate Bitcoin.
It's back at the previous all-time high from the 2021 bull run.
And so it's just kind of like a great place to be adding to your bags if you're looking for an opportunity.
Opportunities beyond just Bitcoin, though, I think that when Bitcoin pulls back from its recent highs of around 80, 82k down to 70k, down to...
you know, in the sixties, wherever it ends up pulling back to that could also present a window of weakness on different altcoin projects that, um, might present an opportunity for people to accumulate there as well.
So I think it's a good time if Bitcoin is showing a window of weakness here and giving you an opportunity.
If you want to accumulate some more Bitcoin, it's a great time to do that.
If you want to look at some altcoin projects and, again, be patient and take a longer view on that, there's going to be value and opportunity there as well.
So I think it's just a good time to be paying attention across the digital asset markets and looking for those opportunities as Bitcoin shows a moment of weakness here.
And just to remind people, if you want to see what is on John's watch list, which you have three items on your watch list, you have six items in your portfolio, but you have three on your watch list.
You're going to add a lot more.
Is that what you're telling me?
Yeah.
That's what I want, man.
Yeah, this week I got to spend a lot more time underwriting a bunch of these different things because there's like, I think 12 or so different coins that I was talking about with some of our friends in the discord chat.
And, you know, I think it's just a good time to have a thesis on these.
And I may not buy everything that I put on my watch list, but I want to expand that because I think our community wants to know, you know, where do you see value right now?
And there's just been.
So many projects like Zcash has been around for a really long time, but has only recently found a lot of adoption and attention.
So that's an example of like a dino coin, you know, quote unquote, that has come back.
Then there's a lot of new projects like Venice that have done really, really well and had really strong performance and people want to understand.
not only why these things are performing, but what's the thesis, what is the project, you know, and just different things around these things.
So I think adding a bunch of things to my watch list, just for information for our audience, because people are going to make different choices for themselves too, about what they do or don't want to get exposure to.
I think that's something I want to start doing more in the coming week or so, a couple of weeks here.
I'm going to start building that out more.
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Definitely, man.
That's something I want to see.
I think a lot of people want to know what those assets are for you and for people.
And again, you know, we talk about this every time, pretty redundant at this point, but I do think what we have is pretty awesome in Milk Road Pro.
It's only a dollar to check it out for seven days.
And you can see John's watch list, which has three assets on it added through April and May.
And you can also check out his portfolio, which has, I think, six assets still on it.
Six, six or seven, seven.
Six.
Six assets in there, and John's sitting at 17% cash in his portfolio, so he does have dry powder ready to rip on the right dip.
Listen, John, let's get to the thing that probably is closest to your heart and related to your change in identity.
Let's put it that way on X.
MrWartimeEthereum.eth.
Listen, for anybody who was listening to the show yesterday, we recapped relatively well what went down last week and got some of Hasib's thoughts.
You know, a lot of people leaving the Ethereum Foundation, a bankless finally selling all of their ETH and kind of disbanding, which is very sad for a lot of people.
Do you think, John, that this is healthy for Ethereum long term to kind of have this?
And especially at a point, you know, Vitalik wrote a post basically acknowledging as well that it's like, listen, I understand we're on a mission here, but I understand people are frustrated with price action.
Ethereum is the butt end of the joke on X often.
That's like, if you had held...
uh micron for the last two hours you would have outperformed eat in the last six years you know there's a lot of funny jokes like that is this a healthy thing long term for the theorem does it need to go through this john to kind of thrive long term I think that is exactly the thing the market is trying to figure out right now.
And I think it's valid to have differences of opinions on that.
And I think there are people who understand the value proposition that Ethereum is trying to offer the market and the ways it's trying to differentiate itself that still have many valid criticisms and concerns for how it's going about it and for what the Ethereum foundation both is and is not doing.
So there's a lot to discuss here.
I really enjoyed the podcast episode you did with Hasib.
I think he is somebody who's been a great thought leader and advocate and communicator for the space.
I think that there's a lot of people who are investors, but are not necessarily the best communicators.
I think Hasib is based.
I did a shout out to him just on Twitter, just because like, I really appreciate his commentary and just.
coming out and sharing his thoughts on things with the market because there's a lot of people debating things like how do you value an L1?
And he's willing to take the time to contribute his thoughts and expertise to those conversations.
So I just appreciate him and I'm glad that we got to have him on the show.
I agree mostly with his comments.
I'm a little bit more bullish than I think he is, but I think that's, like I said, people can have disagreements about some of these things.
I do want to just correct one thing you said, which is the bankless is not disbanding.
They are changing.
They're evolving.
They're going to be changing some of their contents and they're, but they're still going to be bankless.
They're still going to be doing their podcasts.
And, you know, Ryan and Michael Nadal, who has been on the show many times are doing the defy report podcast now as well.
David Hoffman, who's a great guy as well is, is also going to be doing bankless, doing interviews, exploring other things in the digital asset space and continuing to be a great venue for people to discuss things in digital assets and a thought leader for this.
So there's a lot of evolution that's happening there.
It's just that David sold his Ethereum.
And so I don't want to speak for him as to why he made that decision.
I think he's shared some thoughts on it.
I'm sure he'll continue to comment on it.
But where all this kind of shakes out for me is...
You know, I think Vitalik posted about this this weekend as well to kind of share his thoughts.
And a couple of things that stood out to me from what he said was that the Ethereum Foundation is just one node among many nodes in the governance, operation and development of Ethereum as an ecosystem and as an asset.
He noted that the Ethereum Foundation is.
only owns 0.16% of Ethereum's total supply, but that his personal net worth is 90% in Ethereum, which to me is indicative of a man who personally very much believes in this, but also does not believe that he should be the dictator of Ethereum.
And I think a lot of people want him to be Ethereum Jesus and to be the sole arbiter of what goes on in the chain.
That's not what he wants.
If you look at Cardano, they're going through a different version of figuring out this governance structure themselves, right?
Like Charles Hoskinson does not want to be.
the dictator of Cardano.
They have an on-chain governance system and a constitution, but they're also kind of in this situation where they're trying to figure out what does executive leadership look like and how do we get some help with that because maybe we're too decentralized and we're having friction with that.
So all of these blockchain ecosystems are doing some version of...
technological innovation and financial innovation, but they're also doing governance innovation and they're doing innovations on how do we organize people and hierarchies and collaboration across time and space asynchronously.
There's a lot that goes into a functioning blockchain ecosystem and these are just some struggles and growing pains with this.
So one of the things that also stands out from Vitalik's post is this focus on crops, on censorship, resistant, open, private.
permissionless, secure, global financial infrastructure.
And that the most important and valuable product of that infrastructure is ETH, the asset, and will continue to be ETH, the asset.
But he also doesn't want to be in a position where he's like pumping his bags and like doing all the BD work either, because he doesn't view that as the proper role.
of the Ethereum Foundation, which is becoming a smaller, leaner, and more research and development focused institution as opposed to a BD one.
So if you look at Bitcoin as an analog here, which is not one-to-one for many reasons, but Bitcoin is a store value asset.
They don't do nearly as much development work.
And they have their own issues with this of like...
They have trouble making changes and changes to the protocol and the security budget presents some risks there.
But Michael Saylor has launched a huge digital asset treasury company and has done the job of evangelizing and doing business development for Bitcoin as an asset that the Bitcoin core developers do not do.
And I think Vitalik wants to see a similar sort of thing emerge for Ethereum, where there is the Ethereum Foundation that's focused on the research and development and improving and...
upgrading Ethereum as a network, but that someone else can bear that mantle of doing the business development work for ETH the asset.
I think you're seeing some of this being done by Danny Ryan and Vitalik, or not Vitalik, Vivek at Etherealize.
They're working with Wall Street to show the value of Ethereum and help people build on ETH.
And then you're also seeing Tom Lee from BitMine being a retail voice and doing sort of that DAT role that Michael Saylor is doing in the Bitcoin ecosystem.
Tom Lee, just this.
past monday i think um he bought the largest purchase of ethereum he's made since december i believe and he's now getting towards towards close to four and a half percent of the total supply of ethereum which is you know it's sharp contrast to the ethereum foundation's 0.16 of the total supply of ethereum So, you know, I think Tom Lee and some of these digital asset treasure companies like Sharplink with Joe Shalom and Joe Lubin, who are bringing a lot of institutional capital into DeFi to develop the ecosystem there and to drive value to Ethereum in that way.
These people can start to bear that mantle and maybe a new organization will emerge to sort of be another node alongside the Ethereum Foundation to help with this.
But it's really about what do you want to have?
Do you want to have like Hyperliquid is a huge business.
The token is growing.
you know, ripping higher, but they also only have 24 validators upon whom all of that security and trust depends.
And Vitalik is saying that we don't want to be that.
We don't want to, you know, we want to be the unreasonable man here.
And that's, it comes from philosophy.
Bertrand Russell says like a reasonable man will allow his environment and the pressures of it to shape him.
An unreasonable man will demand that the environment shape and reconfigure around him.
So Vitalik is saying, I don't want to be the dictator.
I don't want to have total control of Ethereum or of the Ethereum Foundation, and I don't want the Ethereum Foundation to have total control over Ethereum.
I want to be censorship resistant, open, private, permissionless, secure, scalable, global.
And I want ETH to be the most valuable digital asset in the world because of that, not because we concentrated power in a few hands, maximize speed and scalability and marketing and max extracted value and hotwired a better race car for a short sprint.
He's looking for long-term value.
So there's a lot of thoughts on this, but wartimeetherium.eth is my new ENS handle.
And I think that it's time for, and we've seen a lot of people reignite their passion for Ethereum and participating in this conversation, sharing their thoughts, engaging in this, bringing attention back to Ethereum to what the value of digital assets are and what this ecosystem is supposed to be.
So I think this is overall, for me, a very, very bullish thing, even if it's not going to pump ETH's price in the next 24 hours, it creates a...
a very robust and, let's say, unique, and to use Vitalik's word, impressive long-term value proposition for Ethereum and for ETH, the asset.
But then short-term, it means we might just be stuck like this for a long time, at least on the price side, right?
Because now I understand what you're saying, that it's like you like Vitalik's vision and he's painting that and he's saying it's not going to be up to me or I don't want to be the one doing that and it shouldn't be me.
It should be a collection, I guess, a collective of everybody else who's kind of half doing it now.
But that also means that he's going to go build a product that he thinks is going to do what he wants it to do.
And that the value of it, the price value of it will not be up to him and to not expect what he does to affect it.
I think that that's a bit of an extension of what he said.
I don't think he's saying what he's doing isn't going to affect the price.
I think he's saying he wants it to affect the price in a different way.
He wants the value of Ethereum to come from this different value source of crops and of this large, credibly neutral global financial infrastructure as opposed to… you know, going on CNBC every morning and pumping and shilling bags.
Tom Lee can do that.
Tom Lee does do that.
And in many cases, he's on CNBC all the time talking about Ethereum.
And, you know, as far as the short term price action, I think that there's a lot of reasons to think that Ethereum is going to perform very well here.
If you look at the metrics on the chain in terms of the fundamentals and the adoption, we're at all time high usage of the network, we're at all time lows for fees on the network.
And we're seeing the staking queue to get into the staking contract to stake Ethereum.
just continue to climb higher and higher.
Tom Lee, like I said, has 4.5% of the total supply.
I think he's got 80% of his Ethereum staked, and he's continuing to show commitment to the network there.
So I think what we're seeing here is just a transference of Bitcoin, Ethereum, and all digital assets really from the hands of weak hands, paper hands who are looking for short-term speculation to hands that are very convicted in this long-term thesis and understand it and are willing to allocate capital to participate in it.
And I think that that turns around and all these things resolve to the upside at some point here soon.
Michael Saylor is going to have more Bitcoin.
Tom Lee is going to have more ETH.
But they have the conviction.
They have the capital.
They have the long-term view.
And they're going to continue to support the long-term value of the network.
So I don't think that it necessarily means that the value of Ethereum is going to go one way or another.
It's just saying this is the direction we're taking.
And in time, I do think this is going to resolve to the upside because we're seeing a lot of just the market is telling you that it believes in Ethereum and the fundamentals of Ethereum are getting stronger and stronger.
Price will resolve to the upside.
But, you know, maybe in the short term, some people who are speculating on, you know, ETH pumping to 5K this week, they might sell or, you know what I'm saying?
But like, that's not really.
you know, neither here nor there to me.
God, is this, if you had it your way, John, like what, what, if you could shape this environment, what would you do?
I would, what would you, what would you want to happen?
I would get Danny Ryan, Joe Shalom and Tom Lee in a group with David Hoffman and launch a new.
EF adjacent.
I mean, I would join them.
We call it wartime Ethereum if you want.
I don't care what you want to call it.
The point is that I think that like this is created attention on Ethereum and a need for someone to step in to fill this role in a more clear and vocal way.
Obviously, this is like, you know, we'll see what happens with this, but.
So it's not clear if the digital asset treasury companies like Sharplink and Bitmine are going to take this mantle, if it's something that Etherealize works on, if it's something that people who have left the Ethereum Foundation kind of come together and make a new thing.
I would like to see that happen.
But in terms of what I would do, I think that I like the direction of travel that we're on.
I like the direction that Vitalik has charted.
I like the development and progress that Ethereum has made and the growth of the network.
All the metrics that you're looking for are there.
They're solid.
They're growing.
They're continuing to grow.
Ethereum is gaining market share in stablecoins, in real-world assets, in tokenization, and all of these things.
So the strategy that they're running, I think, is working incredibly well.
and will continue to do so.
It's just, you know, stay the course and commit.
It doesn't mean to say that the criticisms of Ethereum are not valid or that the people who are making them are not.
passionate and enthusiastic and coming from a good place, it doesn't mean they should be ignored.
But finding a way to incorporate that feedback while continuing this positive trajectory that Ethereum's network is on, I think is kind of the end result that you want here.
But just continuing this dialogue, channel this energy into something productive and constructive for ETH, for digital assets.
That's the direction I would like to see happen here.
And I think there are a lot of leaders in this robust and decentralized Ethereum ecosystem who can make that happen.
So I'm excited to see what happens there.
Maybe it should be you.
I mean, I would love to, but yeah.
Maybe you're the one that brings everybody together.
Let's start with a podcast.
Let's get all three of those guys on one show.
And then they think they're coming in just to give their comments.
And then you're like, this is actually a pitch.
I'm John.
I'm wartime Ethereum.
I'd like to rally all you guys.
Drop what you're doing.
Come with me.
Bring out your little companies.
Wartime Ethereum would be an amazing podcast.
I would love to do that.
That'd be so much fun.
But yeah.
It's very aggressive.
Why did you choose?
Why did you go with wartime?
Well, you know, I was Bitcoin Jesus.eth for a while, but that was mostly just for humor and for lulls.
Why did I go with wartime Ethereum?
Because that was just the vibe, man.
It's like whenever there is a big challenge to Ethereum or like a long term holder who sells or or anything like this, I think people's response is to.
lean in to connect with one another, re-underwrite their thesis, find community.
And it really is kind of a time to rally together around the asset, around the ideas of crops and other things like this.
We are here because we believe in something.
It's still in the bankless banner on Twitter, believe in something with the ETH capitalized.
We do believe in something and it's not just number go up.
It's not just number go up technology.
It's basically saying that we believe that Human beings have the right to financial sovereignty, to autonomy, to privacy, to all these things that Ethereum is uniquely situated to guarantee to them.
And I don't think that it's a necessary thing to surrender that to any entity, whether it's the Federal Reserve or JP Morgan or Hyperliquid.
You want to have autonomy over your assets and immutability of the things that you're doing, permissionlessness, security, scalability, global access.
So I think that all those things.
that Ethereum stands for and is committed to is what we believe in.
And ETH is the asset that allows us to have access to that, but it's not just there to go up to Valhalla and to yeet to infinity.
There is something actually philosophical and not religious exactly, but something like that, right, that you believe in, that is about this community and this asset and this movement is about.
And this is another thing I tell people a lot.
When you're investing in something, you're voting with your capital.
When you buy an asset, whether it's a US Treasury bond or something else or a dollar, you're voting.
That is an act of voting with your capital.
It's a franchisement that not everybody has, and you have to be sort of circumspect about that.
What do you want to support?
Which technologies, which financial ecosystems, what kind of a future do you want to live in?
Where do you want your capital to go?
Because that is a vote that you're casting by doing that.
And I think that, you know, I vote for Ethereum.
You're listening to the Milk Road Show, which means you've got takes.
Strong ones, I bet.
But where do those takes actually go?
Do you tweet them into the void, argue them in the group chat, or do you try to express them by buying a stock?
The thing is, stocks move on like 50 other things at once.
And that's where Calci comes in.
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Wow.
Why even put anything else on your watch list, John?
When that's the pitch.
Why would we even look at all the other stuff on your watch list when that's the gospel?
Because when the total addressable market is $200,000, there are a lot of different answers to this question.
And I think that is something I'm really passionate about as well.
I like learning about how different ecosystems, different assets answer this question.
I'm fascinated with Bitcoin, with Ethereum, with Cardano, with Algorand, with Hedera, with a lot of these different.
assets and ecosystems because they're not just technologies.
They're not just meme coins.
They're not just speculative technologies.
They are also an instantiation of an idea and a view of the world of what human rights should be, how they should be protected.
And I think this is something I think about a lot, which Benjamin Franklin said.
This is like a continuation of the American project in my view and of projects that have gone back to Rome and Greece and beyond.
But Benjamin Franklin said that those who give up liberty in exchange for security… deserve neither and will lose both.
So if you're willing to give up your right to own your own assets, to custody your own assets, to have any degree of individual liberty and sovereignty, if you're willing to give that up to get security from someone else, eventually you're going to lose both because they're going to get all the control over your assets, over your life, and you're going to be renting it back from them.
This is what we're trying to, or not we're trying to, it's what we're seeing happen right now.
As all of these different financial institutions and technology institutions are going to start launching these products and services to try to get their arms around this, the way I've described it is it's kind of like Thanos is assembling the Infinity Stones for the Infinity Gauntlet while all the Avengers are fighting over whether or not we should stop him.
I'm not saying that we have to be tribal.
I'm not saying everybody in crypto has to go buy ETH.
It's not about this particular which asset, which chain, that's the wrong view of this.
The real threat I see is that a lot of these major institutions, and I don't want to name any of them specifically, but they see the value of...
owning the stable coins owning the chains where the stable coins settle managing the reserves that back the stable coins owning the products that are tokenized that are on these things that are these uh these change owning the chain where it settles having total permission to control of those change and then bringing all the world's capital onto those chains Because then they have exerted total control over all the world's capital, and they get to decide who is whitelisted and who's not, which transactions go through, which ones they reverse.
And that gives them effectively total sovereignty and control over all of your capital, and it doesn't matter if it's in dollars or invested in the markets or in bonds or stocks or whatever.
You're still just renting it back from them, and they have total authority.
And so that to me is the system of trust me, bro, that we're trying to get away from.
Crypto is a transition from… Trust to truth.
And we don't have to trust anybody anymore.
We can have a, you know, it's David Hoffman's Twitter handle, a trustless state where we don't have to trust any institution to keep us safe, to protect us, to own our capital for us.
And so anyway, I'm getting really, you know, overheated about all these things.
I believe in this stuff and these things matter and they don't matter at all until they do matter.
And then they are the only thing that does matter.
I think Vitalik sees that.
You see that reflected in his posts.
And I think that Ethereum is trying to build a future where there is an alternative system that is credibly neutral, open, permissionless, secure, scalable.
And that's what Ethereum is.
And that's what a lot of other digital asset projects are trying to create.
And I'm rooting for all of them because I think that we learn.
from trying different solutions and letting the market figure out which one it wants and where that adoption happens.
But Ethereum's got the football right now from where I sit.
If you guys want to hear more from John, you can listen to the Milk Road macro show.
You can listen to this show.
You can join Milk Road Pro for a dollar and ask him directly in Discord and get these rants at any time of day because they do come sporadically as John gets inspired.
No, John, it's very compelling.
And thank you as usual for your thoughts, man.
I think it's a very crucial time for Ethereum.
And I feel like we'll look back on this time, especially a lot of people are dumping on it now publicly as a make or break, kind of fork in the road moment for it.
And I...
I personally feel like you're going to be right on a lot of this.
And that the overall direction is bullish.
You always need these kinds of, even just from a very cosmetic standpoint, you always need these kinds of flush outs before things get better.
So it's a necessary part of the process.
And clearly there's still a lot more.
There's a, there's a strong pieces behind the asset.
John pleasure as always.
Thank you everybody for listening and have a great rest of your day.
Wartime Ethereum.Eth.
Let's go.
Send them some meme coins.
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