FULL TRANSCRIPT
Slava (00:00)
In this episode of Smart Humans, we talk with Kyle Reidhead who's the co-owner of Milk Road, the crypto media company. We discuss, should you get into crypto? Is BTC the only choice for you? How should you get into stable coins? And where can you get the best yield? We talk about his predictions for the market. Will there be recession? And of course, his picks for three years out.
Slava (01:42)
Hello and welcome to the latest episode of Smart Humans. I'm very excited for today's guest. have Kyle Reidhead who's the co-owner of Milk Road. Welcome.
Kyle Reidhead (01:53)
Hey, glad to be here. Thanks for having me.
Slava (01:55)
Absolutely, so we always start in the same place, which is how did you even get into the world of alternative investments? Like take it back as far back as you'd like, how do you get here?
Kyle Reidhead (02:05)
Yeah, so I've been a combination of like just playing around investing and playing around building businesses since I graduated university, was it like 12 years ago or something like that. And I went to University of Guelph, which is actually in Canada. I'm Canadian. And yeah, so I've been building a lot of digital companies, mainly in the like creator economy, so the creator space. And
Slava (02:17)
Where was that? Where'd go?
amazing.
Kyle Reidhead (02:32)
At the same time, I was like kind of reading economics books and trying to learning about like what I wanted to investing. I was always playing around in like tech stocks, things like that, but I never really had like a good solid framework. I'd never really had strong conviction what I was doing. So was like, okay, if I'm going to learn this and I'm to be an investor, which I knew I wanted to be, I was like, I got to go all in. And so I started reading books after books after books and really trying to figure it out. And at the same time, as I was building a business, a friend of mine actually introduced me to Bitcoin. This was in 2019. I had no idea really what it was. I'd heard about it in 2017.
And but never really took the time to like dive into it. But thankfully I learned Bitcoin at the exact same time as I had learned about, you know, really dove into economics. I was reading much economic books. If you understand Bitcoin, it is the perfect expression of what economics should be. And so I immediately got it. I was like, OK, that makes sense. At the same time, I had this business that I was running using Facebook and and all of a sudden it got shut down. So Facebook kind of banned my my Facebook account.
I had two Facebook groups on there that I owned with 60,000 people and each of them, and they were all like perfect customers for the product that I was building and they just shut me down. And so that was a weird one. I was like, what just happened? And then I learned about Ethereum and the rest of crypto, which is sort of like these decentralized networks and decentralized infrastructure where that kind of stuff can't happen. And so that sort of was a moment that happened where I was like, ⁓ now I see not only what Bitcoin is, but I see what the rest of it is. And so that was what kind of like,
turned me to go basically all in on crypto, all in on building my businesses in the sort of crypto decentralized world and really set me off on a path to go down this route. So I would say it was kind of that. And then obviously ⁓ it ended up being a really good investment and a really good pivot because in 2020 crypto took off and went crazy. So I obviously went full deep into it. But yeah, it was kind of an interesting start, but kind of worked out.
Slava (04:22)
And so how do you go from 2017, dabbling into it, and then when does Milk Road start? We'll dive more into Milk Road, but when does it start?
Kyle Reidhead (04:32)
So Milk Road started in 2021. We didn't actually start it. We acquired it last year. But what I had been doing before that was running a marketing agency. And in 2019, as I learned about crypto and kind of went through this process, just explaining, we pivoted our marketing agency to go from like just any kind of content creator to be focused in the crypto space. And so that agency, we worked with a bunch of the big crypto media companies, Milk Road being one of them. And after...
maybe about two years or so of Milk Road in business. It had grown really fast, become one of the largest newsletters and media companies in the space. There was some things going on in the background of that company where they wanted out and we were already running their marketing and their growth. And so was, and we also already had a very similar company to Milk Road in a company that we created called Web3 Academy. And so it was kind of like a perfect fit for us to acquire and take over. And it's kind of accelerated the growth of both companies since we've done that.
Slava (05:27)
Amazing. and you personally, how do you think about alternative investing? Obviously you've been all in in crypto since 2017, but how do you think about the other asset classes? And for us, we think about it as obviously crypto and we could cover that more than there's pre IPO venture, art collectibles or the yield oriented stuff like real estate or private credit. How do you think about allocating your net worth?
Kyle Reidhead (05:52)
Yeah, that's a good question. So I have a bit of real estate. I own an apartment in Toronto and I own a home as well. And I thought that was the route I kind of wanted to go as well. The thing I realized with crypto that makes it so hard to own anything else is when you have something that's just digital that sits on a little device that you can bring anywhere with you and there's no additional expenses or anything I need to think about to own it, it makes it very hard for me to want to own anything differently, to be completely honest. Now, I still own real estate and I probably continue
will continue to own it. just, the more I hold crypto and the more I kind of learn about different asset classes out there, even like, let's think about what happened here with the global trade war. You're like, okay, trade war happens. There's all these tariffs, stocks and equities around the world. You got to readjust all your calculations, your analysis, and you look at crypto and you're like, well, they're not effective, right? And it's just every, you think the war that happened with Russia and Ukraine and it's like,
Okay, everyone wanted to leave. Can they bring their gold with them? Like, can they bring these alternative assets? Like, well, they can bring their crypto. That's really easy. And so every time something bad in the world happens or something changes in the world, I'm always like, shit, crypto is kind of the answer. Crypto is the easiest thing. And for me, who's been building businesses digitally, kind of living a digital life, let's call it, I'm also quite nomadic. So I've traveled around the world a lot, live in places where I can surf. It's just so much easier to hold crypto. And so I don't think a lot about any other asset to completely honest. I do own a lot of stocks and I embolden a lot of stocks as well.
Real estate, I'm actually like kind of thinking I want to get out of it because it's just a bit of a headache to be completely honest. Although I obviously understand the benefit to it and it is a great investment. So there's nothing wrong with that. I just, have a bias towards what's easy, what's simple and what's digital. And I think that's just because I, know, younger crowd, I think a lot of people my age and younger will agree with me on that. And so, yeah, I don't know. I don't know if that helps kind of answer your question at all, but that's my sort of like quick thoughts on it, but feel free to dig anything deeper.
Slava (07:43)
Oh,
yeah, no, we'll double click on it. So you did mention that you have some stocks. So let's start up there. So, you know, the typical old school numbers have 60-40, which is stocks to bonds and zero alternatives. So what is your number? If it's, you know, not gonna be 60, it's not gonna be 40, it's not gonna be zero, obviously it's gonna be way more than zero. So what's your number between stocks? I imagine your bonds numbers gonna be very low and then your alternative numbers gonna be quite high. So what would be those three numbers?
Kyle Reidhead (08:00)
Yeah.
So bonds would be zero. Stocks would be probably about 15 % or so, and then the rest would be in crypto. And also yield bearing stable coins as well, which would be considered an alternative asset.
Slava (08:21)
Got it, so inside the 85%, which is where your alternatives are, it sounds like a majority of that is gonna be crypto, but you did mention you have some real estate. Is there anything else, or would you say that if you were gonna blow that up to be 100 % alternatives, how does that 100 % alternatives get sliced? Is it 100 % crypto, or is there any other thing inside there besides crypto?
Kyle Reidhead (08:43)
I guess I didn't include real estate in that sort of like portfolio allocation there outside. Yeah. So I didn't include that in there, but basically for alternatives, it would be just trying to think of what the allocation would be from my real estate into crypto. Probably of the alternative side, let's say 10 to 15 % is real estate and the rest would be in crypto.
Slava (08:47)
Outside of your primary home, exactly.
Amazing. And then you did bring up a point which is a little nuanced for most, but you said that some of it's stable coins. Why did you make it a point to say that some of it's stable coins? Can you give an explanation as how you think about that as part of your diversification with the inside crypto?
Kyle Reidhead (09:22)
Yeah, I think getting yield on a stable asset is obviously something that a lot of investors want. ⁓ In being Canadian, I can't get that on the US dollar, for example. I can't hold US Treasuries, which I would probably love to do. Stablecoins allow me to do that. It's very, very easy. And I can move any asset that I have that's on chain, whether it's Bitcoin or Ethereum or Solana or whatever, into it within one second, and it's free for me to do it. ⁓ And I don't have that option ⁓ in the sort of like traditional finance world.
⁓ And I can even do better than Treasuries. Right now I can get 5-6 % on my stablecoin so I can hold dollars, kind of my rainy day fund, let's call it, and I can just grab yield on it. That is very low risk yield.
Slava (10:00)
Sorry,
when you say whole dollars, you don't mean actual dollars, you're talking about...
Kyle Reidhead (10:04)
stable coins, stable coins. For me, same thing. If it's a good stable coin, it's a legit one, it's a good point. I can hold, get exposure to dollar. Yeah, exactly.
Slava (10:08)
I'm just making sure everybody who's listening understands. So this is a digital version, right, so this is a digital
version exposure, I call it a stable coin, which is basically mimicking what the actual dollar is doing.
Kyle Reidhead (10:20)
It's exactly it. So basically what happens for those that don't know what a stable coin is, is you put a dollar in a bank and then a company like Circle or Tether, they represent that dollar on chain. And now you can move those stables or those dollars, sorry, they remain in that bank, but you can move them anywhere in the world to any wallet at basically the speed of light for essentially free. Whereas think about if I had a dollar in my bank, it's quite expensive to move that dollar to someone's bank, I don't know, in Europe or in India or whatever. Many countries it's actually impossible to do it.
As a Canadian, if I hold US dollars in my Canadian bank account, I actually can't get any yield on it. It's not possible for me. And so when it's on chain, I have the ability to get yield and move it around and do whatever I want with it basically for free. So it's just much better alternative.
Slava (11:00)
So it's
super helpful. So inside of that 90 % crypto, what portion of that is ⁓ risk on spot positions versus stable coin positions that are getting yield?
Kyle Reidhead (11:12)
Yeah, so right now, and we can go through my kind of framework of how I manage my portfolio in a second, but right now I'm basically 95 % spot like in assets, 5 % just in stables.
Slava (11:16)
Yeah, yeah.
Got it. And because you're kind of risk on right now, you feel like it's a good time to be risk on. And if you felt like it was risk off, how would you move that? Would that become 90, 10 or does that become 95, five, the opposite?
Kyle Reidhead (11:27)
Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
So it kind of depends. So let me just zoom out real quick and just give a quick little framework of how I manage my portfolio. So my framework is based on a system that includes kind of the business cycle, the global liquidity cycle. For me, the reason why I don't hold a lot of alternative assets out of some kind of like high growth stocks in crypto is everything, in my opinion, basically moves for the same reasons, right? They all kind of move around the business cycle, the liquidity cycle, let's say the debasement of currency, a fiat currency.
Slava (11:43)
Sure.
Kyle Reidhead (12:06)
And so for me, I just want to hold the fastest horse in the races when I believe that we are going through debasement, when I believe that liquidity is going to be increased globally. ⁓ and I think we are in that, that stage of let's call it macro right now. We have been in it for almost two years. ⁓ and I think we'll be in it for probably around another six months to a year. And so in that world, I want to be kind of full risk on now, of course, I know there's many different ways you can diversify that risk on and this and that and hedge.
For me, I don't really care because I have more of a long-term investment mindset. And so for the rest of, let's call it the business cycle, the liquidity cycle, I want to be in the things that I think are going to do the best, which is mainly Bitcoin, crypto, and some high-growth tech stocks. And then when I think that the business cycle, the liquidity cycle is beginning to top out, I start to peel out and slowly move into stables. At some point, I'll probably get into where I'm more than 50 % at least, probably like 50 to 75 % into stables. The rest will remain in sort of like
For me, I call it lower risk assets, although like Bitcoin, for most people is not a low risk asset. In my world, I consider it more of low risk. So I would still hold that in case I'm wrong and in terms of the business cycle, equity cycle topping out, ⁓ but I would get out of most of my alts, most of my crypto and be mainly in yield bearing stable coins.
Slava (13:21)
Yeah, when you said all, do you mean like the higher risk alternative crypto coins that most people don't really know, but they'd be like number 50 or 100 or 200 on the cap table on the market capital capitalization.
Kyle Reidhead (13:33)
Correct. Even number two's and three, like Ethereum and Solana et cetera, I think all these as, and I hate the word altcoins, just what most people use in this space, but basically anything other than Bitcoin, they are a lot more volatile than Bitcoin. so, especially as if liquidity rolls over, that's when they tend to get wiped out, like we saw in 2022. And so I would be moving out of basically all those positions.
Slava (13:54)
Not where I was planning to go, but since you brought it up, is there a reason to really be investing in anything else in crypto besides Bitcoin?
Kyle Reidhead (14:01)
Yeah, good question. For most people, honestly, probably not. And the only reason I say that is it's so difficult right now. And so if you think about what crypto is, it is a bunch of startups that have equity or a liquid version of equity. And a lot of times it's not even real equity in them, but some sort of liquid investment ⁓ asset. And it's often that asset is available to the public too soon.
or very, very early on in the business's journey, right? Like imagine you had a company, it's only like half a year old or not even, doesn't have a product yet, and yet it's available on the New York Stock Exchange to be traded, right? It would be extremely volatile. Most of them wouldn't actually work. If you think about it right now, most startups, like 99 % of businesses fail. Well, now you have that in the crypto world, except you actually have an investable token for the public. And so it is a very difficult, weird world out there for those that are not involved. And to be honest, 99 % of those tokens, 99 % of those businesses are
actually just garbage and are not gonna make it. Now, there are some incredible businesses, there are things you could and should hold and you can do extremely well on like the gains that you can make in crypto if you know what you're doing are not even close to what you see in the traditional world for the most part. And so if you're not actually someone paying attention to crypto, you can just dollar cost average, hold Bitcoin and you're gonna do really well over the long term. You can't really do that for most other assets in crypto and so.
If you're not really paying attention, I'm always just just buy Bitcoin and you can, you know, hold that for forever if you want. ⁓ If you are paying attention, then yeah, there's a lot more you can do in the space. But again, you just gotta be very careful because a lot of it is not what it actually says it is.
Slava (15:36)
Okay, great. And then we took for granted the fact that we understand what stable coins are and how we get yield. Can we just talk about that for a second? So you have some stable coin and you get some yield. Can you be specific about like what you have, where you put it, what kind of yield you get and any perspective on that?
Kyle Reidhead (15:52)
Yeah, sure. So there's many different ways you can get yield in crypto using stable coins.
Slava (15:57)
But let's say, sorry, let's say it's for like
our listeners, which are not gonna be the most professional crypto nerds, right? So more like let's call it the 101 and the 102 level.
Kyle Reidhead (16:07)
Yeah, so I was just going to explain. So kind of a simple way to understand it is there's sort of a base yield that comes from stablecoin, is when I, you know, as I said, what stablecoins are, is they put dollars in a bank, right? What the companies do like Circle and Tether, these are the biggest ones in the world. What they actually do is they actually put those into US treasuries. And so it generates, you know, four and a half percent or whatever we're at today. And most of them take that yield. But there are some companies that instead of taking that yield as profit, they'll actually just give that yield to the user. So those that are holding the stablecoin.
⁓ One of the examples for this would be a company called sky They used to be called maker Dao which has been around for many many years ⁓ And they actually provide the yield to those holding it. So the the actual ticker the token is called s USD s you can hold that It's a stable coin. So meaning it just tracks the dollar but you get right now I think it's four point seven five percent And so there's a few others that you can do that But my favorite is using su sds and they'll just give you the yield rate and it just adds on to the token So there's nothing you have to do
You don't have to lock it up or stake it as a term that's using crypto. You don't have to do anything, you just hold it in your wallet.
Slava (17:07)
So do you get the,
are you getting the S-U-S-D-S in like Coinbase where you have to have its own wallet or you have to get its own app? Like how does that work?
Kyle Reidhead (17:16)
So you can get it up with any crypto wallet. So whether you use Metamask or Phantom or whatever, you can get it there just using any old exchange. You can also get it in Coinbase, but they won't use SUSDS, they use USDC. But if you hold USDC in Coinbase, they'll give you the yield as well. I think theirs is maybe 4.2 % or something like that. But same idea.
Slava (17:36)
Got it, so they're taking maybe
like 50 basis points of the profits there. Okay, great, super helpful. Let's change gears here a second. You were kind of headed there, but what's your perspective on the market? Where are we at on the stock market, the economy, crypto, debasement, inflation, jobs? Let's hear Kyle Reidhead's perspective on where we're at today. And today doesn't have to be this minute. It's really just your perspective on this year.
Kyle Reidhead (17:40)
Yeah, exactly.
Yes,
Yeah, absolutely. So it's been it's been a fun, fun few months in markets. That's for sure. It's been a wild ride. I'll just kind of give I'll start a little bit back, which was when everything happened with the so back in December when you know, Trump won back in November markets went crazy all the way into December, we became a bit bearish. ⁓ And mainly that was because liquidity had kind of ⁓ slowed down and started to roll over. And there was some inflation fears, etc. And it just felt like the market was just so euphoric.
So we had put out to our subscribers and said, hey, we're not necessarily, we don't think the cycle's over by any means, but we're a little bit nervous, a little bit bearish here at the moment. That ended up being right, but then it got way worse than we expected it to be. And so what I think happened was we had financial conditions tightened over that time, over November, December, January. And so for me, the market pullback was actually just due to that. It then got overblown April 7th or whenever Liberation Day was when Trump came out, April 2nd, yeah.
Slava (19:00)
April 2nd, yeah.
Kyle Reidhead (19:02)
So then things got overblown there. And I think we started to price in way, way, way like worse things than what was actually happening. In my opinion, that was kind of like the bottom and that was the big scare that we had. So ⁓ the reason I say that is because financial conditions actually loosened a lot at the same time. The dollar came down a ton, oil came down a ton, inflation was not going ⁓ higher, it's actually coming lower. ⁓ And so it actually looked to me like, this is a pretty good setup. Liquidity also began picking up around like February, March.
And so I was like, hey, this is looking like a good setup yet the market is just completely scared. A complete opposite of what we had in December. So we actually doubled down and we bought a bunch on April 8th, which was turned out to be one of the really good, that was both in the stock market and in crypto, turned out to be a really good time to buy. Today, I think we've sort of just reverted back. People are like, okay, we, everyone went, you know, and got sidelined. They all sold. And so people are kind of coming back repositioning. And, and now I think we were kind of back at let's call almost
let's say maybe a fair value type thing. And so where do we go from here? I think there's a lot of people that are like, hey, we're going to bear market, and this is like a bear trap, and there's a lot of people think the opposite. So it's kind of like, ⁓ who knows in terms of the consensus at the moment. For me, I actually think macro looks quite good. Inflation remains low and I think we'll continue lower for maybe one more month or two more months. And it looks like the business cycle is probably about to pick up, especially now that we have some trade deals.
coming, it seems. So for me, I just think the worst is probably behind us. Financial conditions have loosened a ton. When you look at the Dixie, when you look at oil, etc. So like for me, I think we're still in a pretty good place. And this is for stocks and this for crypto. I think they're both going to do quite well here. ⁓ And I think we're probably going to continue this run for a couple more months. Obviously, we'll see what happens there. But I think
likely this bull market continues until maybe into 2026, early 2026. And then I think we'll probably have some sort of longer form bear market, whether that's a year or six months or whatever. Like, I don't really know. But I think that's probably when we start to see the business cycle top. That's probably when we start to see liquidity top. And then we probably have some kind of pullback at that point. But for the rest of the year, my outlook on equities and on crypto is actually super bullish. And so we're, again, fully invested in our
are bullish here.
Slava (21:25)
All right, so let me echo some things back at you. So you think we hit bottom in April, is that right? And you actually think that in a midterm election year, 2026, in the United States, you think that we're gonna go down in the economy with a recession in 2026, that's bold.
Kyle Reidhead (21:30)
Yeah.
Not a recession, I didn't say that. I said a bear market and assets. doesn't necessarily, yeah, not necessarily saying recession. I think what's gonna happen is they're gonna really juice the market. Things are gonna go really well. We're gonna have an incredible end to this year and probably ⁓ leading into next year. And then at some point, we're gonna have to roll over. And I think we'll go into where prices begin to pull back. Now is that Q1, is that Q2? Like I don't know the exact time from there. We'll have to kind of see how things go. They did a really good job in my opinion.
Slava (21:44)
okay. Okay, okay.
Kyle Reidhead (22:10)
of sort of like delaying this bull market. Originally, I thought we were going to be done by kind of the end of this year, maybe like October, November. exactly. Yeah. But they kind of, and whether it was on purpose or not, have no idea, but they really sort of delayed this bull market. If you look at like the business cycle or the ISM, it hasn't been able to make its move like it normally would. Right. The Dixie stayed longer for hire. ⁓ Oil has stayed longer for hire. Everything's kind of like stayed tight. And just now we're starting to see it all move, which I would have expected way earlier than this year.
Slava (22:17)
Too hot, too fast.
Kyle Reidhead (22:40)
So it feels like instead of an end of the year, end to this sort of bull market, it feels like it's gonna go into 2026, which is probably a good thing for midterms, right? So it ends up maybe working out right well and.
Slava (22:50)
Well, the midterms need to last,
it needs to last longer into the summer, but yes.
Kyle Reidhead (22:54)
Yes, yeah. Again, I
don't know exactly when in 2026, but I just think that's when I'm becoming more cautious is at some point early next year.
Slava (23:01)
Kyle says no recession.
Kyle Reidhead (23:02)
I don't know that we really can get recessions anymore. I think that anytime there's some sort of scare, central banks or someone can step in and do something, whether that's QE like we had last time, or it's bringing down rates, there's still plenty of room for that, or other central banks around the world. There's always something we can do now. We've kind of seen this since 2008. Yes, I know we had a mini one during COVID. There was nothing we could really do there, but they got us out of that real quick.
And so just, I honestly don't know that we're gonna see a recession for a long time until we get out of this fiat world if that ever happens. I just, whenever recession fears come in and you see everyone talking about it on Twitter, I always think that's like the best time to be buying. Because I just think like, even if we do have it, it's gonna be very quick. Because the moment that we have it, they're gonna lower rates, they're gonna print, they're gonna do something to get us out of it. just, recessions don't really bother me that much.
Slava (23:54)
And how about on the flip side, too much ⁓ inflation and all that good stuff?
Kyle Reidhead (23:58)
So I don't really have concerns about inflation, mainly because I think tech is gonna take care of it all. AI is just the most deflationary thing we're probably ever gonna see, at least probably me in my lifetime. And I think that's really coming in full force now. And so as I just think about the way that businesses are run now, the way that I think about how manufacturing is running, AI is just going to make everything so deflationary.
And so I just like, at least on a long-term trend, of course things can change short-term here and there. Tariffs could have impacted it badly. I just think like over time though, I think we live in a very deflationary world and it's only getting more and more. And so I also am not really concerned about long-term inflation, like something like the 1970s. I just don't think we'll ever get that again. Because one, we don't have demographics that support that kind of inflation, right? Like if you think about the 70s is when all the boomers were finally getting a job and buying homes and having children. And so like,
We had like 10, 15 years of inflation that was this crazy high. We don't have that. No one has kids anymore. Our population growth is decelerating. And then we have AI just taking over almost everything. So I just, I think it would be very difficult to have a very inflationary world again.
Slava (25:09)
All right. It sounds like you're quite bullish on the stock market or the market in general. What would you think is going to be the end of year returns for the stock market? Like between zero to 30 % for the year.
Kyle Reidhead (25:22)
Good question. Are we talking about the S &P or are we talking about the NASDAQ? What do you think?
Slava (25:24)
Yeah. Yeah.
Anything you want.
Kyle Reidhead (25:27)
So interestingly, I don't have a solid take for US equities right now because it's kind of going to depend on what goes on with all the tariffs and we still don't have, like we know things are going to get clearer. We just don't know how good they're going to get.
Slava (25:39)
I mean, today's the
day that China and US had a very positive day. The stock market kind of popped because it looks like there might be actually some deals done, but I'm sure that roller coaster hasn't ended. So we'll see where that goes.
Kyle Reidhead (25:44)
has a moment. Yeah.
Yeah.
So like my assumption is we don't go back to zero tariffs or like, I think it's probably somewhere around 10 ish. And so like, how does that affect the US economy and the US stocks? Like, I don't know. And so I would say I'm not like a mega bull on most, unlike let's say the US equities, but I am definitely bullish, right? So let's say 20%. ⁓
Slava (26:12)
Ooh, that's quite bullish. That'd be the first
time ever three years in a row of 20 % plus, just so you know. ⁓ I'm gonna take the under, but it's not my interview. Let's continue.
Kyle Reidhead (26:16)
Yeah, yeah.
Hold on, are
we talking about year to date or are we talking about from today's prices?
Slava (26:25)
No, no, January 1st to the end of the year.
Kyle Reidhead (26:26)
Okay, okay,
okay, okay, okay. Whatever, I'm still thinking to say 20, it's fine. ⁓
Slava (26:30)
It's all good. It's all good. Let's
turn the page. So Milk Road, what is Milk Road? ⁓ You know, who reads it, who watches it, who listens, what is it? Tell us how it got started and how it's relevant for our listeners.
Kyle Reidhead (26:44)
Yeah, so Milk Road is a media channel that helps everyday investors become better at investing, right? Everyday people become better at investing. The focus of that right now and has been for the last three years on crypto. A lot of, let's say, retail younger people have gotten into crypto over the last four or five years. Milk Road is sort of that tool that helps people kind of get through all the noise, all the complexities of crypto and really like explain it in a simple way.
What Milk Road has done over the last few years though, starting to branch out of just crypto and just become more of an investment platform and research platform to help people understand markets in general. So we're launching a ⁓ new sort of brand to go along with Milk Road called Milk Road Macro. And it'll focus mainly on macro, but simple, right? A lot of the macro podcasts, a of the macro newsletters out there, they're so hard to understand and they're not digestible or approachable for like the average person. Yet macro is so important for everything we invest in. So we're sort of branching out to different
avenues of investing and just trying to put our stamp on it, which is make it fun, make it easy to read, easy to understand, make it digestible, but still very informative, very action packed. so right now we have newsletter and podcasts. We're sort of expanding that out to more podcasts, more newsletters, just trying to help the average person understand how to play these markets.
Slava (27:57)
Great, and if people wanted to sign up or use it, how do they do that?
Kyle Reidhead (28:01)
Hey, you can check out milkroad.com. That's probably the best place to start, where you can sign up for the newsletter. From there, you can also see all of our shows and our podcast, et cetera. That'll give you kind of the entrance into our.
Slava (28:13)
And are you doing a show as well?
Kyle Reidhead (28:14)
I don't host it, but my co-founder, he hosts what's called the Milk Road Show. And that is a daily podcast where we just talk about markets, mainly again, focused on crypto, macro, and every once in while we'll talk about equities in there as well.
Slava (28:28)
How have your subscribers evolved over the last, let's call it, year and a half, you know, as we've gone into the potential Trump trade and then all of a sudden the tariffs and going down and up? mean, how have you seen your users, subscribers evolve?
Kyle Reidhead (28:44)
Our goal has always been to try to help our audience zoom out, right? Just zoom out and don't get so caught up in the day to day. We're a daily show, so we do talk about markets every day, but we're often like, hey, that's probably not the best thing you should do. Like take some time to like get away from markets and not look at the charts. And so our biggest lessons that we've been helping our audience learn is just like when the market's going to panic, it doesn't mean you go sell. If in fact, if you still think your framework makes sense, that might be a good time to be buying.
It's all about trying to manage your emotions. And I think especially crypto, which is a younger audience and newer investor, their emotions is what controls a lot of what they do. And so we saw it last year when we had the kind of Yen Carry Trade blow up, everyone was tripping out and people didn't know what to do. And so we kind of, you know, brought in that sort of Zen moment. Hey, let's be calm. Let's look at the data. Let's see what's really going on here. And in that point, again, we bought the dip. And so it's, we're trying to just help our audience sort of zoom out and just see the bigger picture, trade less.
be investors, long-term thinkers. And I think our audience is really loving that. They're really starting to relate to that. And they're starting to really, ⁓ to learn that because we see it all the time is that our audience and our community that comes into our products, they tell us, hey, we used to be the trader, the one trying to play every single news that happened every day. And because of you guys, you know, we're sort of slowing down, making less trades, doing less. ⁓ And that's really helped with their portfolio. And so.
That's our goal, just keep helping people try to learn how to play this game in a more simple, easier fashion. And I think if you do that, can do much better. And it seems to working for our audience. So it's been fun.
Slava (30:15)
Do you think
everybody should be in crypto?
Kyle Reidhead (30:18)
⁓ you know, it's a good question. Look, I think it's, it's obviously becoming a technology that the world is going to use. Right. ⁓ and, and it's, so I think everyone should at least be learning about it. Now, should everyone be all in on it? Should everyone be investing in it? I don't know. It's the same thing. I think about AI, like AI is an important technology. If you're not using it your companies right now or in your jobs, you're getting left behind. It's like crypto. If you're not understanding what crypto is, if you don't know stable coins, if you're not seeing
how we're currently rebuilding the financial system on chain, then I think you're getting kind of left behind. It's like the internet, you know, 20, 30 years ago. Did you need to invest in all the internet stocks? Like, no, would have been a good idea. But you didn't need to, but you should at least understand what's happening because the world is changing as a result of it. And I think both AI and crypto are also changing the world in a big way. And so I think it's important to be paying attention to and to be learning. I'm not going to tell everyone that you need to be fully invested in it, but definitely doesn't hurt. been the best performing asset in the last 15 years, if you look at Bitcoin. So why not?
Slava (31:14)
Let's say somebody's listening right now and they're like, okay, this guy Kyle's finally helping me get into crypto. I haven't put a dollar in yet. What should be their entry? Let's ignore how many zeros they're working with. What should be the framework as to how they think after they listen to this podcast? like, okay, I'm getting in. How should they get in?
Kyle Reidhead (31:32)
Yeah, good question. mean, look, whenever I'm trying to get into something that I don't really understand or I don't know about or I'm not convicted in yet, I just buy some of it because then once I put my money down, now it forces me to go and learn about it, right? So I would say the first thing you do is before you even look at anything or do anything, just go open a Coinbase account or whatever account you need. You can now buy an ETF so it's actually way easier that way. And just buy a bit of Bitcoin and watch what happens, right?
I find that once I put a little bit of money down, I start to learn a little bit more and I'll start to like try to understand what's going on and that'll make me kind of go down the rabbit hole, which is what happens with a lot of people in crypto. It's a very complex thing. So I understand why it's hard for people to jump in, but once you put some money in, it'll allow you to kind of do it. And so I would say first, just buy some and I'd start with Bitcoin and then go listen to some podcasts, read some newsletters, you know, get on Twitter, like whatever you got to do, wherever you learn and just start trying to learn it and come up with your own like opinions about it. But
I think once you really see what's going on here, you'll understand that this is actually a very important technology. There is a lot of gimmicks and a lot of crap that kind of like, I think makes people have these bad thoughts about crypto. We've obviously had so many companies that went bankrupt back in 2022, but that's not real crypto, right? That was centralized finance. was centralized companies holding crypto. It didn't really have the values of what crypto really is. So I think, you know, buy a little bit and then go try and learn about it. And if you like it.
Probably you're gonna buy some more. That's what generally happens.
Slava (32:58)
Why did you say Coinbase as opposed to like the real simple user experience of going through like ⁓ Robinhood? Is it the whole owners? Yeah, go for it.
Kyle Reidhead (33:06)
Yeah, good question.
No, mean, so I actually, after I said Coinbase, I realized, you can just get on the ETFs. To be honest, I just, I've been in this space so long that Coinbase has always just been the first option. And I forget sometimes like, you can actually just go buy it in your direct investing account. You don't even need to open up an exchange. Robinhood, also a great one. And if you were going to say, because it's not your keys, not your coins, Robinhood, can buy Bitcoin on and you can move it to your own wallet as well. So, but I don't even tell people to do that. Like you don't have to hold it on a ledger or some crazy crypto wallet.
Just hold it in Robin Hood or on an ETF. Like I think that's completely fine again until you start to learn more Then you can start to you know hold and custody your own assets, which is one of the the value adds of Bitcoin But you definitely don't need to do that to start don't over complicate it like just just do something, right?
Slava (33:51)
Are you using any blockchain crypto use cases that are not stable coins or BTC?
Kyle Reidhead (33:56)
using as in like am I using DeFi or what do mean?
Slava (33:58)
Exactly.
just using any blockchain technology or any crypto companies outside of just having the Bitcoin or the stablecoin.
Kyle Reidhead (34:09)
Yeah, I mean I use DeFi a lot to do loans and to get yield. So I do that a little bit, not a ton I would say, but I definitely do that. And then otherwise I mainly just invest right now.
Slava (34:21)
Okay, so that was great. Is there anything else you want to add about Milk Road that the listener should know?
Kyle Reidhead (34:26)
Look, think again, to go with your question, if crypto is something you're wanting to try to figure out, Milk Road is a good place because it's simple, it's kind of enjoyable, it's fun. We try to take the technicalities of crypto out of the picture and help you understand it at a deeper level, but in a more simple way. So would highly recommend just go to milkroad.com and that should help you on your journey.
Slava (34:46)
Awesome, so you're obviously a smart guy, know a lot of things. What is it that you're watching, listening to, reading that you could share with our users that can make them smarter or learn something interesting?
Kyle Reidhead (34:56)
Good question. I'm currently reading the book Five Types of Wealth by what's his name? Sahil, I think his name is. ⁓ It's been a really good book. It helps you just kind of reframe what you're doing in terms of the grind out there to make money instead of just only focusing on money. It's focusing on other things like relationships, et cetera. So I think that's just been a nice little read so far. about halfway done it. So I do really, really enjoy that.
And then otherwise, honestly, I just consume a ton of podcasts and newsletters, but I've actually used AI to, ⁓ to summarize it for me. So there's a, there's a platform you can use called Blinkist. ⁓ and you can put any podcast, any book into it and it'll spit it out and give you like a 10 minute podcast. I've built my own where it actually auto pulls all the YouTube channels that I really enjoy and it takes it and it spits it into a little PDF that I like and a little 10 minute podcast. And so I'm consuming, I don't know, like five, 10 episodes a day.
and I can do it all within like an hour, which has been really great. So I know, I consume a ton.
Slava (35:54)
What are the three, five podcasts that you like, like the actual shows?
Kyle Reidhead (35:58)
Yeah, good question. So the Pomp podcast is one that I really enjoy. That's focused mainly on Bitcoin, but also a little bit around economics. Forward Guidance is one that I use. It's a BlockWorks podcast focused on macro. ⁓ Milk Road podcast or the Milk Road show, I obviously consume a lot of that as well. And then honestly, lately I've been watching a lot of the All In podcast, which is a long podcast, much longer than others. But again, if you can summarize using AI, it makes it lot easier.
Slava (36:27)
And then what tool did you use to create your own summarization tool?
Kyle Reidhead (36:30)
So actually the devs at my company do it, but they use something called N8n. It is not a very friendly ⁓ product. I can do it myself. You have to code a little bit. But you can use Zapier. And Zapier, which used to be just an automation tool, is now an automation and AI tool. And it can do a lot of the work for you.
Slava (36:49)
Amazing. And then our final question, which we call three years out. What is one public markets stock that you would pick that you suggest for three years out that should be performing well
Kyle Reidhead (36:58)
On the equity side, my favorite asset right now is actually Tesla. I know this is a very controversial one. A lot of people hate it, a lot of people love it.
I just think, again, to go back to the AI thing, I just think if you want the exposure to AI and robotics and energy, there's just no one doing it better than what Tesla is. And I know it gets a lot of hate and there's also some struggles with tariffs, et cetera. I just think you got the smartest builder in the world. They're just doing some of the most incredible things that you've ever seen. And I just can't see them being, not doing multiples from here in a few years from now. what they're doing with...
Slava (37:33)
So
three years out, you think Tesla is doing multiple return, a multiple back.
Kyle Reidhead (37:37)
Yeah,
I think it doubles by the end of this year and I'd be willing to bet that. Yeah, I do. ⁓ I mean, it was already at.
Slava (37:40)
Oh, right. Nice. Bold. I love the bold predictions. No more recessions. 20 %
plus from the beginning of the year for the stock market and a double on Tesla. Kyle, we're going to keep receipts. We're going to keep receipts. All right.
Kyle Reidhead (37:52)
I mean, it was already at 500 earlier today, earlier this year. It
was at 500 in December. like it's, it wasn't far off from that double.
Slava (37:59)
I love it. No, no, this was what makes an awesome guest Kyle. We have covered a lot of great content starting from your accent in Canada. So that's where you came from doing some awesome stuff serial entrepreneur, multiple things. Obviously you got into Web3 in 2017. Now you're all in all alternatives. 85 % in the alts, you know, in the alts world, you're at 90 % crypto, 10 % real estate and inside there you're 95 % you know, in the spot right now, 5 % stable coins. You taught us about stable coins. Obviously you love BTC.
Kyle Reidhead (38:02)
Hahaha
Slava (38:29)
You told us how to get into SUSDS. Obviously, we all would like to get 4.75 % on anything, and especially on our crypto assets. You you had some great lines that you think the macro looks good, that inflation is low, the trade deals are positive, the worst is behind us. We're probably gonna have a solid year. AI is deflationary, and we're not gonna have a recession in our near future. Actually, we're not sure if there's gonna be another recession ever, but we'll keep that out. Obviously, Milk Road is doing great work.
has lots of users, lots of listeners, lots of readers. Now you have your newsletters on your podcast, you're adding the macro, which is awesome. I heard Zoom out, take a breath, trade less, be investors, which is awesome. He told us about five types of wealth and obviously Blinkist. He told us about how we can create our own apps through Zapier and such or N8n, but obviously there's also the individual ones like Pomp and Forward Guidance, Milk Road, All In.
Thank you so much, Kyle.
Kyle Reidhead (39:20)
Thanks a lot. Great summary by the way, that was impressive.
