Asset swaps (reserves for Treasuries) of equivalent value which are reversed the following day (hence, temporary and overnight)
"The problem with libertarianism is that you eventually run out of Government money to pay your debts."
Yep you can't give it to Tether Inc unless you are an authorised participant, only after you sign a contract with tether.
Edit: one might say Etfs and mmfs are like that too. Except, with those you have a real legal claim on the underlying assets. See how Reserve Primary Fund was "resolved".
Besides that, with etfs/mmfs hold a pool of equities and large denomination Treasuries and all and are marketed as such, not pure cash as USDT is supposed to be.
The neolibs support polling when it comes to hating trans ppl but not when it comes to hating Israel.
Or universal healthcare, or taxing the rich. They ignore polling on all of it.
Russian Expats in Phuket Want to Pay With Stablecoins
spoiler
Stablecoins have come to the sandy beaches of Phuket. The tens of thousands of Russians who have migrated to the popular Thai tourist town since the start of the war in Ukraine have moved their wealth as digital dollars.
But friction arises when they try to use their Tether, or USDT, in the local economy: to pay rent, buy property, or pay school fees. If they are official residents of Thailand with local-currency bank accounts, they can convert these 1:1 representations of the dollar on digital-asset exchanges and obtain fiat-money deposits. However, one seamless, low-cost transaction, where they spend their Tether and merchants receive Thai baht isn’t allowed under current regulations.
It’s only a matter of time before authorities across Southeast Asia allow crypto firms to also act as regular payment-service providers — no different from a local bank or fintech app. The view that tokens that mimic the dollar are just a gateway to crypto trading is now outdated. In the Philippines, regulators have given Coins.ph — a crypto exchange -- all the licenses to help bring down remittance costs for the vast diaspora of overseas Filipino workers. Coins.ph saw a 60%-plus jump in stablecoin deposits last year and a near-quadrupling of fiat-currency transections.
China and India will continue to resist dollar coins, though Beijing will be pragmatic and let Hong Kong develop a regulated market in them. Southeast Asia will adopt a different strategy. It will take its cue from Singapore and settle on a model in which tokens are embedded in the mainstream financial system — but with guardrails to protect customers’ funds and prevent money-laundering.
Vietnam will adopt stablecoins to make overseas trade less expensive for its increasingly competitive manufacturers. Thailand and Indonesia will want local merchants to get the most out of foreigners, without driving their usage underground. “For the large overseas population that lives in Phuket, Bali and other places, the preferred currency of transactions is dollar stablecoins,” Wei Zhou, the chief executive officer of Coins.ph, told me last week on the sidelines of Consensus, Hong Kong’s annual digital-asset conference. “That’s a huge grey market you probably don’t see or know of.”
The passage of the Genius Act in the US has sent out a powerful signal: It’s time to turn grey to green. Regulated dollar coins are now a legitimate financial product for Wall Street. Some of the world’s largest remittance corridors — US-Mexico and US-Philippines — will see costs fall as apps like Bitso Business and Coins.ph harness blockchain technology for faster settlement and reconciliation.
Ditto for commerce. Starting in the 16th century, much of the large quantities of silver mined in Spain’s American colonies was used in tokens minted privately under royal licenses. The principal use of that era’s stablecoins was to pay for trade with Ming- and Qing-dynasty China and the Mughal empire in India. Now, when more than 40% of Mexico’s imports are again from Asia — with China, Taiwan, Japan, and Malaysia as top suppliers — the settlement currency is the dollar, and a tokenized version is the most cost-efficient way for small firms to access it.
Stablecoins enable same-day execution. Working capital is unlocked immediately rather than waiting days for settlement. Reap, a Hong Kong-based stablecoin payments firm, is using Mexico as the beachhead for expansion in Latin America.
Traditional financial institutions’ profits from navigating cross-border flows over an inefficient correspondent-banking network will shrink. But banks will do other remunerative things with the technology: like offering crypto-backed loans to their wealthy clients, or competing with asset managers like Franklin Templeton in offering tokenized money-market funds to retail investors.
They will also help firms squeeze the most juice out of idle liquidity on their balance sheet, trading assets on the blockchain 24/7. “The corporate treasurers’ ‘follow-the-sun’ model is no longer bound by the working hours of intermediaries or markets,” says Myles Harrison, the chief product officer at AMINA Bank, a crypto-focused Swiss institution, which also has licenses in Hong Kong and Abu Dhabi, plus access to Europe’s regulatory regime via Austria. “We're seeing a lot more traditional corporate clients beginning to use stablecoins alongside blockchain companies.”
For individuals and very small firms, there are other practical benefits. Early-stage founders end up putting business expenses like cloud storage and software subscriptions on personal cards. But relying on informal workarounds can quickly turn “messy, expensive, and risky from a governance standpoint,” said Daren Guo, cofounder of Reap. For firms with limited access to traditional financial rails, Reap’s Visa corporate cards enable fiat-currency purchases while settlements can be funded using stablecoins.
For a region plugged into global commerce for prosperity, currency sovereignty is probably best preserved by following the template of India’s erstwhile Mughal rulers: They reminted the silver coins coming in via trade under their own seal for use as local legal tender. A modern equivalent will be to issue central-bank digital currencies against stablecoins inflows. Now that the crypto wave has landed on the shores of Phuket and Bali, the liquidity of digital dollars can’t be kept out of traditional payment systems for too long.
I think the author is ridiculous for saying the solution is local CBDC when the only difference between CBDC and local bank transfers is just who's liable (with CBDC it's Central Bank, with bank transfers it's commercial banks). The best way to deal with this would be to be setup a state enterprise (a public exchange window) which only accepts USDT (not provide) and dumps it abroad instead of domestically while giving local currency at market rate. This way it's more centralized and can be monitored better.
Also, USDT has no primary liquidity, you can't take it to Tether Inc to get actual Dollars in your Dollar bank account. They only allow big participants and that too after AML/KYC (vulnerable to US sanctions and stuff). You only get access to secondary market liquidity without it, which means USDT is technically non-convertible for most people. Countries shouldn't allow large firms to hold much of it and instead offload it abroad.
Also proof that volatility matters, and BTC doesn't work well for every day transactions.
Real
The U.S. was perfectly happy with Hasina for over a decade btw despite her repressive policies.
Ultimately, it's good BNP got the majority (they've been trying to moderate their positions to get some AL voters) and Jamaat fascist collaborators got screwed.
AI Bubble Fears Are Creating New Derivatives
article
Debt investors are worried that the biggest tech companies will keep borrowing until it hurts in the battle to develop the most powerful artificial intelligence.
That fear is breathing new life into the market for credit derivatives, where banks, investors and others can protect themselves against borrowers larding on too much debt and becoming less able to pay their obligations. Credit derivatives tied to single companies didn’t exist on many high-grade Big Tech issuers a year ago, and are now some of the most actively traded US contracts in the market outside of the financial sector, according to Depository Trust & Clearing Corp.
While contracts on Oracle Corp. have been active for months, in recent weeks, trading on Meta Platforms Inc., the parent of Facebook, and Alphabet Inc. has become much more active, the data shows. Contracts tied to about $895 million of Alphabet debt are outstanding, after netting out opposite trades, while around $687 million is tied to Meta debt.
With artificial intelligence investments expected to cost more than $3 trillion, much of which will be funded with debt, hedging demand can only grow, according to investors. Some of the richest tech companies in the world are rapidly turning into some of the most indebted.
“This hyperscaler thing is just so ginormous and there’s so much more to come that it really begs the question of ‘do you want to really be nakedly exposed here?’,” said Gregory Peters, co-chief investment officer at PGIM Fixed Income. Credit derivatives indexes, which offer broad default protection against a group of index members, aren’t enough, he said.
Six dealers quoted Alphabet CDS at the end of 2025 compared with one last July, while the number of Amazon.com Inc. CDS dealers rose to five, from three, DTCC data show. Some providers even offer baskets of hyperscalers’ CDS, mirroring baskets of cash bonds that are rapidly being developed.
Activity among hyperscalers really picked up in the fall when news around the debt requirements of these companies became front and center. A Wall Street dealer said his trading desk is able to regularly quote markets of $20 million to $50 million for a lot of these names, which didn’t even trade a year ago.
For now, hyperscalers are having little trouble financing their plans in the debt market. Alphabet’s $32 billion debt sale in three currencies this week drew orders for many times more that amount within 24 hours. The technology company successfully sold 100-year bonds, an astonishing move in an industry where businesses can rapidly become obsolete.
Morgan Stanley expects borrowing by the massive tech companies known as hyperscalers to reach $400 billion this year, up from $165 billion in 2025. Alphabet said its capital expenditures will reach as much as $185 billion this year to finance its AI build-out.
That kind of exuberance is what has some investors worried. London hedge fund Altana Wealth last year bought protection against Oracle defaulting on its debt. The cost was about 50 basis points a year for five years, or $5000 a year to protect $1 million of exposure. The cost has since risen to around 160 basis points. Bank Users
Banks that underwrite hyperscaler debt have been significant buyers of single-name CDS lately. Deals to develop data centers or other projects are so big and happening so fast underwriters are often looking to hedge their own balance sheets until they can distribute all of the loans tied to them.
“Expected distribution periods of three months could grow to nine to 12 months,” said Matt McQueen, head of credit, securitized products and muni banking at Bank of America Corp., referring to loans on projects. “As a result, you’re likely to see banks hedge some of that distribution risk in the CDS market.”
Wall Street dealers are rushing to meet the demand for protection.
“Appetite for newer basket hedges can be expected to grow,” said Paul Mutter, formerly the head of US fixed income and global head of fixed income sales at Toronto-Dominion Bank. “More active trading of private credit will create additional demand for targeted hedges.”
Some hedge funds see banks’ and investors’ demand for protection as an opportunity to profit. Andrew Weinberg, a portfolio manager at Saba Capital Management, described many CDS buyers as “captive flow” clients — bank lending desks or credit valuation adjustments teams for example.
Leverage remains low at most of the big tech companies, while bond spreads are only slightly tighter than the corporate index average, which is why so many hedge funds, including his, are willing to sell protection, according to Weinberg.
“If there’s a tail risk scenario, where will these credits go? In a lot of scenarios, the big companies with strong balance sheets and trillion dollar market caps will outperform the general credit backdrop,” he said.
But for some traders, the frenzy of bond selling has all the hallmarks of complacency and mispriced risk.
“The sheer amount of potential debt suggests that these companies’ credit risk profiles could come under some pressure,” said Rory Sandilands, a portfolio manager at Aegon Ltd., who says he has more CDS trades on his book than a year ago.
FPTP is such shit.
All this is just capitalism, the capitalists only care about turning money into more money. They don't care how that money is coming from, asset price inflation, Government, credit whatever. One can call it a different variant, but its just capitalism at core.
I mean, MIC has been a thing for decades, basically getting guaranteed transfers from the US Government. The banks were bailed out with $28T of Gov funds during GFC and Obamna did nothing to those responsible for it. The $28T didn't go into a void, it becomes hoards for the capitalists, which aren't taxed well or at all.
Hasan or whoever saying they will vote third party doesn't change the actual reality at all. Will millions of people get out and vote for the corporate Democrat? Why is this so difficult for liberals to understand.
Also, he lives in California, where Democrats have won Presidential elections continously. It makes even less of a difference. Let him vote what he believes rather than stupid harm reduction which doesn't even apply
article for free
Bulgaria became the 21st member of the Eurozone on Thursday, completing a long-sought step in its European integration despite years of political instability and pro-Russian campaigning against the move.
Sofia has failed to form a stable government for nearly five years. Large protests in November led to the collapse of the latest cabinet and raised the prospect of an eighth election in as many years. Allegations of corruption and mismanagement, the absence of a 2026 budget and sustained fear-mongering by pro-Russian forces have all tainted the moment of euro adoption.
“I warmly welcome Bulgaria to the euro family,” said European Central Bank president Christine Lagarde.
“The euro is a powerful symbol of what Europe can achieve when we work together, and of the shared values and collective strength that we can leverage to confront the global geopolitical uncertainty that we face at the moment.”
What might otherwise have been a celebration of European values has proved more divisive in the Balkan country. Support for the euro stands at about 40 per cent, while opposition exceeds half the population, according to two Eurobarometer surveys conducted in 2025.
Public scepticism is driven in part by fears that retailers will round up prices during the currency conversion, as occurred in other countries after euro entry. The prolonged absence of a stable government has also undermined official efforts to defend the changeover.
Disinformation watchdogs say opposition has been amplified by a sustained campaign from pro-Russian political forces and co-ordinated messaging on social media. Parties such as the far-right Revival, along with Bulgaria’s pro-Russian president Rumen Radev, have called for a referendum on the euro.
Anti-euro activism has been led chiefly by Revival, which has organised protests across Bulgaria, some featuring Russian flags and clashes with police outside EU institutions. During one demonstration in Sofia, supporters attempted to set fire to part of the European Commission’s delegation, chanting slogans such as “No to the euro” and “We want to keep the lev”. The messaging centres on claims that joining the euro would erode national sovereignty, undermine Bulgarian identity and benefit political elites.
Goran Georgiev, an expert on Russian disinformation at the Centre for the Study of Democracy in Sofia, points to a “decades-long push by the Kremlin and its proxies to block Bulgaria’s accession first to the EU and Nato, and later to Schengen and the Eurozone.
“Bulgaria’s euro-Atlantic integration succeeded despite this, and despite systemic problems such as corruption and the lack of an independent justice system,” he said. “The reforms pledged at EU accession in 2007 are still the ones the country struggles to deliver.”
Outgoing prime minister Rosen Zhelyazkov acknowledged “challenges” ahead but said the euro would have a “long-term positive effect” on the economy. Bulgaria’s inflation rate of 5.2 per cent in November “had nothing to do with the euro”, he added.
The switch from the lev to the euro is expected to have limited immediate economic impact, as the national currency has been pegged to the Deutsche mark and later the euro since the 1990s to guard against hyperinflation.
Eurozone membership, however, gives Bulgaria a seat on the European Central Bank’s governing council for the first time, granting it a direct voice in monetary policy.
Now Bulgaria is locked in, no more option to break the currency board.
Don't like what Troika did to Greece and PIIGS? You are spreading pro-Russia propaganda.
You don't like that Eurozone member country debt have credit risk and are closer to American states than actual countries? Russian propagandist.
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The most sad part is the cheap dollar isn't sustainable. Foreign currency reserves are finite and I believe much of Argentina's sources for reserves is fragile ie built on foreign debt.
So it'll break, imports will become unaffordable while local production goes away too. Reminds me of Sri Lanka in 2020-2022 except trade and capital flows are even more liberalized.