Hi everyone! I hope you’re all ready for one of the most visually striking weekends of the year – I’m not into Halloween, I confess, but the iconography of the Día de los Muertos is stunning, and the legends behind it are timeless. 💀🎃

Sincere apologies for the late send today, but the news flow this morning, just… 😖😖

IN THIS NEWSLETTER

• The Binance hack stress-test

• Macro: strong growth, slowing consumption

Crypto is Macro Now offers ~daily commentary and updates on crypto’s evolving role in the changing geopolitical and financial landscapes. Plus links and more.

If you’re a premium subscriber, thank you!! ❤

PUBLISHED IN PARTNERSHIP WITH: ✨ ALLIUM ✨

Most stablecoin payment value involved a business while most payments were between consumers. Businesses were involved in 64% of $482B in payments Jan-Sept 2026, but consumer-to-consumer transfers made up 64% of the payments count (1.04 billion).

Download Allium’s State of Stablecoins and Payments Q3 2026.

And get weekly onchain data and more analysis like this from the Allium Research team on Substack.

WHAT I’M WATCHING

The Binance hack stress-test

Well, this is bad. But perhaps not quite as catastrophic as it might at first seem.

I woke up this morning to the news that Binance, the world’s largest crypto trading platform in terms of volume, has suffered the largest crypto hack to date, with roughly $6.3 billion worth of crypto assets drained from accounts. Evidence points to it being a North Korean operation, like so many other big hacks in crypto history.

Before, we look at the market reaction, here’s what happened:

Starting at around 20:00 UTC yesterday, funds started leaving Binance wallets, with the bulk exiting in just 20 minutes.

(chart via @anti_fragile)

At first, it looked like the hackers gained access to transaction authorization rights via a developer’s laptop, but Binance now says an investigation has found multiple points of entry.

Shortly after, Tether, Circle, Arbitrum and others froze roughly $2.83 billion of stablecoins. Before the freeze, some were transferred over to Aave, where they were used as collateral for an ETH loan. The attacker currently holds around $3.2 billion worth of assets, mainly BTC and ETH – these cannot be frozen.

Executives are assuring users that their funds are safe and that any losses will be compensated. To stem outflows, withdrawals have been suspended, but are expected to resume once a security scan is complete.

Earlier this morning, Binance announced that it was setting aside a reserve of $6.34 billion to cover losses from the theft - $5 billion is already held by Binance in the affected tokens, and the balance will be purchased in the open market, which should give some support to prices. That figure does not include the $3 billion frozen in stablecoins as those balances will be subject to recovery and verification.

The market reaction

Understandably, BTC dropped sharply on the news:

(chart via TradingView)

Not great, but… it’s just over 3% down on 24 hours ago. That kind of a daily move is not unusual. And it’s more or less what Japan’s Nikkei index fell in today’s trading. The US Nasdaq was down 1.4% yesterday. Put differently, given the scale of the theft, 3% is nothing.

Perhaps we’ll see a bigger downward move when the US market wakes up. Futures are suggesting that US stocks are in trouble today, likely to brutally extend yesterday’s losses – which means BTC will probably be dragged down as well.

But it is likely to be more a macro-driven drag than a hack-driven panic.

The timing is unfortunate - Monday marks the four-year anniversary of that CoinDesk article on Alameda’s balance sheet that set off the cascade of revelations that a week later would lead to the end of FTX and many other crypto institutions.

But this situation is completely different. FTX was outright fraud that left devastation in its wake. The Binance hit is a hack, and the industry has come together. The crypto market will be fine, and there are unlikely to be any notable casualties, not even Binance – it is the industry’s largest trading platform in terms of volume, and is extremely profitable.

Crypto research firm K33 estimates that Binance’s annual profit is over $4 billion, so it can afford the market purchases it needs to make.

(chart via @VetleLunde)

Also, it’s notable that there were no stablecoin depegs, Aave froze some reserves but is otherwise functioning, DeFi in general seems unaffected, and market makers are not expecting much disruption.

Barring a nasty surprise, this will blow over fast, and industry-wide security will improve as a result.

Indeed, it needs to. According to DeFiLlama, this brings the number of crypto-related hacks so far this year to 322, more than double the number seen in 2025. If asset prices start to pick up in 2027, the number of attempts will only increase.

(chart via @DefiLlama)

And, no deflection intended, all businesses need to be scrambling to re-think their security logic, given the capabilities of AI agents and the increasing use of cyberwarfare.

I’ve written before about how convenience makes us vulnerable. Digital finance and commerce and communication gives us fast, cheap connectivity but it also offers tempting attack vectors.

However, blockchain transparency itself can become a meaningful defence. The flight from Binance’s wallets was spotted almost immediately. Onchain forensics sprung into action and the tokens were tracked. A perpetrator was identified almost within minutes, their wallets mapped so they can be monitored in real time.

(chart via @arkham)

Crypto networks are astonishing in their power of information. Meanwhile, hacks happen regularly behind opaque front-ends and, for the ones we hear about, information tends to be selective.

Binance and partners reacted fast to stem the damage and get communication on the incident out to the public. The firm’s executives – including its two CEOs Yi He and Richard Teng – have been keeping the market updated via regular posts and videos on X throughout the morning. That also goes a long way towards restoring confidence.

This is likely to blow over soon, and the lessons learned will make the whole industry stronger and hopefully more able to fend off similar operations.

That doesn’t mean we can relax about potential vulnerabilities, though. But, while it’s a really, really bad blow, it has also given the industry the chance to show its strengths.

If you want more detail on how the hack happened and where the funds moved to, these threads give a lot of information:

Macro: strong growth, slowing consumption

After yesterday’s macro data, a rate hike in December looks even more likely – unless a sharp stock market drop changes the economic outlook (my screen is a sea of red today).

Read more

Hello everyone! I hope you’re all taking care of yourselves and managing to either navigate or ignore a surreal news flow. 🎃

IN THIS NEWSLETTER

• The Fed: Empty patter and shrinking flexibility

• Unrest in Spain: When a simmer becomes a boil

• A couple of good reads

Crypto is Macro Now offers ~daily commentary and updates on crypto’s evolving role in the changing geopolitical and financial landscapes. Plus links and more.

If you’re a premium subscriber, thank you!! ❤

PUBLISHED IN PARTNERSHIP WITH: ✨ ALLIUM ✨

Most stablecoin payment value involved a business while most payments were between consumers. Businesses were involved in 64% of the $482 billion in payments Jan-Sept 2026, but consumer-to-consumer transfers made up 64% of the total payments count of 1.04 billion.

Download Allium’s State of Stablecoins and Payments Q3 2026.

And get weekly onchain data and more analysis like this from the Allium Research team on Substack.

WHAT I’M WATCHING

The Fed: Empty patter and shrinking flexibility

For the first time in ages, I skipped the FOMC press conference last night. (Instead, I found myself in the midst of a riot, more on this below.)

When Warsh first took office, I found his smoothness refreshing – but that lasted all of one session of him saying nothing at all while oozing charm and leveraging the good suit and the politician’s body language. Now, I find his empty patter annoying if not slightly condescending. And apparently, it was in full flow last night.

From reports, I gather he used a liberal sprinkling of filler phrases such as “information-rich”, “doubled down”, “monetary medicine”, “looking out the window”, “willingness to act” – and the top contender for the cringe award: “interrogating reality”.

He also managed to avoid actually answering any pointed questions, instead regurgitating tired talking points.

There was one surprise announcement: next year, one meeting will be set aside for discussing strategy rather than setting rates. In 2028, that number will increase to two.

While this fits in with Warsh’s reluctance to engage with the public, in reducing the number of rate-setting meetings from eight to seven, it does remove some of the central bank’s flexibility to react to economic conditions. By 2028, when it drops to six, it will be a quarter less flexible than it is today, and it may find that as a result it over-reacts in the available window. Of course, it can change monetary policy outside the scheduled meetings, but that tends to be more disruptive for markets.

Still, a positive could be that (although this was not specified) the strategy-focused meetings won’t involve the usual session of questions-and-non-answers. Fewer FOMC press conferences would be a good thing.

Read more

Hello everyone! I hope you’re all taking care of yourselves, this is shaping up to be a crazy week for geopolitics.

Note: I have to skip publication tomorrow, back on Thursday!

IN THIS NEWSLETTER

• Eyes on Israel: a question of character

• Eyes on China: cleaning house

• Eyes on the US: an overlooked threat

Crypto is Macro Now offers ~daily commentary and updates on crypto’s evolving role in the changing geopolitical and financial landscapes. Plus links and more.

If you’re a premium subscriber, thank you so much!! ❤

PUBLISHED IN PARTNERSHIP WITH: ✨ ALLIUM ✨

Adjusted stablecoin volume (removing non-economic activity) grew 48% Jan-Sept 2026, despite flat stablecoin supply. The adjusted transfer count grew more than 70%, faster than value, reducing the average transfer size by 14%.

Download Allium’s State of Stablecoins and Payments Q3 2026.

And get weekly onchain data and more analysis like this from the Allium Research team on Substack.

WHAT I’M WATCHING

NEWSLETTER STUFF

Over the weekend, I got this notification on Substack:

What???? I’m truly chuffed, but I’m also surprised as I’d have thought readers of crypto newsletters wanted trading recommendations and price analysis, which I don’t do.

I guess that makes the rank even more special, however temporary – so, thank you all!

Something I forgot to share yesterday: last week, I had the privilege to chat to Maggie Lake on her new show For the Record – she’s always so good to talk to, the time flies by. We spoke about Bitcoin, stablecoins, market expectations, cycles, and more.

The Market House

For the Record: Noelle Acheson on Bitcoin’s New Cycle

We were long overdue a catch-up with Noelle Acheson, author of the fantastic Crypto is Macro Now here on Substack. In this episode of For the Record, Noelle shares her thoughts on a new cycle for Bitcoin, why she doesn’t buy that stablecoins will lead to dollarization around the world, and more…

Listen now

4 days ago · 8 likes · 1 comment · Maggie Lake and Noelle Acheson

Eyes on Israel: a question of character

As I type, voting is under way in Israel, in an election that many regard as the most consequential in the nation’s history. It’s not just that it’s the first since the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023. It’s not just that the incumbent prime minister is the longest-serving leader Israelis have known. It’s also the stakes: more than policies, many voters see this as a battle for Israel’s identity.

Read more

Hello everyone! I hope you had a good weekend. Got my winter clothes down from storage, and so of course it’s getting warmer here.

Production note: I have a choppy couple of weeks coming up: it’s time for the seasonal vaccinations and the like, so I’ll be skipping publication this Wednesday and also the following.

IN THIS NEWSLETTER

• Coming up this week: central banks, macro, geopolitics and mayhem

• Monday musings: Sanctions and the tangent threat

Crypto is Macro Now offers ~daily commentary and updates on crypto’s evolving role in the changing geopolitical and financial landscapes. Plus links and more.

If you’re a premium subscriber, thank you!! ❤

PUBLISHED IN PARTNERSHIP WITH: ✨ ALLIUM ✨

Adjusted stablecoin volume (removing non-economic activity) grew 48% Jan-Sept 2026, despite flat stablecoin supply. The adjusted transfer count grew more than 70%, faster than value, reducing the average transfer size by 14%.

Download Allium’s State of Stablecoins and Payments Q3 2026.

And get weekly onchain data and more analysis like this from the Allium Research team on Substack.

WHAT I’M WATCHING

Coming up this week: central banks, macro, geopolitics and mayhem

Fed decision! And some hefty macro releases. But first, a brief summary of where we’re at as Monday gets going:

The flame under geopolitics has been turned up, and the week is starting out with several big bombshell surprises.

Brazil is reeling after a surprise electoral victory from incumbent President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, which – assuming it holds – secures him a record fourth term. Opponent Flávio Bolsonaro has already contested the results, but while there were reported and as-yet-unexplained irregularities, it doesn’t look like he’ll succeed given the margin of his defeat. Markets have gone haywire as Polymarket was pricing a Bolsonaro victory at around 80% - traders were not positioned for this. On today’s open, Brazil’s real fell by more than 12%, and the Ibovespa stock index plummeted 10%, triggering a circuit breaker for the first time since the pandemic freak-out in early 2020.

(USD/BRL chart via TradingView)

Another disruption to the global drift to the political right took place yesterday in Serbia, where President Aleksandar Vucic conceded defeat to a student-led protest movement in an election that ended his 12-year rule. A relatively leaderless and young grass-roots movement managed to topple a leader close to Russia, who was often labelled a nationalist and populist “strongman”. Coming so soon after Viktor Orbán’s defeat in Hungary, it heralds both a deep political shift in central Europe, and potential chaos ahead.

Speaking of which, the Wall Street Journal reports that the Trump Administration is pushing Viktor Orbán to enter his candidacy for the role of United Nations Secretary-General. Seriously, this timeline… I really hope Armando Iannucci is taking notes, although he would probably conclude that satire in this era is becoming pointless.

On a more uplifting note: Maria Corina Machado, leader of Venezuela’s opposition party, is back in her country, rekindling talk of a transition to democracy. We can only hope.

Right, on to this week’s calendar…

Today sees the start of China’s Fifth Plenum – I’ll write more about this tomorrow.

On Tuesday, Israel holds Knesset elections which could either unseat its longest-serving prime minister, or give him a clear mandate to continue his military strategy in the region.

Also, we find out how US durable goods orders are doing – forecasts point to a pickup after a few months of month-on-month growth deceleration.

And we get earnings from three stablecoin issuers: PayPal, SoFi Technologies and Robinhood.

On Wednesday, we hear from the FOMC on US interest rates. I agree with the consensus that we’ll get a pause as the inflation temperature is warm but not hot, and as I wrote last week, there are signs we might soon see an AI spending slowdown which will impact economic activity and inflation expectations.

As I type, the CME-priced odds of a hike are only around 10%, while those for another hike in December are almost 70%.

(chart via CME FedWatch)

Also on Wednesday, the UK delivers its first budget under Prime Minister Andy Burnham, which could trigger some market volatility.

The third Russia-Africa summit kicks off in Moscow, to run until Friday. Roughly 2,000 attendees are expected. Among the “priority” topics, according to reports: independent payment systems.

And Alphabet and Microsoft report Q3 earnings.

On Thursday, the ECB decides whether or not to hike rates – if they do, it would be the third hike of the year, but it’s likely they won’t.

Also on Thursday, we get the US Personal Consumption Expenditure report for September, with growth in the core index expected to show a slight acceleration from 3.0% to 3.1%.

We also get the first official estimate of US GDP for Q3 – consensus forecasts point to a jump in growth to 3.2% from the previous quarter’s 2.2%.

Among the companies reporting: Amazon, Mastercard, Intel and Coinbase

On Friday, the Bank of Japan is expected to follow other major economy central banks announcing this week and leave official interest rates as they are.

Plus, we get the first official estimate of EU GDP for Q3, forecast to show a slowdown from 1.2% year-on-year to 1.1%. Slowing GDP growth and climbing inflation… not good.

Also, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio hosts a two-day G20 Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in Atlanta, Georgia

If you find this newsletter at all useful, would you consider sharing it with friends and colleagues and nudging them to sign up? I’d really appreciate it! 🍂

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Monday musings: Sanctions and the tangent threat

(what’s on my mind as we head into the week)

One of my guiding principles for this newsletter is to focus on the bigger story, the why rather than the what, and how trends shape changes and vice versa. It’s the reason I don’t do headline summaries or news roundups, even though I’m often tempted – there are so many interesting things happening, so fast, but the noise can easily get overwhelming. And anyway, there are already other newsletters that do that well (I follow BitDigest for general crypto-AI headlines, BlockStories for institution-focused stablecoin/tokenization updates).

Sometimes, though, a single headline can eloquently capture the bigger picture with a real-world example.

Yesterday, while skimming Reuters, I came across the following story:

“Netanyahu rebuked for plan to use crypto to bypass economic sanctions”

Eleven words hint at four major stories, all relevant, all timely, all timeless.

Read more

You’re reading the free weekly send of the premium daily Crypto is Macro Now, where I re-share one or two of the week’s posts and add some non-crypto and non-macro links since it’s the weekend.

If you’re a premium subscriber, THANK YOU so much! ❤

If not, do consider becoming one – for the cost of a weekly cup of coffee, you’ll get more regular commentary that filters the noise on crypto’s place in monetary and geopolitical realignment.

Subscribe now

In this newsletter:

• What is money? And why should we care?

• Gold and the art of alchemy

• Weekend: Nobody Speak

PUBLISHED IN PARTNERSHIP WITH: ✨ ALLIUM ✨

The amount of stablecoins held on exchanges at the end of September 2026 dropped by 7% year-on-year, while that held in wallets jumped by more than 20%, to 45% of the total circulating supply.

Download Allium’s State of Stablecoins and Payments Q3 2026.

And get weekly onchain data and more analysis like this from the Allium Research team on Substack.

🌏 STABLECOINS AROUND THE WORLD 🌏

Continuing the tour, this week I published an episode on Stablecoins in the UK, featuring Rhys Bidder – you can catch that here.

Previous episodes:

• Stablecoins in the EU with Marieke Flament

• Stablecoins in Switzerland with Ian Simpson

• Stablecoins in Brazil with Aaron Stanley

• Stablecoins in Japan with Emily Parker

Some of the topics discussed in the recent premium dailies:

Monday, Oct 19

• Coming up this week: not much macro, but a lot of tech-money meetings

• Euro strains and barricades

Tuesday, Oct 20

• What is money? And why should we care?

  • The money hierarchy

  • The alternatives

Wednesday, Oct 21

• Bitcoin: narratives and volatility

• Some good reads

Thursday, Oct 22

• Video: Stablecoins in the UK

• Notes on the episode:

• Who regulates stablecoins in the UK?

• What are the rules?

• More on the BoE backstop

Friday, Oct 23

• Markets: Treasuries are not a “safe haven”

• Gold and the art of alchemy

What is money? And why should we care?

I mentioned last week that I had a stack of papers to summarize for you – this morning, I finally opened the first one, and it ended up being SO much deeper and more interesting than I expected.

It’s the kind of paper that’s worth reading more than once, even if you disagree with the premise, for the new paths it carves in how to view the global monetary system and the relationships it relies on.

Written by Iñaki Aldasoro of the BIS Monetary and Economic Department, the paper’s title is “Money and the architecture of trust”. It takes a run at the conventional definition of money, and in so doing, highlights the evolution and societal role of both the incumbent monetary system, and those which hope to disrupt it.

The main premise is that money is not a thing, nor is it a technology: it is a system. Back in my more naïve new-money days, I suggested that anything could be money if we decide it is – but now I realize that scalable acceptance requires trust which requires structure which requires time and testing. Not a thing, a system. But what Iñaki sees as a definition, I see as a perimeter – more on why below.

The money hierarchy

Iñaki makes the key point that the concept of money relies on the assumption that what is accepted as such today, will be accepted as such tomorrow (else, what can I do with the money I receive today if I can’t use it tomorrow?). For this, it does not matter what form the money takes; what matters is the system of assurances around it.

But this is not a static system – it is constantly wrestling with four main tensions, and the balances at any given point in time affect how the system behaves.

Let’s look at them in turn, and then at what they imply for stablecoins, Bitcoin and gold.

Money vs credit

For many monetary theorists, money is credit in that it embodies a future transaction, it is essentially an IOU, someone’s liability: the act of payment converts one obligation into another of a different type.

Iñaki goes deeper, separating the two concepts: money is settlement, credit is a promise. Both exist at movable points in a hierarchy that has grown up around them.

When trust is high and credit ample, the distinction fades into the background and the hierarchy becomes more fluid. But when trust breaks, the ability to settle is worth much more than promises, and the ultimate settlement asset becomes that which rests at the top of the structure: money issued by the central bank.

But today’s payment rails flow at lower hierarchy levels, making them more credit-like than money-like. When we make a payment via our bank, it isn’t money that is changing hands – it’s balances on a ledger that reflects offset claims. After all, if trust in the system were to break, our bank would probably not be able to make digital payments on our behalf. Cash (= central bank money in physical form) would be king.

Elasticity vs discipline

Credit is elastic in that it can be expanded. But its expansion is constrained by the availability of money, which represents discipline. Eventually, a promise will have to be satisfied with money, which will depend on either its availability, or the supply of more credit which only delays the reckoning.

When a system is in expansion, the layers of credit are treated as interchangeable, and a promise to pay is as good as payment. This weakens the importance of final settlement and also the discipline it imposes. In a contraction, this goes into reverse, and the “moneyness” hierarchy matters a lot.

Private vs public

At the top of the hierarchy of money and credit sits the central bank, the ultimate backstop to monetary value and the guardian of par.

We often hear about the Federal Reserve’s dual mandate of price stability and full employment – but an even more significant mandate is to maintain trust in the system. It does so by enabling private initiatives to power monetary expansion via bank loans, money market funds, non-bank financing, etc., while supporting this economic growth with trust in the ultimate settlement asset: central bank money.

Iñaki makes the fascinating point that enduring trust in new forms of money – Eurodollars, money market funds, possibly stablecoins – is only won through crisis and rescue by the central bank. This is never guaranteed and usually comes with conditions (if it were free and always assured, it would be meaningless): but it is essential for absorption into the money system.

Essentially, trust in the central bank backstop is what enables crises to be unwound, not just from the necessary assumption that any dollar is worth a dollar (par), but also from the institution’s ability to supply settlement assets when needed.

This liquidity creation is key. When it comes to settling debts, convention emphasizes solvency, or net worth, which relies on accounting and is more abstract than practical. What really matters is liquidity, which means a payment can be made, whether the payer is solvent or not. And in times of contraction, central bank liquidity becomes the ultimate trusted settlement asset.

Domestic and global money

The hierarchy of money does not stop at a nation’s borders – there is a global hierarchy, too. At its top sits the dollar, the world’s premier reserve currency. Then comes the currencies of other major economies who typically have standing swap lines with the US Federal Reserve. Then the currencies of emerging economies who have to contend with more limited facilities. Then developing economies, with even more constrained access to the global system.

Yes, this looks very much like the domestic hierarchy outlined above, with currencies moving from less robust up to the pinnacle, the dollar, whose issuer decides who has access to ready liquidity from the ultimate settlement asset (echoing central bank validation of privately issued monetary assets lower down in the domestic hierarchy).

The alternatives

Right, so money is not a thing nor a technology, it is a system, and that system has a hierarchy that is sometimes rigid, sometimes more flexible, but always has central bank-issued settlement assets at the top. Cash, or its digital equivalent, is king – but all the other layers oil the wheels of civilization because of trust. It works because a web of institutions do what they must to ensure we believe it works.

Only, there seems to be growing interest in assets that don’t need the same complex trust machine. Let’s look at those.

Gold

Where does gold fit into Iñaki’s framework? Bottom line, it doesn’t. Gold cannot be used to pay for things, and nothing is priced in gold. Its value arises from the fact that it is no-one’s liability. Trust in the “system” of guarantees is not needed, there is no backstop.

Iñaki’s stance is that this isn’t an advantage, it’s an exit. The implication is that is not good for society.

Money, he argues, embodies a social compact. A climbing price of gold suggests that confidence in that social compact and its backstop is starting to wobble.

“Gold, in this sense, is not a monetary alternative, but a monetary protest.”

My initial reaction to that sentence was that they are the same thing, but on reflection, Iñaki nails the distinction – an alternative has more utility than a protest. His point is that gold is a shiny lump, it can never be used for payment because it lacks the credit system that supports liquidity. A counterargument could point to the layers of liquidity emerging around tokenized gold (I’ll be writing more about this in coming weeks) – but this replaces one system with another. A new, emergent hierarchy, if you will.

My preferred pushback is that gold doesn’t need to be money – it just needs to hold its value relative to money better than other goods.

Bitcoin

Bitcoin, Iñaki argues, is similar in that it “aspires to be money without the architecture that makes money work”.

The main problem, apparently, is that there is no tap that can be turned on (elasticity of credit) when expansion is warranted, and off (supply constraints) when an economic slowdown is called for. On that, he’s correct.

However, as with gold, here he is assuming that Bitcoin needs to be “money”. True, the tokens are referred to as such in the white paper, but Satoshi was relying on a different definition of money than Iñaki’s “system”. And those that insist Bitcoin will replace all the world’s fiat are mercifully quiet these days.

Another point Iñaki makes on why Bitcoin can never be money, which can extend to other crypto assets, is that you can’t unbundle payments from the underlying system. If money settles payments, he argues, you can’t have one without the other. This comes at the question of why payments have to be based on credit without actually answering it – and it falls into the logistical trap of assuming that “if A then B” means “if B then A”. Money is settlement; but settlement doesn’t have to be in money. The discharge of an obligation (= settlement) can be in Bitcoin, gold or carrot cake if the counterparty is ok with that.

We can agree that Bitcoin is outside the system and therefore can never fulfil the society’s need for credit, liquidity and scalable settlement assets. But that doesn’t mean it can’t be used for payments. And, like gold, nor does it need to be to have value.

Stablecoins

Stablecoins, on the other hand, occupy a different position in the “system”. While often touted as an “alternative” (often by those who overuse the word “revolutionary”), what they really are is a new representation of establishment money. Iñaki argues that they occupy the same space as gold and Bitcoin in that, being fully backed, they also want to squeeze credit out of the monetary system – with less credit, less trust is needed. But here, also, he puts the logic blocks in the wrong order.

Unlike gold and Bitcoin, stablecoins don’t have value because of distrust in the system. Rather, the promise of full backing is more an offset to the fear of new technologies than an intrinsic value proposition. It’s been a long time since I heard proponents rely on the argument that stablecoins are “safer” than dollars – the selling point is that they are a better payments technology, with some innovative programmability features.

Wrapping up

In sum, this was a fascinating look at the hierarchy of trust in today’s monetary landscape. Iñaki understands money better than anyone outside a very small group. He writes well. And he does show a high level of familiarity with the onchain world.

But in any critique, we do have to take into account the lens through which the writer sees the world. Iñaki is the Principal Economist for the Monetary and Economic Department at the BIS, the central bank’s central bank, where he has worked for the past 10 years. Before that, he worked and consulted for key systemic institutions. This implies both expertise and inherent preference.

After all, the BIS has never been a fan of Bitcoin, and only came around to giving stablecoins a more equitable academic treatment once they realized the industry was growing fast without their support.

The goal of the paper, I assume, was to contrast the scalability, flexibility, utility and resilience to shocks with both long-standing as well as emerging alternatives. After all, we wouldn’t want people thinking the growth of interest in alternatives was a sign of weakening trust in the system, now would we?

And Iñaki does make some excellent points about inflated crypto promises and hyped solutions to problems that aren’t problems. (“Inherent preference” is often much more egregious coming from the crypto side.)

Iñaki is right in that Bitcoin and gold are not “money” in the traditional sense, but nor do they need to be. He’s also right in that stablecoins do not escape the hierarchy of the traditional system – but nor do they want to, their measure of success will be how well they integrate into it.

Bottom line, it is fair – healthy, even – to be sceptical, especially of an industry known for its unrealistic promises. But it is risky to assume institutions and systems based on trust will always be resilient. Once upon a time we assumed a well-constructed giant ship would always sail. We didn’t account for hidden icebergs.

Gold and the art of alchemy

Earlier this week, San Francisco-based energy technology startup Marathon Fusion announced that it had successfully turned mercury into gold.

A couple of years ago, I was explaining to a friend why I though Bitcoin was a better hedge against monetary mayhem than gold, as we know there will only ever be 21,000,000 but we don’t know how much gold there will be – not just from increasingly sophisticated and affordable mining methods, but also because it would one day be possible to make gold by rearranging atoms. My friend scoffed and refused to believe that science would ever get there, so I am feeling somewhat vindicated – but, before any of us do any gloating at all, we should be aware of some mitigating details.

Of course, claims of alchemy have rung through the ages, promising riches to all who could front some development funds. Is Marathon Fusion’s scientific result as fake as all of those, or did they succeed where thousands have failed?

I’m not a physicist, but it looks real. Before you sell all your gold holdings, however, there are nuances to the announcement.

The startup’s goal is to develop fusion power plants that can then produce a range of isotopes for nuclear medicine at greater scale than conventional methods. A mightily worthwhile goal, but an expensive one.

Unless you can make gold in the process to help offset the cost.

It turns out that is possible. Fuse hydrogen, deuterium and tritium and you kick out a neutron moving so fast it can knock another neutron loose from a mercury-198 atom. This then becomes mercury-197, which over a few days will decay into stable gold. (I’m simplifying here, and leaning heavily on Grok and Gemini.)

Only, because of its atomic change, the resulting substance is radioactive, and will need to be stored for roughly 10-17 years before it can be handled.

And, for now, it’s not an economically viable proposition as the fusion neutron could be used more profitably for other products – as mentioned above, the goal is medical isotopes, much more valuable than gold. Even using the neutron for generating electricity will create about the same value as using it to create gold.

Also, the demonstration was small-scale, and we don’t know much about the yield, efficiency, etc.

But still, it’s a fascinating breakthrough. One day, the process could generate enough gold as a by-product to improve the financing outlook – but that would need larger machines which are many years away yet.

Bottom line, the impact on the gold market is negligible, at least for the next few decades. A much bigger deal is the potential impact on medicine – cheaper cancer diagnostics and therapies will not only improve quality of life and life expectancy for millions, they will improve economic growth by enabling more people to contribute for longer. Hats off to the Marathon Fusion team for getting this far.

So, if this week’s dip in the gold price is at all because of supply fears, it’s likely to correct once the story becomes better understood.

HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND!

(in this section, I share stuff that has NOTHING to do with macro or crypto, ‘cos it’s the weekend and life is interesting)

This song/video from DJ Shadow and Run the Jewels is not exactly new – it was released in 2016 (hard to believe that was 10 years ago!!) – but it feels new, and lamentably appropriate for our times.

If you find this newsletter at all worthwhile, would you mind hitting the like ❤button?

DISCLAIMER: I never give trading ideas, and NOTHING I say is investment advice! I hold some BTC, ETH and a tiny amount of some smaller tokens, but they’re all long-term holdings – I don’t trade. Also, I often use AI for research instead of Google, but never for writing.

Hello everyone, and HAPPY FRIDAY!!! An intense week… 🍂

IN THIS NEWSLETTER

• Markets: Treasuries are not a “safe haven”

• Gold and the art of alchemy

Crypto is Macro Now offers ~daily commentary and updates on crypto’s evolving role in the changing geopolitical and financial landscapes. Plus links and more.

If you’re a premium subscriber, thank you!! ❤

PUBLISHED IN PARTNERSHIP WITH: ✨ ALLIUM ✨

The amount of stablecoins held on exchanges at the end of September 2026 dropped by 7% year-on-year, while that held in wallets jumped by more than 20%, to 45% of the total circulating supply.

Download Allium’s State of Stablecoins and Payments Q3 2026.

And get weekly onchain data and more analysis like this from the Allium Research team on Substack.

WHAT I’M WATCHING

Markets: Treasuries are not “safe havens”

The drumbeat of signs the AI bubble is about to roll over is starting to accelerate, and it’s spilling over into other market segments.

Yesterday, US Treasuries staged their strongest rally in over two years, pushing the 10-year yield below 5.0% for the first time in a month.

(US 10-year yield, chart via TradingView)

Much of the commentary I’ve seen paints the rotation into US Treasuries as a “haven” story, but I’m not buying it. I think there’s something else going on.

Read more

Joining me is Rhys Bidder, who brings deep experience in central banking, financial regulation and crypto services to the question of how stablecoins are changing global finance and, more specifically, the landscape in the UK.

Rhys has taught at Cambridge University and Kings College, where he was also Deputy Director of the Qatar Centre for Global Banking and Finance. He’s spent some time working at the Federal Reserve. He’s also worked with the Bank of England, and more recently with the Central Bank of Ireland, focusing on stablecoins, CBDCs, tokenization and digital payments. Most of his time these days is advising traditional and crypto firms on the design and application of onchain money and the evolving market structure.

You can check out his body of published work here, and tune in to the episode for more on his background.

In today’s newsletter, you can find my notes on the conversation and some more background on UK stablecoin regulation.

Timestamps

05:13 — The UK’s current stablecoin regulatory framework
08:57 — The £40 billion cap and why earlier limits were difficult to apply
12:53 — The Bank of England’s proposed liquidity backstop
17:48 — What “singleness of money” gets right and wrong
22:24 — The UK-US stablecoin statement and what it signals
24:08 — How the UK compares with the US and Europe on stablecoin policy
26:48 — Tokenization as a major use case for sterling stablecoins
29:11 — Stablecoins as payment rails for fintechs and card networks
32:26 — Banks’ view of stablecoins: competition, interoperability, and backend
36:27 — Demand for dollar stablecoins in the UK
40:58 — The UK stablecoin landscape five years from now

DISCLAIMER: I never give trading ideas, and NOTHING I say is investment advice! I hold some BTC, ETH and a tiny amount of some smaller tokens, but they’re all long-term holdings – I don’t trade.

AI policy: I often use AI (Grok and Gemini) for research instead of Google, always double-checking facts. I never, and will never, use AI for writing.

Hello everyone! I hope you’re all taking care of yourselves.

Below I share the latest episode of my series looking at stablecoin hotspots outside the US – this time focusing on the United Kingdom. There’s also some background detail, and my notes on the discussion. 🌍

IN THIS NEWSLETTER

• Video: Stablecoins in the UK

• Notes on the episode:

• Who regulates stablecoins in the UK?

• What are the rules?

• More on the BoE backstop

Crypto is Macro Now offers ~daily commentary and updates on crypto’s evolving role in the changing geopolitical and financial landscapes. Plus links and more.

If you’re a premium subscriber, thank you!! ❤

PUBLISHED IN PARTNERSHIP WITH: ✨ ALLIUM ✨

Of adjusted stablecoin transfer volume, roughly 20% is attributed to payments, which grew 45% year-on-year in volume through the first nine months of 2026 and more than 70% in number, while the average transfer size fell around 15%.

Download Allium’s State of Stablecoins and Payments Q3 2026.

And get weekly onchain data and more analysis like this from the Allium Research team on Substack.

WHAT I’M WATCHING

Stablecoins Around the World: the United Kingdom

For the fifth episode in this limited series on stablecoin ecosystems outside the US, I focus on the United Kingdom. To do that, I was fortunate to be able to talk to Rhys Bidder.

Rhys has taught at Cambridge University and Kings College, where he was also Deputy Director of the Qatar Centre for Global Banking and Finance. He’s spent some time working at the Federal Reserve. He’s also worked with the Bank of England, and more recently with the Central Bank of Ireland, focusing on stablecoins, CBDCs, tokenization and digital payments. Most of his time these days is spent advising traditional and crypto firms on the design and application of onchain money and the evolving market structure, and teaching businesses about smart contracts and digital assets.

You can check out his body of published work here, and tune in to the episode for more on his background.

(I’ll also be uploading the episode as a standalone video to Substack, and distributing to Spotify, although I have yet to figure out YouTube and further podcast platform distribution - I’m on it!)

Notes on the episode:

Read more

Hello everyone! I hope you’re all taking care of yourselves – it got chilly fast where I am. Bringing out the winter sweaters this weekend.

IN THIS NEWSLETTER

• Bitcoin: narratives and volatility

• Some good reads

Crypto is Macro Now offers ~daily commentary and updates on crypto’s evolving role in the changing geopolitical and financial landscapes. Plus links and more.

If you’re a premium subscriber, thank you!! ❤

PUBLISHED IN PARTNERSHIP WITH: ✨ ALLIUM ✨

While the circulating supply of stablecoins from Tether and Circle dropped by $4 billion in the first 9m of 2026, overall supply increased by $1.2 billion (0.4%) and the number of issuers with more than $1 billion outstanding climbed to 15, up from 11 in 2025.

Download Allium’s State of Stablecoins and Payments Q3 2026.

And get weekly onchain data and more analysis like this from the Allium Research team on Substack.

WHAT I’M WATCHING

Bitcoin: narratives and volatility

Bitcoin appears to be in an interesting transition phase: the narratives are getting more positive, but market metrics aren’t.

In previous cycles, it would be the other way around – the numbers would trigger the narratives. But this time, BTC signals have been ok but not notable, while big institutions are putting out eye-catching reports and launching new products.

A clue as to why this feels different is in the above sentence: “big institutions”. We can’t deny that the BTC market is much more institutional now than in previous cycles – more on the sell-side than the buy-side. Put differently, several large firms offer investment vehicles or research linked to the price of BTC, which can influence coverage (I’m not casting aspersions, but I used to work sell-side and unless incentives have changed a lot…).

That said, they do influence the overall “mainstream” mood, while reducing the reputational risk of any professional manager considering an allocation.

The bullishness

Read more

Hello everyone! I hope you’re all doing well. Only 72 days left until the end of the year. How did that happen.

A late send today, apologies – this morning I dove into a well of Bitcoin-gold-money arguments that turned out to be deeper than I expected, but worth it. More below.

IN THIS NEWSLETTER

• What is money? And why should we care?

  • The money hierarchy

  • The alternatives

Crypto is Macro Now offers ~daily commentary and updates on crypto’s evolving role in the changing geopolitical and financial landscapes. Plus links and more.

If you’re a premium subscriber, thank you!! ❤

PUBLISHED IN PARTNERSHIP WITH: ✨ ALLIUM ✨

While the circulating supply of stablecoins from Tether and Circle dropped by $4 billion in the first 9m of 2026, overall supply increased by $1.2 billion (0.4%) and the number of issuers with more than $1 billion outstanding climbed to 15, up from 11 in 2025.

Download Allium’s State of Stablecoins and Payments Q3 2026.

And get weekly onchain data and more analysis like this from the Allium Research team on Substack.

WHAT I’M WATCHING

What is money? And why should we care?

I mentioned last week that I had a stack of papers to summarize for you – this morning, I finally opened the first one, and it ended up being SO much deeper and more interesting than I expected, hence the late send today.

It’s the kind of paper that’s worth reading more than once, even if you disagree with the premise, for the new paths it carves in how to view the global monetary system and the relationships it relies on.

Written by Iñaki Aldasoro of the BIS Monetary and Economic Department, the paper’s title is “Money and the architecture of trust”. It takes a run at the conventional definition of money, and in so doing, highlights the evolution and societal role of both the incumbent monetary system, and those which hope to disrupt it.

The main premise is that money is not a thing, nor is it a technology: it is a system. Back in my more naïve new-money days, I suggested that anything could be money if we decide it is – but now I realize that scalable acceptance requires trust which requires structure which requires time and testing. Not a thing, a system. But what Iñaki sees as a definition, I see as a perimeter – more on why below.

Read more

Hello everyone! I hope you all had a good weekend.

A long one today, apologies, but I had to get into what’s going on in France and how it’s relevant for crypto markets.

IN THIS NEWSLETTER

• Coming up this week: not much macro, but a lot of tech-money meetings

• Euro strains and barricades

Crypto is Macro Now offers ~daily commentary and updates on crypto’s evolving role in the changing geopolitical and financial landscapes. Plus links and more.

If you’re a premium subscriber, thank you!! ❤

PUBLISHED IN PARTNERSHIP WITH: ✨ ALLIUM ✨

Allium’s State of Stablecoins and Payments Q3 2026 report measures stablecoin supply, adjusted volume, payments, agentic payments and card spend through September 30, 2026, with commentary from 17 industry contributors.

Download the report here: https://www.allium.so/reports/state-of-stablecoins-and-payments-q3-2026

And get weekly onchain data and more analysis like this from the Allium Research team on Substack.

WHAT I’M WATCHING

Coming up this week:

A quiet week on the macro front, but there are quite a few high profile tech-money events.

Money20/20 USA started yesterday in Las Vegas and runs through to Wednesday, with an entire pillar of content on “Borderless Financial Architecture” and a hefty sprinkling of sessions featuring stablecoin companies.

The Bund Summit starts today in Shanghai and runs through to Wednesday – one of China’s leading international, non-governmental financial conferences (mainly in English), the event brings together high-profile finance names from around the world for panels and seminars on this year’s theme: Technology, Geopolitics and the Global Economy. The sessions include an invite-only closed-door seminar on digital currencies and another one on cross-border connectivity.

The World Bank Global AI and Digital Summit kicks off today in Seoul and runs through to Thursday.

On Wednesday, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang gives a keynote at the company’s AI event in Berlin. Crazy that we live in a time when a tech CEO’s remarks can move markets more than those of central bankers.

On Thursday, we get the US Conference Board’s Leading Index.

On Friday, we get the preliminary report on US manufacturing and services activity for October, and the final October consumer sentiment reading from the University of Michigan.

And the two-day Bitcoin-focused Plan B Forum kicks off in Lugano, Switzerland.

Euro strains and barricades

If you were at all online over the weekend, you’ll have seen distressing images of riots, looting and burning buildings in European streets: Paris, Marseille, Limoges, Lyon, Lille, Bordeaux, Strasbourg, Brussels, Milan, Turin, Bologna, Porto and Tirana are just some of the cities affected, but the strongest heat of the violence was felt in France. Around 1,500 stores across the country were ransacked, according to early estimates; more than 2,400 arrests; over 600 injured policemen.

Many, especially non-Europeans, will probably think “of course it was France”, remembering the messy protests in recent years over fuel tax, pension rights and more, not to mention the glorification of the country’s revolutionary zeal in countless books, films, even musicals. After all, the battle cry “Aux armes, citoyens!” is enshrined in the French national anthem.

But what we saw over the weekend was different – it wasn’t a citizen uprising against an oppressive regime, nor was it your typical democratic objection to proposed legislation. It was a protest against “the system” – yes, the liberal, democratic system that has ruled Europe for decades – from young voters increasingly aware their economic futures are being squeezed. The same young voters who will decide electoral outcomes in the decades ahead.

As always, there is rarely one reason for a tip-over into this level of anger, and not all participants have the same motive. It’s also not the first time in recent years that European cities have burned, with the flames eventually dying down and the media shifting focus to the next attention-grabbing crisis.

But it’s important to squint at the underlying issues, as they aren’t going away peacefully even if protesters might. They’re also not unique to France. And they sketch an outline of the deeper shifts I often find myself writing about in these pages, shifts that point to systemic change and that ask us to look at how markets will react.

At the root of the weekend eruptions are four ongoing crises (there are actually more, but I’m going to stick to main categories): debt, fiscal, political and social. Let’s look at them in turn.

Read more

If you’re a premium subscriber, thank you so much! ❤

If not, do consider becoming one – for the cost of a weekly cup of coffee, you’ll get more regular commentary that filters the noise on crypto’s place in monetary and geopolitical realignment.

Subscribe now

In this newsletter:

• The IMF path to tokenization

• Newslettering after four years

• Weekend: magnificent dog photography

PUBLISHED IN PARTNERSHIP WITH: ✨ ALLIUM ✨

Allium’s State of Stablecoins and Payments Q3 2026 report measures stablecoin supply, adjusted volume, payments, agentic payments and card spend through September 30, 2026, with commentary from 17 industry contributors.

Download the report here: https://www.allium.so/reports/state-of-stablecoins-and-payments-q3-2026

And get weekly onchain data and more analysis like this from the Allium Research team on Substack.

Some of the topics discussed in the recent premium dailies:

Monday, Oct 12

• Coming up this week: lots of high-level global meetings, US inflation

• How relevant are consumer surveys?

Wednesday, Oct 14

• The IMF path to tokenization

• Macro: US CPI

Thursday, Oct 15

• GRAB BAG ISSUE: Agentic payments, stablecoins and the price of intermediation

  • commentary on pieces by Jordi Visser, Citrini Research and David Marcus

• Markets: about turn?

Friday, Oct 16

• Stablecoin payments: the numbers

• Newslettering after four years

The IMF path to tokenization

Earlier this week, the IMF released its semi-annual Global Financial Stability Report discussing the major trends impacting the world economy. Whatever you may think of the IMF, this report carries weight as a “health check” that aims to identify crises before they blow up, with a focus on financial-sector implications of macro policies and structural developments.

For the first time, the latest report carries an entire chapter on tokenization.

It’s actually pretty good – thought-provoking, balanced and quite well written, with items of interest for both the uninitiated and those already deep in the industry. There is a sprinkling of good charts, and a smattering of “boxes” with related deep dives (I do like reports with boxes, perhaps something to do with the by-the-way choice of distractions).

Below, I’ll highlight one of the more interesting observations from the report, one that tends to be overlooked by market participants but that weaves together the various threads covered.

But first, a summary of key metrics:

A snapshot

At the end of July, tokenized real world assets excluding repo stood at around $65 billion, with the bulk of that in tokenized fixed income (corporate credit, asset-backed credit, and money market fund).

(all charts from the IMF Global Financial Stability Report, October 2026)

Tokenized repo is not included in that total as it is more about flows than issuance – yet its average daily volumes have for the past year been over $300 billion, an indication that collateral management is one of the most compelling use cases in today’s market.

Unsurprisingly, most tokenization currently takes place in the US – but check out the sizeable volume with unknown origin, a blow to those who insist onchain assets are transparent.

Bonds issued on-chain tend to have short maturities, which makes sense given the relative youth of the technology and the “still testing” approach from large issuers.

Also interesting is the growing participation from governments (in green below).

In tokenized equities, it’s notable that around 50% of trading takes place outside typical market hours, suggesting that the always-on nature of onchain markets is a strong draw.

Also, I was surprised by the demand for fractionalization (which reduces investment barriers) – most trades are of less than one share.

Adoption

For a report that aims to identify systemic risks, the chapter on tokenization is surprisingly optimistic, even while taking an original approach to the diagnosis of vulnerabilities.

To start with, the authors point out that the systemic risks are low given the industry’s small size. But they stress recent growth, outline the advantages (current and potential), and suggest remedies for the barriers.

The report makes the usually overlooked point that the pace of adoption is not about the underlying technology – we know that works. It’s about the incentives facing market participants. For now, these are still relatively thin.

Tokenization does offer obvious benefits:

• Financial claims can be issued, transferred, serviced and settled on shared digital infrastructure, rather than through multiple intermediaries and separate ledgers.

• Programmable transfer rules can automate aspects of transaction execution.

• Smart contracts can automate certain clearing arrangements, facilitating more reliable and efficient delivery-versus-payment transactions while reducing settlement risk.

• Native programmability enables the flexible and efficient combination of assets across protocols and applications.

• More precise transaction timing can support liquidity management.

• Removing the need for multiple intermediaries can improve automation and lower issuance as well as transaction costs.

• Integrated ledgers and common standards can dramatically enhance the speed and efficiency of payments.

• Real-time reporting can improve the transparency of holdings and facilitate corporate actions.

However, there are still considerable barriers to adoption:

• Regulatory clarity and legal certainty is improving, but gaps remain, and there is as yet no global framework. What rights does the token inherit from the underlying asset, and how enforceable are these? Are onchain transfers legally binding, and if so, at what point? What is the legal status of smart contracts and ledger entries? How are different legal regimes reconciled in cross-border transactions?

• Fragmentation is keeping liquidity thin. Activity takes place across fragmented networks, which can trap liquidity and reduce market depth, discouraging the large investors that could bring in more liquidity. Greater interoperability is a solution, but introduces additional risk.

• Trust tends to be deeply embedded in settlement workflows. Large traditional investors are used to settling in trusted central bank money – relying on private settlement assets such as stablecoins introduces new risks that many may feel uncomfortable with. But insisting on a cash leg for tokenized markets removes the same-ledger efficiency, at least until more jurisdictions issue wholesale CBDCs.

What’s more, the report notes that many of the benefits are not exclusive to onchain markets, weakening the incentives for adoption – compressed settlement cycles and 24/7 trading, for instance, can be achieved on existing rails, as can programmability and nearly real-time monitoring.

But, unlike updated services on traditional rails, tokenized markets can act as a catalyst for market modernization while offering unique shared-ledger benefits such as composability, efficiency and cross-network transparency.

Outlook

The current trajectory, according to the authors, points to limited scaling and adoption with localized efficiencies and volumes concentrated in specific use cases.

As these barriers get lowered, however, network effects could kickstart non-linear growth, giving scale to the potential efficiency and liquidity benefits.

Here is where the risks could become material.

The report focuses not so much on specific technology or issuance risks, as on how tokenization can reshape the channels through which shocks can be transmitted. Operational and infrastructure vulnerabilities are understandably of greater concern when it comes to relatively young technologies. When markets are more connected, these become more important still. In a fragmented system they can be contained – in a connected system, that becomes much more complicated.

It may even be impossible given how fast onchain assets can move. Greater asset mobility in connected markets could accelerate the contagion of liquidity runs and fire sales.

But the authors stress that there are tradeoffs. The benefits could outweigh the heightened risk, especially if jurisdictions collaborate in implementing mitigating measures.

An entire page in the chapter is dedicated to exploring how tokenization could change market structure. Most FMIs and service providers today are vertically integrated, operating asset and trading services as well as the infrastructure on which those services run. Tokenization could allow for a degree of “unbundling”, with functions offered independently of the rails, encouraging more competition.

A final thing that stood out is that stablecoins are hardly mentioned, other than in passing when talking about trusted settlement assets. Personally, I appreciate the limited scope of the chapter’s focus – it’s not as if the IMF hasn’t published risk assessments of stablecoins before.

In sum, the chapter came across as an unexpectedly constructive look at the potential impact of tokenization. A larger takeaway, though, is in the assumption that onchain assets are now a feature of finance. They could remain a niche if the adoption barriers are not dealt with – but the authors laid out a series of policy prescriptions to lower them.

🌟Thanks so much for reading! Do you know anyone else who feels crypto is playing a meaningful role in global shifts, and is not yet a subscriber?

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Newslettering after four years

As part of this newsletter’s fourth birthday commemoration (which I’m still finding hard to believe), I promised to share some thoughts on how I do what I do, and how that has changed over the years. I’m hoping this will be helpful to anyone else struggling with the weight of content production in an increasingly crowded environment – and that it will give you wonderful readers some insight into what my days are like, and why I feel so lucky.

Below, I’ll answer the questions I get asked most often. There will obviously be much that I leave out, not deliberately but in the interests of time – feel free to reach out on Substack Chat if there’s something you’re wondering about that I haven’t addressed. If I get enough interesting questions there, I’ll do a part 2.

How do you find something to write about every day?

This is easily the most-asked question, and the only answer I have is that my recurring problem is one of time and energy constraints, not topics to focus on. There is SO MUCH going on, most of it is so interesting, and I’m fascinated by how it all fits into the bigger picture of changing relationships and expectations. In sum, there’s so much more to write about than I can possibly get to, which is a frustration I’ve learned to deal with.

How do you choose what to write about?

Usually, on Sundays, I’ll map out what I want to get to during the following week. Often things happen (significant developments, a new report, etc.) to rearrange my plan, but at least this way I feel more in control of the content flow.

My criteria for choosing what gets my (and your) attention is:

Does this topic shed light on crypto’s evolving role in the changing global landscape, or does it help to highlight shifting market narratives? Can I do a good job explaining why it matters?

Almost every day I come across things I want to write about but have to skip, given time constraints – I’ll put them on my Topic List, which is intimidatingly long and getting longer.

Why do you publish so often?

I’ve often thought about dropping the frequency of publication – the newsletters have been getting longer, and you are all no doubt too busy to read them every day. Plus, more time to do research would lead to deeper and possibly more useful pieces.

But, I’ll be honest, I actually enjoy the daily deadline. There’s a thrill in hitting publish, followed by the relief-fuelled joy of heading to the kitchen to make lunch and take a break. A feeling of accomplishment. And, it keeps me from going too deep into any one topic when there’s so much I want to pay attention to. The daily deadline keeps me productive and focused.

That said, publishing every day is exhausting, and as I get older, I find I don’t have the energy I used to. Still, I’m going to stick to my rhythm for now, only with perhaps more frequent days off here and there.

Why don’t you do more video/audio?

That’s a question I wrestle with often. In the early days, I tried doing an audio version of the podcast and embedding the recording in the email before sending it out – but that meant publishing really late, and reading out loud what I had already written felt like an unproductive use of my time. I am toying with the idea of trying again, simplifying my mic setup and figuring out how to get an AI to do the editing for me.

As for video, it comes down to time management – for the 2-3 hours it would take me to prepare a script, set up the lighting, record, edit, distribute, I could be doing a lot of reading, learning and writing, which I enjoy much more. And would people really rather watch/listen to me than read? I’m realizing that, yes, there are some who would, and so exploring how to do this efficiently is near the top of my To Do list.

I am getting better at video interviews – check out my Stablecoins Around the World series if you haven’t yet seen it. And I do enjoy talking to people, so when this series ends, I have an idea for another one.

How has the newsletter changed over four years?

I’d like to think it’s gotten more relevant for understanding the changing world, in that my focus has sharpened as my thesis has evolved. In the early days, it was much more market-focused, a lot more commentary on price movements and investor signals, as back then that was what I was mainly known for, and what I figured readers wanted more of.

But my interest in crypto has always been the big-picture global impact, and I’ve loved the freedom I have now to focus on filling in some of the pieces in the changing puzzle. I feel I can add more value there as not enough of us are working in the crypto/macro intersection, whereas there are so many people doing crypto market commentary.

I think the newsletter has gotten better at content packaging with time – better lead-ins and titling, more links to previous relevant pieces.

I used to do more news-style summaries, monthly round-ups of developments in stablecoins, CBDCs, regulation and tokenization. I stopped because I found sticking to a regular schedule on that became impossible with so much other stuff to focus on. Let me know if you miss it (I know I do) and I’ll find a way to bring it back.

The posts have gotten a lot longer – perhaps because my research is getting deeper, or because there’s more happening, or maybe I’m just getting too wrapped up in words. Shorter feels more useful. I’m going to have a think about how to get a better balance.

How is it going?

I’m happy with how the number of free subscriptions is growing – this is now over 7,100, up 10% on the year, with new ones joining the list every day.

The number of paying subscribers has dropped by quite a bit, I’m down 17% over the past 12 months. That upset me at first, until I realized that pretty much all Substack newsletter writers were seeing the same thing to some degree (other than the superstars, I assume). The better Substack does in attracting new names, the worse we do individually as the available spend pie does not grow proportionally – there’s only so much we can spend on newsletters, right? Especially when we’re also maintaining our subscriptions to traditional media.

I’m extremely fortunate to have wonderful sponsors in Allium – their support gives me a good cushion to absorb a drop in paying subscribers, while my growth in free subscribers gives them more exposure.

And, I love what I do – truly – and I was never in it for the money anyway. So I stopped stressing about the revenue. But, not going to lie, it would make me so happy to see the paid number start to tick up again. Suggestions welcome!

Like this newsletter ❤ if you care about changing marketplaces.

HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND!

(in this section, I share stuff that has NOTHING to do with macro or crypto, ‘cos it’s the weekend and life is interesting)

It’s been a while since I shared beautiful images with you, and what better occasion to rectify that than the reveal of the winners of the Dog Photography Awards 2026.

Without further ado, here are some of my favourites, chosen for feeling rather than composition or technique:

photo by Nika Kuplenk Golobic

photo by Elena Marchi

photo by Gavriella Leon

photo by Eco Lorka

DISCLAIMER: I never give trading ideas, and NOTHING I say is investment advice! I hold some BTC, ETH and a tiny amount of some smaller tokens, but they’re all long-term holdings – I don’t trade. Also, I often use AI for research instead of Google, but never for writing.

Hello everyone, and happy Friday! I hope you have good things planned for the weekend. 🍃

IN THIS NEWSLETTER

• Stablecoin payments: the numbers

• Newslettering after four years

Crypto is Macro Now offers ~daily commentary and updates on crypto’s evolving role in the changing geopolitical and financial landscapes. Plus links and more.

If you’re a premium subscriber, thank you!! ❤

PUBLISHED IN PARTNERSHIP WITH: ✨ ALLIUM ✨

Allium gives enterprises the simplest, fastest way to access onchain data, without building data pipelines or using patchwork solutions.

→ Book a demo: https://www.allium.so/

And get weekly onchain data and more analysis like this from the Allium Research team on Substack

WHAT I’M WATCHING

Stablecoin payments: the numbers

A new stablecoin report form Allium Research is always a good reason to reshuffle my content plan. It’s a long report so I’m just going to share a few of the charts, but you can take a look at the full document here.

(Allium is a sponsor of this newsletter, but they didn’t ask me to comment on the report – I’m doing so because it’s great work, and relevant to what I focus on.)

Some key takeaways:

The stablecoin ecosystem is becoming more diverse. Overall circulating supply grew by $1.2 billion (0.4%) in the first nine months of 2026, but that from giants Tether and Circle fell by $4 billion. The number of issuers with more than $1 billion outstanding climbed to 15, up from 11 in 2025.

(all charts from the Allium report: State of Stablecoins and Payments)

Where stablecoins are held is also changing. The amount concentrated on exchanges at the end of September dropped by 7% year-on-year, while that held in wallets jumped by more than 20%, to 45% of the total circulating supply.

End-user activity is climbing. Allium strips out automated activity, trading and operational transfers from raw onchain volume to get an idea of wallet-to-wallet transfers, roughly 2.5% of the total in value terms. This estimate of end-user activity was 48% higher in the first nine months of 2026 compared to the same period last year (even though supply was more or less flat), led by transactions on Tron.

Of adjusted volume, roughly 20% is attributed to payments, which grew 45% year-on-year in volume through the first nine months of 2026 and more than 70% in number, while the average transfer size fell around 15%.

Consumer-to-consumer transfers are still the largest category of payments, up almost 60% in value in the first nine months of 2026, up 66% in number.

The report also has detail on agentic payments (growing in number but not value) and stablecoin card spend (up roughly 10x through September!), worth checking out.

A bigger takeaway is how much information can be gleaned from understanding and filtering onchain data, and how this can be funnelled into dashboards – something you don’t get with traditional, fragmented payments information.

Newslettering after four years

As part of this newsletter’s fourth birthday commemoration (which I’m still finding hard to believe), I promised to share some thoughts on how I do what I do, and how that has changed over the years. I’m hoping this will be helpful to anyone else struggling with the weight of content production in an increasingly crowded environment – and that it will give you wonderful readers some insight into what my days are like, and why I feel so lucky.

Below, I’ll answer the questions I get asked most often. There will obviously be much that I leave out, not deliberately but in the interests of time – feel free to reach out on Substack Chat if there’s something you’re wondering about that I haven’t addressed. If I get enough interesting questions there, I’ll do a part 2.

Read more

Hello everyone! I hope you’re all doing well. Halfway through October already… 🍂

IN THIS NEWSLETTER

• GRAB BAG ISSUE: Agentic payments, stablecoins and the price of intermediation

  • commentary on pieces by Jordi Visser, Citrini Research and David Marcus

• Markets: about turn?

Crypto is Macro Now offers ~daily commentary and updates on crypto’s evolving role in the changing geopolitical and financial landscapes. Plus links and more.

If you’re a premium subscriber, thank you so much!! ❤

PUBLISHED IN PARTNERSHIP WITH: ✨ ALLIUM ✨

Most of the move in prediction market odds for a Democrat win in the Senate midterms came in two weeks: the week after US crude topped $90/bbl following strikes on Iran, and the week to Sept 17, when Democrats took the lead.

Full report: Prediction markets and a live read on the US midterms

Get weekly onchain data and analysis from the Allium Research team on Substack.

WHAT I’M WATCHING

GRAB BAG ISSUE

For new readers (hello!), every now and then I offer a brief summary of and commentary on some recent articles that caught my attention. I call this my “grab bag” section as sometimes there’s a common theme but usually not – they do, however, all touch on the macro/crypto intersection I focus on.

I also have a stack of interesting papers I want to synthesize for you, but that will have to wait until next week.

AI Slop, Bitcoin, and the Price of Intelligence – by Jordi Visser

• LINK

In this loosely structured but insightful piece, Jordi Visser highlights the impact of AI on the price of work and knowledge and contrasts it with that of Bitcoin.

He wonders why we’re upset about AI slop, as humans have been generating mediocre work and other time-wasters online for decades – only, more slowly and sometimes with credentials attached.

One reason is perhaps that now there is so much of it. AI changed slop economics, and in so doing, enabled price discovery on cognitive work. Now, something that looks like it took four hours, took four minutes. This impacts not only the economics of knowledge work; it also alters the psychology.

In the pre-AI era, a polished report signalled work, and work implied at least some value and expertise. Now, AI strips away that signal; when work is cheap, the value comes down to the idea behind it.

Value also accrues to expertise, the ability to distinguish between ideas, to curate or intermediate those that are worthwhile.

In sum, value is inferred and subjective, derived from intangible contributions rather than tangible output.

Bitcoin inverts this: work is verifiable, determined by compute. No subjectivity. Bitcoin enforces scarcity, while AI eliminates it.

But both change the economics behind intermediation.

Bitcoin allows users to transfer value directly and to self-manage related services such as custody. Intermediation is optional, which means the intermediary has to compete. The user pays an explicit price for the service. If the user chooses to use one, it’s because the price paid is compensated with convenience, security, whatever. It’s explicit, unlike in the traditional system where the bulk of intermediation prices are implicit, bundled, hidden.

The same with AI content. Output is abundant, minimal implicit cost. The value is in the intermediation of the ideas – users can consume vats of slop if they wish, or they can pay an explicit price for expertise.

This ends up translating into a price on trust. Reliable services, accumulated knowledge, an earned reputation – these are now for sale in a cleaner marketplace than under the old “bundled” system.

Breaking The Wall: Has Blockchain Finally Reached Its Moment? - by Citrini Research

• LINK

I don’t have a paid subscription to Citrini Research (beyond my budget, sadly), but they are quite generous with what they offer above the paywall.

This post focuses on the utility of onchain securities. Regular readers will know that I’m sceptical of the hype around tokenized stocks as old formats on new rails doesn’t feel particularly innovative.

Here, the Citrini team pulls on the same thread but wraps it around the spread of AI agents.

The promise of blockchain was never decentralization, they argue – it was always onchain programmability, and the blockchain industry has been preparing for agentic finance from day 1: 24/7, easy connectivity, control embedded in code. Now, assets investors actually want to own are moving onto these new rails, ready to interact with AI agents.

Traditional finance is not suitable for AI agents. Crypto finance is.

It’s a compelling point – at its root, not a new one as if feels like we have been talking about crypto as a solution for agentic payments for ages. But the Citrini team pull the argument into traditional finance, and imbue tokenized assets with a new type of utility.

I have some quibbles, though. The post characterizes crypto as an “industry that has enabled so much capital destruction, that most “serious” investors have written off” – which says more about misplaced expectations on new technology than on the industry itself. The railroad bubble. The internet bubble. Those who swore these technologies would transform, well, everything felt embarrassed… until they were proved right, in time. There is no evidence at all that most “serious” investors have written off digital assets – underperformance is a sign that other assets are more appealing at this point in time, not the same thing.

I was also struck by the tone of triumph in pointing out that the crypto ecosystem today resembles tradfi, as if that was a vindication of some sort. It’s positive that more people realize the industry is not just about get-rich-quick schemes – but that was always a lazy conclusion anyway, fed by media headlines and easily dispelled by maybe 5 minutes of investigation.

The overall implication is that crypto and tradfi have “discovered” each other, giving us the desired happy ending to this coming-of-age movie. Satisfying, but limiting – only, here comes the sequel in which agentic finance sweeps in to disrupt the happy relationship and take crypto rails for itself.

This part of the story, I can get more excited about as we’re looking at new plot lines and unconventional protagonists. Here’s where we could start to see real transformation, not so much old stuff in new wrappers, but entirely new functionality.

The Death of the Interface – by David Marcus

• LINK (X post)

At first glance, this may look like a post about UX, but really it’s about money. To be more specific, it’s about how money moves – or rather, who gives the order for it to do so.

And it contains the following subtitle, provocative and buried about halfway down: Stablecoins aren’t a thing anymore.

Taking a step back, our interaction with digital payments has been mainly via screen interfaces – we activate an app, we click on a button, and a lot of thought has gone into designing that app and refining that button so we click more often.

But in a world of agentic payments, we won’t need interfaces. No apps to open, no buttons to click. We tell agents what we want, in our language rather than that of UX, and it gets handled in the background.

Granted, the background is complicated, the “eat glass” layer of licenses, APIs, identification, liquidity and such. Fortunes will be made by the businesses that come to dominate that sub-world that we never see – the new “operating system”. But because we never see it, no interface is needed.

Stablecoins are likely to form part of that agentic sub-world (“underworld” has sinister connotations, perhaps appropriate but too soon to tell) – but as a facilitator, not as a thing unto themselves. The term is a convenient wrapper for a specific form of token. But the wrapper matters much less than the actions to which it is subjected. Put differently, we won’t care what powers the agentic transaction, as long as stuff gets done.

David has a good term for this: “headless money”. No front-end, just a simple API that agents can use when they need to move value.

And while this may seem like a long way off, David suggests that agentic finance has been slow to spread because it has been trying to accommodate the traditional money stack which introduces a lot of friction.

I’ve often made the argument that we’ll know blockchain has gone mainstream when we stop talking about it, when we get enhanced efficiency without needing to know what powers it. David’s argument adds a twist – when we stop talking about stablecoins, it won’t necessarily be because everyone is using them. It will be because our understanding of “money” won’t depend on form, but rather on function.

Markets: about turn?

Read more

Hi everyone! I hope you’re all taking care of yourselves. 🍂

IN THIS NEWSLETTER

• The IMF path to tokenization

• Macro: US CPI

Crypto is Macro Now offers ~daily commentary and updates on crypto’s evolving role in the changing geopolitical and financial landscapes. Plus links and more.

If you’re a premium subscriber, thank you so much!! ❤

PUBLISHED IN PARTNERSHIP WITH: ✨ ALLIUM ✨

Following granular prediction market data can deliver new insights into the likely November outcome. For instance, the odds suggest that Democrats will win control of the Senate – but by how much?

Full report: Prediction markets and a live read on the US midterms

Get weekly onchain data and analysis from the Allium Research team on Substack.

WHAT I’M WATCHING

The IMF path to tokenization

Yesterday, the IMF released its semi-annual Global Financial Stability Report discussing the major trends impacting the world economy. Whatever you may think of the IMF, this report carries weight as a “health check” that aims to identify crises before they blow up, with a focus on financial-sector implications of macro policies and structural developments.

For the first time, the latest report carries an entire chapter on tokenization.

It’s actually pretty good – thought-provoking, balanced and quite well written, with items of interest for both the uninitiated and those already deep in the industry. There is a sprinkling of good charts, and a smattering of “boxes” with related deep dives (I do like reports with boxes, perhaps something to do with the by-the-way choice of distractions).

Below, I’ll highlight one of the more interesting observations from the report, one that tends to be overlooked by market participants but that weaves together the various threads covered.

But first, a summary of key metrics:

A snapshot

At the end of July, tokenized real world assets excluding repo stood at around $65 billion, with the bulk of that in tokenized fixed income (corporate credit, asset-backed credit, and money market fund).

(all charts from the IMF Global Financial Stability Report, October 2026)

Tokenized repo is not included in that total as it is more about flows than issuance – yet its average daily volumes have for the past year been over $300 billion, an indication that collateral management is one of the most compelling use cases in today’s market.

Unsurprisingly, most tokenization currently takes place in the US – but check out the sizeable volume with unknown origin, a blow to those who insist onchain assets are transparent.

Bonds issued on-chain tend to have short maturities, which makes sense given the relative youth of the technology and the “still testing” approach from large issuers.

Also interesting is the growing participation from governments (in green below).

In tokenized equities, it’s notable that around 50% of trading takes place outside typical market hours, suggesting that the always-on nature of onchain markets is a strong draw.

Also, I was surprised by the demand for fractionalization (which reduces investment barriers) – most trades are of less than one share.

Adoption

For a report that aims to identify systemic risks, the chapter on tokenization is surprisingly optimistic, even while taking an original approach to the diagnosis of vulnerabilities.

Read more

Hi everyone! I hope you all had a good weekend.

A big day where I am: el Día de la Hispanidad, a celebration of Hispanic culture and a flex of Spanish military – tanks have been rolling by, soldiers have been marching, and fighter jets have been screeching overhead. Moving stuff.

Production note: I have to skip publication tomorrow (Tuesday).

IN THIS NEWSLETTER

• Coming up this week: lots of high-level global meetings, US inflation

• How relevant are consumer surveys?

Crypto is Macro Now offers ~daily commentary and updates on crypto’s evolving role in the changing geopolitical and financial landscapes. Plus links and more.

If you’re a premium subscriber, thank you so much!! ❤

PUBLISHED IN PARTNERSHIP WITH: ✨ ALLIUM ✨

Most of the move in prediction market odds for a Democrat win in the Senate midterms came in two weeks: the week after US crude topped $90/bbl following strikes on Iran, and the week to Sept 17, when Democrats took the lead.

Full report: Prediction markets and a live read on the US midterms

Get weekly onchain data and analysis from the Allium Research team on Substack.

WHAT I’M WATCHING

Coming up this week:

US inflation week! Plus so many top-level macro and geopolitical meetings.

Today (Monday), markets in Japan are closed for Sports Day, a celebration of an active lifestyle with parades and local sports tournaments around the country – I only mention it because I think it’s an enchanting idea to have a public holiday commemorating exercise and competition.

The Annual Meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank kick off in Bangkok, Thailand – this is the first time they are being held outside of Washington DC in three years. (That plus expected heavy rain should do wonders for the notoriously bad traffic in the city.) Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh will attend, but US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent won’t – his absence, plus the change in venue, sends a not-so-subliminal signal about shifting global influence on the macroeconomic stage.

There is also a full agenda of economic gatherings, festivals, talks and symposiums on the margins of the official event – we can expect many high-profile panels on stablecoins, digital assets and the like.

The two-day Warsaw Security Forum kicks off in Poland.

Also, the US bond market is closed for Columbus Day (but not the stock market).

On Tuesday, we get the latest IMF World Economic Outlook and Global Financial Stability Report.

We also get the official data on the US federal budget deficit for FY 2026 (the 12 months up to the end of September), expected to reach 6.2% of GDP, up from 5.8% in FY 2025.

(chart via the Wall Street Journalv)

The National Federation of Independent Businesses delivers its latest optimism report.

And Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Citi and Wells Fargo kick off the Q3 reporting season.

On Wednesday, we get the US CPI report for September. Consensus forecasts have the headline index coming in at 0.6% month-on-month, which would be higher than August’s 0.4% and the steepest increase in five months. The year-on-year rate is expected to pick up to 3.7% from 3.4%. The core index, ex-food and energy, is forecast to climb 0.2%. This would be slightly lower than August’s 0.3%, but would push the year-on-year rate up to 2.5% from 2.4%.

China’s inflation rate is expected to pick up to 1.0% from 0.8%.

We also get the Federal Reserve’s Beige Book, with anecdotal commentary on the economic environment from businesses around the country.

On Thursday, the G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors Meeting kicks off in Bangkok, this time without the presence of US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent (even though the US holds the G20 presidency this year). Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh is expected to attend.

There will also be a G7 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors meeting.

We get the US retail sales report for September, expected to show slowing growth.

We also get the US Producer Price Index (PPI) report for September, forecast to show headline wholesale inflation holding steady at 5.4%, with the core measure expected to decelerate to 4.4% from 4.6%.

Also, the two-day European Council summit kicks off in Brussels, gathering leaders of the 27 member states and the presidents of the European Council and the European Commission. On the agenda: the affordability crisis, migration, security and Ukraine.

On Friday, Fed Chair Kevin Warsh takes the stage at the IMF Annual Meeting in Thailand, to be interviewed by IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva.

And we get the US September import and export price indices as well as September industrial production.

How relevant are consumer surveys?

Even among seasoned economists, opinions are divided not only as to the importance of consumer surveys, but also as to which ones are more relevant.

On the one hand, surveys aren’t exactly reliable measures of anything, as opinions change, samples can distort results and people don’t always say what they mean. Let’s face it, we’re complicated, and our thoughts even more so. Plus, who enjoys responding to surveys?

On the other hand, they’re all we have, for now, to gauge sentiment changes. Consumer surveys are imperfect, but they have been relatively consistent over decades, and statistics can be smoothed and weighted and averaged to even out human-shaped anomalies. Consumer surveys may be unreliable, but even a vague message is better than nothing.

Ok, once we accept that they can be big-picture useful, which ones matter and why?

Read more

You’re reading the free weekly send of the premium daily Crypto is Macro Now, where I re-share one or two of the week’s posts and add some non-crypto and non-macro links since it’s the weekend. 🌼

This week, I was invited onto Bloomberg’s Crypto show – a smart team, such good questions. You can catch that here (I’m on in the last segment).

And I went on Scott Melker’s The Wolf of All Streets show to talk about macro and crypto and the SEC and stablecoins and more. Scott is always so easy to talk to. You can catch the recording here.

In this newsletter:

• Who controls the money innovation narrative?

• Assorted links: Deep questions, dinner party, phone-less travel, microphones

• Weekend: Bond music

PUBLISHED IN PARTNERSHIP WITH: ✨ ALLIUM ✨

Most of the move in prediction market odds for a Democrat win in the Senate midterms came in two weeks: the week after US crude topped $90/bbl following strikes on Iran, and the week to Sept 17, when Democrats took the lead.

Full report: Prediction markets and a live read on the US midterms

Get weekly onchain data and analysis from the Allium Research team on Substack.

🌏 STABLECOINS AROUND THE WORLD 🌏

Since the last weekly, I’ve published episodes on:

• Stablecoins in the EU with Marieke Flament, and

• Stablecoins in Switzerland with Ian Simpson.

If you missed the recordings on Japan and Brazil, you can catch them here.

The next episode will be in a couple of weeks, and I’m leaving the chosen jurisdiction as a surprise, he he. 😊

I finally have distribution going on Spotify – I need to look into how to get an AI agent to handle all this for me, it’s finicky. Now working on YouTube uploads.

Some of the topics discussed in the recent premium dailies:

Monday, Sept 28

• Coming up this week: lots of macro data

• Who controls the money innovation narrative?

Tuesday, Sept 29

• Global crypto: it’s not about the price

• Term of the day: logarithmic scale

Wednesday, Sept 30

• Stablecoins Around the World Ep. 3: the European Union

• Highlights from the episode

• EU stablecoin regulation

• Main euro stablecoins

Monday, Oct 5

• Coming up this week: quiet on the macro front

• Macro: A self-fulfilling tension?

• BTC: surprising resilience

Tuesday, Oct 6

• BTC resilience: why, how and what next?

Thursday, Oct 8

• Video: Stablecoins in Switzerland

• Notes from the episode

• Stablecoin regulation in Switzerland

• Regulatory timeline

Friday, Oct 9

• A look-back: October 2022

Who controls the money innovation narrative?

One of the deepest lessons the crypto industry has taught me over the 12 years I’ve been swimming in these waters is that we have to question assumptions, however obvious they may seem. I used to work in traditional finance and I assumed I knew what money is – Bitcoin showed me that I didn’t. I’ve always thought that people will choose freedom over restrictions when offered – that was naïve. And I’ve trusted that efficiency-boosting innovation will transform creaky legacy structures – the jury’s still out on that.

This is front-of-mind these days because the now-parallel race between stablecoins and tokenized deposits is picking up.

What are we talking about?

For those of you new here (hello!), some basic definitions:

Stablecoins are tokens representing fiat currency on public blockchains – they hold their peg via 1:1 reserves held in safe, liquid assets denominated in the same currency.

Tokenized deposits are tokens representing fiat currency held in bank deposits, that can move on the bank’s distributed ledger. (I’ve written before about how they should be called deposit tokens rather than tokenized deposits, but here I’m going to respect the now-common form, grumbling as I do so.)

The differences between the two are legion. It’s not just that tokenized deposits are issued by banks and stay within banks, while stablecoins can be issued by non-bank authorized issuers and can move pretty much anywhere. It’s not just that tokenized deposits have, for now, limited functionality while stablecoins can fit into innovative applications active today as well as those that have yet to be invented. It’s not just that one has a legacy hue while the other wears the colours of disruption.

It’s also that tokenized deposits are traditional money on a new rail, while stablecoins are a new type of money – essentially tokenized assets that can substitute for fiat in onchain transactions. Tokenized deposits don’t change our idea of what money is; stablecoins do. (If you’re interested in more philosophy on this, and just how radical stablecoins’ use as money is, here’s what I wrote on the topic a couple of years ago.)

Why now?

The A vs B discourse is getting more interesting. A couple of weeks ago, Caitlin Long – founder and CEO of Custodia Bank, and a long-time advocate of decentralized networks (she was one of the first high-profile traditional finance people to embrace Bitcoin back in the day) – said on a panel at a Federal Reserve event that she thought tokenized deposits would eventually beat stablecoins in terms of volume and velocity.

She backs up her claim with reasonable arguments that I’ll get to in a second, but first, here’s why this surprised many of us. Caitlin is what we call a “crypto OG”, where OG stands for “original gangster” and is an affectionate term for those who have been in this industry since the early days, with consistent conviction. She is known for her courage, integrity and the battles she has fought against entrenched interests at considerable personal cost. Her firm is currently suing the Federal Reserve over the denial of its master account application – and yet she was invited to speak at its recent Philadelphia event, a sign of how much she is respected even by her supposed antagonist.

Put differently, her words carry weight because we can assume she has not been “bought” by the banks – I know I said earlier we should always question assumptions, but this one holds up.

Only, hang on, the company she founded, the one suing the Federal Reserve, is a bank.

But it’s not your typical bank. Custodia (founded in 2020 as Avanti) holds a Wyoming special purpose depository institution (SPDI) license – the legislation for which Caitlin was instrumental in passing – which means it can hold deposits but cannot lend. This new banking model, plus Custodia’s plans to offer crypto custody, appear to be the main reasons behind the Fed master account denial. But it takes a blinkered vision to hold up as a structural weakness Custodia’s lack of FDIC deposit insurance when that facility’s purpose is to replenish deposits that aren’t there because they have been lent out – if there’s no lending, there’s no need to replenish, and yet the Fed seems to regard that as a disadvantage rather than an advantage. Anyways… Custodia argues that the Fed applying subjective discretion to master account access should be seen as resistance to change and goes against the Congressional mandate.

Jumping forward, in June Custodia and Texas-based Vantage bank released the white paper outlining the design and functionality of the Hazel Network, an Ethereum-based platform that enables banks to issue Avit tokens backed by bank deposits. When used within the network, they reconcile as tokenized deposits, but they can also be sent outside the network, whereupon they automatically convert into stablecoins, which turn back into deposit tokens when they return.

In sum, Custodia has one foot in the traditional banking world and another in the stablecoin ecosystem – much like Caitlin hails from traditional finance but hopes to leverage new technology to modernize old structures. Change with, rather than against.

So, why does she think deposit tokens will beat stablecoins on eventual volume and velocity?

Size matters

Because traditional banking adopting new rails has a faster path to broad acceptance. Note that I didn’t say fast, but everything is relative, and banks not only have trillions of dollars waiting to be tokenized, with access to a deep pool of liquidity across the system, but they are also already networked via a vast web of back office connections.

What’s more, deposit tokens start off with consolidated regulatory clarity, whereas stablecoins still have question marks over property claims and redemption rights, even post-GENIUS. Institutions tend to prefer clarity over question marks.

And, she points out that banks are unlikely to ever embrace stablecoins as that would fund their own disintermediation. But most will end up involved in tokenized asset marketplaces, which will need onchain dollar settlement.

She’s not saying that stablecoins don’t have a valuable use or that they will disappear – she is pro-stablecoin. But she recognizes that deposit tokens start off with a considerable advantage, especially at the institutional market layer. So, her company created a platform to bridge the two token types.

The pace

Of course, stablecoins have been around for much longer than deposit tokens. For most of that time, they were not regulated and so became associated with criminal activity, a perception the ecosystem still struggles to shed today. The relative freedom, though, enabled them to power new forms of financial activity, reach savers who could not normally access dollars, and startle banks into considering updates to their creaking tech stack and complacent payments service. Furthermore, the pressure from US banks to suppress stablecoin utility now that they have come into the legal fold tells us that they are alarmed at the threat of disruption.

But stablecoin market cap growth has largely stalled, due mainly to a quiet crypto asset market.

(chart via TradingView)

Meanwhile, recent headlines reveal that tokenized deposit development is picking up the pace. Over the past month alone, we’ve seen the following milestones:

• Canada’s six largest banks announced a joint tokenized deposit initiative, barely a week after the country’s main banking regulator confirmed that tokenized deposits carry the same legal protections and obligations as traditional deposits.

• Norway’s largest financial services group DNB and the Commercial Bank of Dubai have joined the German- Commercial Bank Money Token (CBMT) sandbox, initiated in 2021 by the German Banking Industry Committee to develop and test a cross-bank deposit token network. This brings the number of participating big-name global banks up to eight.

• The Great British Tokenized Deposit initiative (yes, it’s really called that) – coordinated by industry body UK Finance with participation from Barclays, HSBC UK, Lloyds Banking Group, NatWest, Santander, Monzo and Nationwide – completed its first live customer transactions, using tokenized money to move funds between themselves.

• The Clearing House – a US banking association founded in 1853, currently operator of the core US payment infrastructure – has chosen UK technology company Quant (also behind the Great British Tokenized Deposit initiative) to build its planned tokenized deposit network.

• BNP Paribas and ABN Amro – two of Europe’s largest banks – joined the sandbox of the Commercial Bank Money Token initiative, confirming its expansion beyond German financial institutions.

• Financial giants Citi (US) and DBS (Singapore) completed a weekend tokenized cross-border payment on SWIFT’s digital ledger.

• Cari – a US tokenized deposit network servicing regional and community banks, with more than 30 institutions on board – raised $32.5 million in the first tranche of its initial funding round, entirely from banks.

And these are just the ones I saw, there are probably more.

The shift in rhythm does not confirm that tokenized deposits will “win” in terms of size. And I’m whole-heartedly rooting for stablecoins, as settling for regulated convenience may be practical but it limits potential. Tokenized deposits will bring enhanced efficiency and functionality to bank services, which is good – but it’s not a particularly exciting transformation.

Stablecoins, on the other hand, change how we think about money – it doesn’t just have to be a concept banks control, it can evolve into what we collectively want it to be. And the increased weaponization of access to bank money tells us that the concept has to change in order to remain resilient and useful.

Through my big-picture geopolitical lens, I don’t see tokenized deposits winning out. In the hyper-financialized US, perhaps. But on a global scale, innovation becomes a weapon unto itself, at a time when complacency has made giants weak and open-source tools fuel courage for those on the sidelines.

Either way, this race is not about which type of asset wins – it’s about who gets to control the marketplaces of tomorrow. Is it the incumbent banks, or is it the innovators? I’ll argue that there’s room for both, and we’re already seeing some convergence. And, of course, eventually the innovators become the incumbents, and a new cycle starts. Until then, we get to witness a narrative battle for the essence of money, carried out in code and rule sets and alliances and permissions.

See also:

• How can deposit tokens be made more liquid? (July 2026)

• How tokenized deposits could compete with stablecoins (June 2026)

• Stablecoins, banks and innovation (May 2026)

• Stablecoin rewards and bank deceit (Mar 2026)

• The geopolitics of stablecoin demand (Nov 2025)

• Stablecoins vs tokenized deposits: the philosophical conundrum (Sept 2024)

🌻 If you’re already a premium subscriber, THANK YOU! ❤

If not, I hope you’ll consider becoming one - you’ll get access to (almost) daily insight into how crypto fits into the changing geopolitical, monetary and financial landscapes. And, you’d make my day. 😊

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ASSORTED LINKS

(A selection of reads I came across this week that I think are worth sharing, not about crypto nor macro. I try to choose links without a paywall, but when I feel it’s worth making an exception, I specify.)

Sigh. I’ve realized that I, too, don’t invite people around to dinner anymore. Pre-pandemic, it was a regular occurrence in our house. I love cooking, I have a big kitchen, I have fun friends. What I ran out of is energy, which is related to the time I spend in front of my computer. Gotta have a think about that. Anyways, Derek Thompson shares some jaw-dropping charts on how Americans entertain less at home these days, even though they spend more time at home. Reasons: 1) logistical stress, 2) other fun things to do at home, 3) shrinking social networks. (You Are No Longer Invited to Dinner – Derek Thompson)

Most of us don’t think about microphones at all, other than the occasional frustration in setting one up for a recording (that pesky cable…). This review by David Trotter of “Microphone” by Ralph Jones reminds us that we should, given their role in not just our messaging to the world, but also the world listening in on us. Sound is such an enveloping feature of life, and I am just now realizing how little I know about how it is captured, and how that has changed over the years. (A Fly’s Footfall – The London Review of Books)

For most of us, being dropped into an unfamiliar city without our smartphone navigator would probably trigger a panic attack, or at the very least spike anxiety to hand-wavy levels. But it used to be the norm, and people managed fine. Many even enjoyed the adventure of getting lost, it was part of the magic of travel. Thu-Huong Ha, writing for Bloomberg, tried to spend an entire weekend in Singapore with only a dumb phone, and found out first hand how hard it is to take a plane, coordinate with friends and order food without smart scanners, instant messaging and online forms. But he managed. (48 Hours in the City of the Future With No Smartphone – Bloomberg, paywall)

I mean, where to even start… This piece opens with questions about our chin – why do we have them, when most species don’t, not even earlier humans, and what evolutionary use to they serve? And that’s just the warm-up. It goes on to list deep questions submitted from 100 scientists, such as:

• How many dimensions does it take to describe the formation and evolution of our universe?

• What is curiosity?

• Can environmental sustainability be achieved under capitalism?

• Will we ever understand consciousness in a way that could apply to nonliving entities?

• Why does the immune system in some people, and not others, control cancers and viruses?

• How do humans create genuinely new concepts — not just random variations or recombinations of old ideas?

• How did the building blocks of life, like proteins and nucleic acid, first organize into a living cell?

• How does the human brain construct meaning from language, when so much of what we understand is not expressed in the words?

I could go on, the list is fascinating. (100 Unanswered Questions About Ourselves, Our World and Our Universe – The New York Times, paywall)

HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND!

(in this section, I share stuff that has NOTHING to do with macro or crypto, ‘cos it’s the weekend and life is interesting)

I’ll get back to the wallowing-in-nostalgia sharing of ‘80s TV show opening tunes, but the drama in bond markets has got me re-listening to my James Bond favourites. There are so many great songs assigned to the films, it’s hard to choose a short-list, but here are my top four:

• Another Way to Die – Alicia Keys and Jack White

• No Time to Die – Billie Eilish

• Skyfall – Adele

• Nobody Does It Better – Carly Simon

DISCLAIMER: I never give trading ideas, and NOTHING I say is investment advice! I hold some BTC, ETH and a tiny amount of some smaller tokens, but they’re all long-term holdings – I don’t trade. Also, I often use AI for research instead of Google, but never for writing.

Hi everyone, and happy Friday! What a strange, fragmented week… Apart from vet visits and related issues, my concentration yesterday was punctuated by fighter jets screaming overhead as the Air Force practices for the military parade on Monday for our Día de la Hispanidad. Beautiful, but distracting.

I do plan to publish on Monday despite the holiday, but I will have to skip Tuesday.

Yesterday, I shared the latest episode of Stablecoins Around the World, in which I look at Switzerland. If you missed it, you can watch that here.

IN THIS NEWSLETTER

• A look-back: October 2022

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Crypto is Macro Now offers ~daily commentary and updates on crypto’s evolving role in the changing geopolitical and financial landscapes. Plus links and more.

If you’re a premium subscriber, thank you so much!! ❤

PUBLISHED IN PARTNERSHIP WITH: ✨ ALLIUM ✨

Most of the move in prediction market odds for a Democrat win in the Senate midterms came in two weeks: the week after US crude topped $90/bbl following strikes on Iran, and the week to Sept 17, when Democrats took the lead.

Full report: Prediction markets and a live read on the US midterms

Get weekly onchain data and analysis from the Allium Research team on Substack.

WHAT I’M WATCHING

A look-back

As I mentioned last week, Crypto is Macro Now is now FOUR YEARS OLD! Over the past 1,157 posts, I’ve covered industry drama, constructive progress, tortuous legislation, geopolitical shenanigans, and plenty of market ups and down, all with the goal of figuring out how crypto fits into the changing global landscape. The format has evolved, I’ve tried some things, changed my mind occasionally, added some stuff. I’m pleased that I’ve been consistent in publishing, with days off here and there – the only time I skipped a post without notice was when we lost electricity during our nationwide blackout last year. I’ve come to accept that this newsletter often goes out later in the day than I’d like, but my priority is learning and sharing, and it’s been fun.

And I plan to continue doing it for as long as I have readers and stamina. There is still so, so much to cover, and the timeline is accelerating.

Next week, I’ll share some of what I’ve learned about newsletter writing – what works for me, what doesn’t, what I most struggle with, and so on. I’ll also have a think about my big takeaways from the past four years – there’s a lot to condense.

Today, I want to look back at what I was writing about four years ago; this sort of exercise is useful to gauge how far we’ve come, and also where little has changed.

October 2022

Markets

Read more

Joining me is Ian Simpson, Director of Marketing and Communication at institutional crypto trading and settlement platform RULEMATCH. Ian is also host of the RULEMATCH Spot On podcast which is where I get a lot of my information on the evolving plumbing behind institutional crypto connections – it’s an excellent show, a strong recommend. You can get it wherever you get your podcasts.

And it’s one of the reasons I wanted to talk to Ian about stablecoins in Switzerland, because he regularly interacts with the startups and the institutions that are driving adoption. He has the inside knowledge, and his expertise in communication make him particularly well-placed to transfer some of that knowledge to us.

You can find my notes on the conversation and background on the Swiss stablecoin ecosystem in today’s newsletter.

Timestamps:

06:29 - Switzerland’s current stablecoin regulation

11:51 - Politics, banking, and regulatory equivalence with Europe

15:57 - The Swiss National Bank’s perspective

19:54 - Institutional demand for stablecoins

24:30 - The Swiss franc as a potential reserve asset

27:21 - Stablecoins for settlement and tokenized securities

29:57 - Switzerland’s stablecoin ecosystem: banks, startups, and experiments

35:23 - What regulatory clarity could unlock

37:38 - Payments, e-commerce, and merchant demand

39:22 - What needs to change: wallet infrastructure

42:13 - Outlook for stablecoins in Switzerland

DISCLAIMER: I never give trading ideas, and NOTHING I say is investment advice! I hold some BTC, ETH and a tiny amount of some smaller tokens, but they’re all long-term holdings – I don’t trade.

AI policy: I often use AI (Grok and Gemini) for research instead of Google, always double-checking facts. I never, and will never, use AI for writing.

Hey everyone! Happy to report that our senior dog is doing much better and sporting a dapper red paw-band where they took blood yesterday.

Yesterday, I went on Scott Melker’s The Wolf of All Streets show to talk about macro and crypto and the SEC and stablecoins and more. Scott is always so easy to talk to. You can catch the recording here.

And on Tuesday, I was invited onto Bloomberg’s Crypto show – a smart team, such good questions. You can catch that here (I’m on in the last segment).

IN THIS NEWSLETTER

• Video: Stablecoins in Switzerland

• Notes from the episode

• Stablecoin regulation in Switzerland

• Regulatory timeline

Crypto is Macro Now offers ~daily commentary and updates on crypto’s evolving role in the changing geopolitical and financial landscapes. Plus links and more.

If you’re a premium subscriber, thank you so much!! ❤

PUBLISHED IN PARTNERSHIP WITH: ✨ ALLIUM ✨

Where have stablecoins made the biggest inroads in cross-border flows? Indexed against fiat weight, stablecoin B2C runs at 5.3x in APAC, 3.5x in EMEA and 1.4x in the Americas.

Find out more by downloading the full report: Stablecoins in Cross-Border Payments

Get weekly onchain data and more analysis like this from the Allium Research team on Substack.

WHAT I’M WATCHING

Stablecoins Around the World: Switzerland

For the fourth episode in this limited series on stablecoin ecosystems outside the US, I focus on Switzerland, and so of course I wanted to talk to Ian Simpson, Director of Marketing and Communication at institutional crypto trading and settlement platform RULEMATCH.

Ian is also host of the RULEMATCH Spot On podcast which is where I get a lot of my information on the evolving plumbing behind institutional crypto connections. It’s also one of the reasons I wanted to talk to Ian about stablecoins in Switzerland, because he regularly interacts with the startups and the institutions that are driving adoption. He has the inside knowledge, and his expertise in communication make him particularly well-placed to transfer some of that knowledge to us.

(I’ll also be uploading the episode as a standalone video to Substack, and distributing to Spotify, although I have yet to figure out YouTube and further podcast platform distribution - I’m on it!)

Notes from the episode

Read more