The Milk Road – Jan 19th, 2025

Today’s edition is brought to you by Zerebro – the ultimate AI agent, autonomously creating content while performing blockchain actions.

Meet the coolest AI agent—Zerebro

GM. This is Milk Road. We’re like Frank’s Red Hot, but for crypto news.

(We add flavor and heat).

Here’s what we got for you today:

✍️ Coinbase launches $BTC-backed lending

✍️ Markets could get crazy this weekend

🎙️ The Milk Road Show: How Will Trump’s Tariffs Impact Crypto Markets? w/ PaperImperium 

🍪 Sui to sponsor Trump’s inauguration

Prices as of 2:00 PM ET. Click here for our Fear & Greed Index.

COINBASE LAUNCHES BITCOIN-BACKED LENDING 💰

Damn, Coinbase just dropped a banger of a new product!

Source: @coinbase

Ok, ok – Bitcoin-backed lending in general isn’t new – but this version of it is! Lemme paint you a picture of how it works, and why it’s worth getting excited about. 👇

Say you’ve accumulated a bunch of Bitcoin, and have it sitting on a centralized exchange.

First of all: hell yeah! Second, what’re you going to do with it (spend it, or hold it)?

If you wanted the best of both worlds (to spend your $BTC, without actually parting with it), you could take a loan against your holdings using a DeFi platform.

…but it ain’t easy. You gotta know your stuff.

For example:

You’ll need to move your $BTC to a decentralized wallet…

Bridge it into a wrapped token…

Do some research on the different DeFi lending platforms…

Find one you can trust, and take out your loan…

Reconfigure your yield curve expenditures…

If some/all of that doesn’t make sense – that’s because:

DeFi is NOT user friendly, and…

‘Reconfiguring your yield curve expenditures’ isn’t a thing (we just made it up). But you considered it for a split second, ‘cause DeFi is a rat’s nest of complexity and jargon!

Now, here’s how Coinbase is about to make that experience feel what we can only describe as  “illegally smooth”.

All you’ll need to do is type in how much $USDC you want to borrow against your $BTC (max $100k) within the centralized Coinbase app, and click a button.

Everything else we listed above will still happen (minus the yield curve expenditure reconfiguration), but you won’t have to do or know anything about it!

It will all happen seamlessly in the background. 

It’s what you call a ‘DeFi mullet’ product…

Source: Bloomberg

Now, here’s the kicker:

Lending is probably just the beginning of Coinbase’s DeFi mullet offerings. The new regulatory landscape in the US is going to allow them to expand this kind of functionality waaay further.

In the coming months/years, we wouldn’t be surprised to see Coinbase create mullet products that allow its users to buy tokens that aren’t listed on its centralized exchange.

E.g. Want to buy a token that’s only available onchain, like $VIRTUAL or $AI16Z?

Click a button on Coinbase, and they’ll do all the heavy lifting in the background!

The takeaway? 

In 2025: Mullets are in!

MEET ZEREBRO: THE AUTONOMOUS AI

Let’s play a quick game of “guess who”:

I’ve launched a token

I’ve released an NFT series

I’ve dropped multiple musical works

My net worth is estimated in the hundreds of millions

Iggy Azalea? Wait… that low-key fits the description.

But we were actually talking about Zerebro – the coolest AI agent out there. 

What makes Zerebro so cool?

It evolves with every interaction it has online. Wild. 

From creating unique content to performing blockchain actions, Zerebro can do it all.

The future of AI is here – check it out!

MARKETS COULD GET CRAZY THIS WEEKEND, HERE’S WHY… 👀

Just do it. Now.

Text your friends, family, loved ones, and tell them you’re going to be unavailable this weekend.

‘Cause there’s a high likelihood you’re going to be glued to your phone, refreshing your portfolio tracker in 20 second increments all weekend.

Why? ‘Cause Trump takes office on Monday, and is said to be issuing ~100 executive orders right out of the gates!

(Some of which are expected to ease the regulatory strain on the US crypto industry).

And with that kind of anticipation, comes speculation