{"version":1,"id":"john-gillen","title":"John Gillen","summary":"John Gillen is a person that is a digital asset investor, podcast host, and strategic advisor focused on research, media, and investment in cryptocurrencies.","content":"**John Gillen** is an American digital-assets professional, fund analyst, and podcast host based in New York City. He is the host of the Milk Road Macro and The Milk Road Show podcasts produced by the crypto media company Milk Road, and he serves as Director and head of fundamental analysis and market research at the crypto-focused hedge fund TRU Capital.[\\[1\\]](#cite-id-bjl696yjlk) Before entering the crypto industry full-time, Gillen spent more than six years at the asset manager BlackRock, where he was a Vice President in Aladdin Client Services.[\\[2\\]](#cite-id-3s5i0h8tav)​\n\n## Education\n\nGillen completed a certification in the Economics of [Blockchain](https://iq.wiki/wiki/blockchain) and [Digital Assets](https://iq.wiki/wiki/digital-assets) through Wharton Executive Education in 2022 in Philadelphia, covering blockchain technology, [smart contracts](https://iq.wiki/wiki/smart-contract), decentralized finance, and digital-asset valuation and investing.[\\[1\\]](#cite-id-bjl696yjlk) He also lists studies at The Wharton School and coursework in Systems Engineering at APPLI-KEY.[\\[1\\]](#cite-id-bjl696yjlk) He describes himself as a subject-matter expert on traditional finance and digital assets, with a professional focus on fundamental analysis, market research, and relationship management.[\\[1\\]](#cite-id-bjl696yjlk)​\n\n## Early Career\n\nGillen's professional background spans technology consulting, entertainment, and [blockchain](https://iq.wiki/wiki/blockchain) hardware before he concentrated on [digital assets](https://iq.wiki/wiki/digital-assets). He began as a Technology Consulting Senior Analyst at Accenture from July 2014 to November 2015, where his responsibilities included engaging with clients to identify requirements and define success metrics, leading release testing and defect resolution, and participating across all stages of the software development life cycle.[\\[1\\]](#cite-id-bjl696yjlk)​\n\nFrom February 2016 to January 2018 he worked as a Talent Agent Assistant at The Gersh Agency in New York City, acting as a liaison between producers, agents, and clients in negotiations and securing offers.[\\[1\\]](#cite-id-bjl696yjlk) He then moved into blockchain hardware as a Strategic Business Consultant at Infinity Core LLC from February to November 2018, a role he describes as Chief Strategy Officer for a [blockchain](https://iq.wiki/wiki/blockchain) hardware start-up, where he oversaw technical communications, product management, and road-mapping and coordinated the development efforts of multiple stakeholder teams alongside software developers and hardware manufacturers.[\\[1\\]](#cite-id-bjl696yjlk)​\n\n### BlackRock\n\nGillen joined BlackRock in November 2018 as a Vice President in Aladdin Client Services and remained until January 2025, a tenure of six years and two months in the Greater New York City area.[\\[1\\]](#cite-id-bjl696yjlk) Aladdin is BlackRock's investment-management software platform; Gillen states he supported thousands of users of front-office investment tools on the platform, which he describes as managing approximately $30 trillion in assets under management.[\\[1\\]](#cite-id-bjl696yjlk) As Senior Portfolio and Benchmark Maintenance Specialist and Front Office Client Service Lead, he says he supervised the onboarding, training, and daily management of more than 100 analysts across four offices in North America, with personal responsibility for 19 direct reports in New York City.[\\[1\\]](#cite-id-bjl696yjlk)​\n\nIn his BlackRock role Gillen states he collaborated with engineering to design and roll out the Portfolio Maintenance Toolkit, a software tool used by thousands of users to process changes to their portfolio structure on Aladdin, and served as project manager for the Index and Market Data teams on the Index Portal Modernization Initiative.[\\[1\\]](#cite-id-bjl696yjlk) He also reports acting as a [blockchain](https://iq.wiki/wiki/blockchain) and digital-assets subject-matter expert, working with BlackRock's Digital Assets Lab and Digital Assets Team to support digital-asset integration on Aladdin, including the platform's integration with [Coinbase Prime](https://iq.wiki/wiki/coinbase-prime).[\\[1\\]](#cite-id-bjl696yjlk) He presented service-metric reports in quarterly C-suite relationship reviews and shared responsibility for customer-success management for several of BlackRock's largest clients.[\\[1\\]](#cite-id-bjl696yjlk)​\n\n### Crypto Media and Content Writing\n\nIn parallel with his BlackRock work, Gillen moved into crypto content creation. From March 2023 to May 2024 he was a Crypto Content Writer at HIT Network, an advertising-services firm, where he pitched and wrote scripts for YouTube videos for a variety of content creators in the digital-assets space, focused on crypto news and educational material.[\\[1\\]](#cite-id-bjl696yjlk) Overlapping with this, from April 2023 to May 2024 he was a Script Writer at [Discover Crypto](https://iq.wiki/wiki/discover-crypto), researching and writing dozens of scripts for YouTube videos about [blockchain](https://iq.wiki/wiki/blockchain), [Bitcoin](https://iq.wiki/wiki/bitcoin), [Ethereum](https://iq.wiki/wiki/ethereum), and related subjects.[\\[1\\]](#cite-id-bjl696yjlk)​\n\n### TRU Capital\n\nSince August 2023 Gillen has served as Director at TRU Capital, where he is head of fundamental analysis and market research for a crypto and digital-asset-focused fund.[\\[1\\]](#cite-id-bjl696yjlk) TRU Capital is described on his profile as a private hedge fund focused on securing profits in crypto bull cycles and preserving buying power using proprietary technology; it was founded in 2023, is headquartered in Miami, Florida, and has between one and ten employees.[\\[1\\]](#cite-id-bjl696yjlk)​\n\n### Initiative Equity Partners\n\nIn August 2025 Gillen took on the role of Relationship Manager and Strategic Advisor at Initiative Equity Partners in New York, where his listed functions include relationship management, strategic advisory, and serving as a digital-assets subject-matter expert.[\\[1\\]](#cite-id-bjl696yjlk) The firm is described as an impact-driven multinational holding company and investment manager founded in 2018, headquartered in New York with between one and ten employees and a workforce distributed across the United States and Canada.[\\[1\\]](#cite-id-bjl696yjlk)​\n\n## Milk Road\n\nGillen joined Milk Road as a host in July 2025 and presents both Milk Road Macro and The Milk Road Show.[\\[1\\]](#cite-id-bjl696yjlk) Milk Road is an online audio and video media company founded in 2022, best known as a daily crypto newsletter, website, and social-media presence that provides tools, information, and news to help people understand developments in crypto.[\\[3\\]](#cite-id-brtm4ut2rk)​\n\n### Podcasts\n\nGillen hosts a large slate of interview episodes with market and macroeconomic commentators.[\\[2\\]](#cite-id-3s5i0h8tav) In the episode \"Milk Road's Macro Framework: How The Big Picture Empowers Investors w/ John Gillen,\" dated August 7, 2025, the format was reversed to interview Gillen himself; the episode covered the framework he uses to navigate markets, inflation, and crypto cycles, and addressed themes such as \"why debt is the new money, how to spot where we are in the economic cycle, and where the smart money is moving.\"[\\[2\\]](#cite-id-3s5i0h8tav)​\n\nAs host of Milk Road Macro, Gillen conducted interviews with a range of guests through 2026, including Mel Mattison, Jim Bianco, Michael Nicoletos, Andreas Steno Larsen, Eric Wallerstein, Matthew Piepenburg, Ric Edelman, Mark Newton, Clem Chambers, Lance Roberts, Tavi Costa, and Milton Berg, on topics spanning commodity [bull markets](https://iq.wiki/wiki/bull-market), dollar hegemony, geopolitics, and market cycles.[\\[2\\]](#cite-id-3s5i0h8tav)​\n\nGillen has also appeared as a featured guest on The Milk Road Show. In \"Why Ethereum May Be the Biggest Winner of the AI Revolution w/ John Gillen,\" published February 24, 2026, he unpacked the viral \"2028 AI crisis\" narrative and argued that the long-term impact of artificial intelligence could be bullish for crypto and especially Ethereum. He contended that [AI agents](https://iq.wiki/wiki/ai-agents), autonomous economies, and increased capital investment could raise demand for decentralized finance, digital scarcity, and onchain infrastructure, reasoning that machines transacting, coordinating, and hiring one another would need permissionless money, identity systems, and settlement layers.[\\[5\\]](#cite-id-274w91kdey) He was also the featured guest on \"Ethereum Is Either Failing… Or Evolving Into Something Much Bigger w/ John Gillen,\" published May 26, 2026, and \"The Real Reason Bitcoin Keeps Losing [Momentum](https://iq.wiki/wiki/momentum)… And Where It Bottoms Next w/ John Gillen,\" published June 1, 2026. [\\[5\\]](#cite-id-274w91kdey) \n\n### Analyst Portfolio\n\nMilk Road runs a feature called Analyst Portfolios, described as live simulations of its analysts' personal holdings that track the core high-conviction moves and allocations the analysts are making with their own capital.[\\[3\\]](#cite-id-brtm4ut2rk) Gillen maintains one named the \"Crypto Focused Portfolio,\" in which he states he takes concentrated positions in digital assets with a multi-year time horizon based on research and analysis that supports lasting value.[\\[3\\]](#cite-id-brtm4ut2rk) Milk Road offers subscribers access to analysts' holdings, trade logs, research, and rationale through a paid \"PRO\" tier promoted at a $1 trial price.[\\[6\\]](#cite-id-kcuj1uyrxl)​\n\n## Views on Ethereum\n\nGillen is publicly identified with a pro-Ethereum thesis, which is reflected in the display name \"John Gillen - WartimeEthereum.eth\" that he uses on the social platform X under the handle , where he describes himself as an \"ex BlackRock VP\" and \"Host of  Podcast.\"[\\[7\\]](#cite-id-piu34d2gyq) In a thread posted on July 8, 2026, he argued that [Robinhood Chain](https://iq.wiki/wiki/robinhood-chain)—an [Ethereum](https://iq.wiki/wiki/ethereum) layer-2 rollup he says is built on [Arbitrum](https://iq.wiki/wiki/arbitrum)—is a structural win for the Ethereum native asset. He made three claims: that the chain uses the native asset to pay all network [gas](https://iq.wiki/wiki/gas) fees rather than a proprietary token; that, as a layer-2 rollup, it batches transactions down to Ethereum [mainnet](https://iq.wiki/wiki/mainnet) for final settlement, forcing regular settlement fees to base-layer [validators](https://iq.wiki/wiki/validator); and that by tokenizing major U.S. equities such as Apple and Nvidia and offering 24/7 on-chain trading to more than 120 countries, it bridges traditional brokerage liquidity into self-custodial decentralized finance.[\\[7\\]](#cite-id-piu34d2gyq)​\n\nOn August 6, 2026, Gillen posted that he had recorded a podcast with the co-founders of an organization he tagged as  to discuss its plans to drive institutional adoption of Ethereum, thanking guests he identified as , , and .[\\[7\\]](#cite-id-piu34d2gyq) He has also expressed support for [Bitcoin](https://iq.wiki/wiki/bitcoin), writing on May 15, 2026, \"Bitcoin is liberty. [HODL](https://iq.wiki/wiki/hodl).\"[\\[7\\]](#cite-id-piu34d2gyq)​","categories":[{"id":"people","title":"people"}],"tags":[{"id":"Investor"},{"id":"Advisor"},{"id":"Speaker"},{"id":"Influencer"}],"images":[{"id":"QmNVKvMwtXnFsNWRBiozENDTjsrgrCN2GLRcKmBpDPRuBN","type":"image/jpeg, image/png"}],"media":[],"metadata":[{"id":"website","value":"https://www.johnmatthewgillen.com/"},{"id":"linkedin_profile","value":"https://www.linkedin.com/in/johngillen1"},{"id":"github_profile","value":"https://github.com/johngillen"},{"id":"medium_profile","value":"https://johngillen.medium.com/"},{"id":"twitter_profile","value":"https://x.com/BitcoinJesusETH"},{"id":"references","value":"[{\"id\":\"bjl696yjlk\",\"url\":\"https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-gillen-95788373/\",\"description\":\"LinkedIn profile listing his roles\",\"timestamp\":1789770973382},{\"id\":\"3s5i0h8tav\",\"url\":\"https://milkroad.com/podcast/milk-road-s-macro-framework-how-the-big-picture-empowers-investors-w-john-gillen-Azbp0dVWrVk/\",\"description\":\"Episode describing him as former BlackRock investor\",\"timestamp\":1789770973382},{\"id\":\"brtm4ut2rk\",\"url\":\"https://milkroad.com/portfolios/john/\",\"description\":\"Milk Road company and newsletter description\",\"timestamp\":1789770973382},{\"id\":\"qkzhfzhly7\",\"url\":\"https://www.linkedin.com/posts/milk-road_our-very-own-john-gillen-is-speaking-on-a-activity-7426574031195242496-YUXp\",\"description\":\"Milk Road workforce and positioning\",\"timestamp\":1789770973382},{\"id\":\"274w91kdey\",\"url\":\"https://milkroad.com/podcast/why-ethereum-may-be-the-biggest-winner-of-the-ai-revolution-w-john-gillen-rjHH_LS9UcA/\",\"description\":\"Ethereum and AI revolution episode, February 2026\",\"timestamp\":1789770973382},{\"id\":\"kcuj1uyrxl\",\"url\":\"https://milkroad.com/portfolios/\",\"description\":\"PRO subscription and $1 trial\",\"timestamp\":1789770973382},{\"id\":\"piu34d2gyq\",\"url\":\"https://twiscan.com/en/x/BitcoinJesusETH\",\"description\":\"X profile handle and self-description\",\"timestamp\":1789770973382}]"},{"id":"commit-message","value":"Create John Gillen wiki"}],"events":[{"type":"DEFAULT","title":"Joined GitHub","date":"2019-06-01","description":"Account creation / joined GitHub (johngillen)","link":"https://github.com/johngillen","multiDateStart":null,"multiDateEnd":null,"id":"a7ac492a-f04e-4647-aee2-c7e931d69c43"}],"linkedWikis":{"founders":[],"blockchains":[],"speakers":[]},"user":{"id":"0x8af7a19a26d8fbc48defb35aefb15ec8c407f889"},"author":{"id":"0x1E23b34d3106F0C1c74D17f2Cd0F65cdb039b138"},"language":"en","operator":{"id":"0x1E23b34d3106F0C1c74D17f2Cd0F65cdb039b138"}}