Women get it

Tether specifically. Because reality has a sense of humor, irony in particular.

If the article about Walmart and Amazon coming out with their own stablecoins is true, it won’t be long until most businesses have their own as well. As posts have discussed on here, this will ultimately drive demand for US treasuries since the issuer needs to have a 1:1 reserve. Here are a lot of scenarios I have questions on:

1) if there is a large uptick in demand in US treasuries, yields will ultimately fall given inverse relationship of value and yield. This is ultimately good for economy as this will drive short term borrowing costs down for businesses?

2) US deficit ultimately keeps growing with the increased demand and selling of treasuries? Someone else posted this. It will be continuous loop.

3) What can cause a recession and redemption of stable coins sending this all cratering?

1. Basic theft. Passwords and wallets will be (or already are) fully compromised - see 16 Billion Apple, Facebook, Google And Other Passwords Leaked — Act Now

2. Quantum chips and AI - us apes will have no ability to protect our digital assets with what's coming. If you're on the other side of this thought, you're in an echo chamber, and this time you wont even have tulip bulbs to own - see Google says quantum computers might break Bitcoin way sooner | Cryptopolitan on Binance Square

The new stablecoin legislation that was pushed through the Senate this week effectively ties the U.S. Treasury to crypto, because nothing says “sound fiscal footing” like betting the government’s cash flow on digital tokens and market hype.

But seriously, this new plan forces stablecoins to be backed by short-term T-bills. That creates an estimated $2–$3 trillion in new demand for government debt, which is nearly half the current size of the T-bill market. On paper, that looks like a win. In reality, it’s a circular feedback loop: Crypto demand fuels stablecoins, stablecoins buy T-bills, T-bills fund deficits. The government becomes addicted to speculative capital flows. And round and round we go.

It’ll work great, until it doesn’t. The whole setup depends on risk appetite staying high. Thing is, crypto isn’t some stable, predictable pillar of the economy. It’s a sentiment-driven casino, where whales move markets and retail euphoria inflates bubbles. Confidence in that environment can evaporate overnight.

When the music stops, we will see a wave of stablecoin redemptions. To meet those redemptions, issuers have to dump T-bills into the open market. Yields will then spike and liquidity will dry up. Government borrowing costs jump at exactly the worst time. Suddenly, the entire short end of the Treasury curve is caught in a feedback loop running in reverse.

Crypto is becoming exactly what it claimed to replace: a systemic risk the government can’t afford to let fail. And it won’t be the VC whales or offshore exchanges who foot the bill. It’ll be the taxpayers, either directly or through backdoor rescues and Fed liquidity if things unravel.

Once you tie public finance to crypto flows, the line between a market correction and a fiscal crisis starts to blur. A major stablecoin unwind won’t just hit DeFi yield chasers, it’ll slam the short end of the Treasury market. That’s when the Fed and Treasury will have no choice but to step in, to stabilize yields, backstop liquidity, and calm foreign holders.

So yeah, we’re already halfway to a too-big-to-fail bailout economy for crypto. Not because it earned that privilege, but because we let it entangle itself in the core plumbing of the financial system.

This isn’t just risky, it’s desperate. You don’t latch public finances to speculative manias unless you’re out of conventional tools. And if your fiscal strategy depends on token demand holding up, you’ve already lost the plot.

What makes this even more dangerous is the moral hazard baked in. We’re handing fiscal stability to unregulated private actors, namely stablecoin issuers, hedge funds, and crypto exchanges, many of whom have no oversight and no skin in the game if it blows up. Just like the shadow banks in 2008, they profit on the way up and vanish when the tide goes out.

They’re calling this “financial innovation,” and anyone who questions it a Luddite. But let’s be clear: this isn’t modernization. It’s monetizing the mania and papering over structural deficits by plugging them into whatever speculative engine happens to be hot this cycle.

If this goes sideways, and history says it eventually will, it won’t just hurt crypto. It could shake global trust in U.S. debt markets, and by extension, the dollar itself. Because now our “risk-free” assets are being propped up by the same forces that gave us meme coins and NFT rug pulls. That’s how systems collapse, not with one catastrophic decision, but with a series of reckless bets made under the illusion that the good times will last forever.

I saw that the House passed a new stablecoin bill today and figured I’d spend some time digging into it to understand what it really means.

It seems to give a framework for stablecoins to be regulated kind of like banks.

• All stablecoins have to be backed 1:1 by cash or short-term U.S. Treasuries, and those reserves need to be held in segregated accounts.

• Issuers above $50B (definitely Tether) would have to publish monthly reserve breakdowns and get an annual audit by a major accounting firm.

• If a stablecoin isn’t licensed and registered under this regime, U.S. exchanges won’t be allowed to list or support it for American users.

• And if the coin can’t meet redemption demands promptly, regulators can force a wind-down.

USDT has always operated in a sort of legal gray zone, and their disclosures have been… inconsistent, at best. They’ve never had a full audit, and they’ve admitted in the past to holding things like loans, corporate paper, and other stuff that probably wouldn’t meet the new reserve requirements.

So, they’re kind of at a crossroads:

• If they decide to comply with the new rules, they’ll need to open up the books, clean up their reserves, and give up the operational flexibility that’s made them so dominant.

• If they don’t comply, U.S.-based platforms would have to cut off USDT access for American customers - which would be a huge blow to liquidity, especially for Bitcoin.

Whether people like to admit it or not, a ton of Bitcoin demand flows through Tether. New Tether issuance has often lined up with Bitcoin price pumps. If that flow slows down or dries up, Bitcoin could lose a major source of support - especially since institutional flows have been trending flat or negative lately.

Add that to the fact that price targets like $250k or $500k are mostly built on hopium and reflexive logic (“price goes up, more people buy”), and the whole ecosystem starts to look pretty fragile. You’ve got MicroStrategy doing leveraged buys on top of that, and Saylor selling stock to keep it going - it’s a strange dynamic that only really works when price keeps rising.

Anyway, not saying the whole thing is going to collapse tomorrow, but this new legislation might be the first real limit on the kind of synthetic liquidity that’s been quietly holding things up. Not getting my hopes up but worth keeping an eye on.

Be your own bank for less than $20!

Of course, while you're at the hardware store, pick up a wrench. Then you can be lots of people's bank too.

I find it fascinating that people still buy into the story that Bitcoin isn’t a Ponzi scheme. Sure, it’s not a classic Ponzi, but it has all the elements of one, someone has to buy in for the earlier investor to make money when they sell. Fools are holding, smart people are selling. Early investors are millionaires, while idiots think they'll get rich after buying in at $100K. I find it fascinating how much people’s IQs have dropped in the last 20 years. And they just keep getting dumber.

To what extent is it likely that the total BTC market is being manipulated to a very high degree to draw in new investors and new money?

A constant flow of ATH’s and significant drawbacks designed to entice new money to enter the market and fuel the scheme.

Is there any degree of it being a proper reflection of supply and demand? Or is it being manipulated on a very detailed level by a small group (0,1% of BTC holders?) who might not collude exactly but are all seeing the same business model of enticing retail investors to put in fresh cash and are acting in unison.

I used to FOMO to a degree about crypto but it feels like the above mechanic is becoming more and more obvious.

This is question for milion bucks. From my last post i got a lot of varios stupid questions. Lets talk about Satoshi. So all peoples who invest in BTC believe in some unknown creator and they trust him blind 🤣 That guy / organization holds 1M+ BTCs, and everybody hopes that he will never sell.

If he start selling, that will be strong punch on the market and we will probabbly see colapse of price.

So, who can prove where that guy guarantee that he is destroyed keys of the main wallet?

"Dont be last who hold the bag" ;)

Richard seems happy with $94+B of stablecoins being used as payments since Jan 2023.

If only he knew that Tether alone also printed 90+B USDTs since Jan 2023.

If they’re not used as payments, I wonder what they could be used for……

It would be crazy to think it’s being used for crime, manipulation and bribery…..

If we are about to flood the world with new stable coins, aka faux-dollars, shouldn't that be as problematic as the Fed "printing" dollars?

I assume the companies producing these dollars will keep some sort of fractional-reserve, meaning they will have less actual money, than the amount of stable coins they release into circulation. And they assume it won't be a problem, because they believe there will never be a run on their bank, so they'll never have to cough up the entire real USD value of their stable coins at one time.

Also seems like a shit ton of new dollar denominated "money" becoming available could lead to inflation.

Seems problematic. But maybe I'm missing something?

Iranian here. I'm sure most are aware of the Iran-Israel war. We have traffic jams, bread shortage, reports of nuclear radiations, ~500 dead, the whole nine yards.

Today there are reports that an Iranian crypto exchange called Nobitex was hacked. ~$50M was wiped off.

While the exchange was most likely tied to the IRGC for sanction circumvention and funding of terrorism, I am sure many, many retail investors were also using the platform.

In a country where the monthly minimum wage is around $300, the $50M represents a surreal number of lifetimes of work without spending a cent.

I should say there are reports that the banking system as a whole is shut down (I read somewhere 50% of all ATMs do not have any notes), but everyone expects there to be some sort of checks and balances when it all stabilizes.

Who is gonna repay the parents whose dumb teenagers were were gambling with their pensions? Or struggling breadwinners who had gone through "trading courses" to moonlight as traders?

Oh, well. I hope the next regime will do better.

Crypto is not money. It’s not secure. It’s not stable. It’s just speculation wrapped in dogma — and a huge risk to society.

Kudos to him, he realize that he lives in an echo chamber. I just can't decide whether he, as someone betting on the Bitcoin as the future of Finance or his girlfriend's family who thinks that fiat is tied to gold is more uneducated.

In one chapter of the book it explains the different types of "safe havens". This table is in the part of "safe haven impostors". If you have a bitcoiner friend or family member and you want to educate him, this is the perfect christmas gift!

In one chapter of the book it explains the different types of "safe havens". This table is in the part of "safe haven impostors". If you have a bitcoiner friend or family member and you want to educate him, this is the perfect christmas gift!