Tearing off the cloak of stablecoins and tokenization, accelerating the flow of the dollar is the essence

Original Title: "Beyond Stablecoins"

Author: Sumanth Neppalli

Translation: Deep Tide TechFlow

Stablecoins have recently become a hot topic in the cryptocurrency space. Some believe it is the best invention since sliced bread, while others (like me) think it is merely a clever way to export dollars. In the face of the transformation brought about by tokenization, we have been pondering how financial markets will evolve accordingly. This article will first review the historical context of stablecoins and then delve into the potential impacts of tokenization on the market.

In July 1944, representatives from 44 allied nations gathered in a ski resort town in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, to replan the global monetary system. They decided to peg national currencies to the dollar, which in turn was pegged to gold. This system, designed by British economist John Maynard Keynes, ushered in a new era of stable exchange rates and free trade.

If we liken this summit to a GitHub project, the White House would be akin to creating a branch, the Treasury Secretary submitting a pull request, and the finance ministers of various countries approving these changes, effectively "hardcoding" the dollar into every future trade transaction. In today’s digital age, stablecoins are like the merged result of this code, while other countries are striving to adjust their own "codebases" in preparation for a future that may not rely on the dollar.

Within 72 hours of returning to the Oval Office, President Trump signed an executive order that sounded more like a fantasy novel for cryptocurrency enthusiasts than traditional fiscal policy: "Promote and protect the sovereignty of the dollar, including through globally legal, dollar-backed stablecoins."

Shortly thereafter, Congress introduced legislation called the GENIUS Act, "Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins." This is the first piece of legislation to establish basic rules for stablecoins while encouraging their use for payments on a global scale.

Currently, the bill is being debated in the Senate, with a vote expected this month. Staffers have revealed that the latest draft has adopted several suggestions from the Democratic coalition, making the bill's passage likely.

So, why is Washington showing such keen interest in stablecoins? Is it merely political theater, or is there a deeper strategic layout behind it?

Why Foreign Demand Still Matters

Since the 1990s, the U.S. has outsourced a significant amount of production to China, Japan, Germany, and Gulf countries, paying for these imports with newly printed dollars. With imports far exceeding exports, the U.S. has long faced a massive trade deficit. A trade deficit refers to the gap between the total value of goods a country purchases globally and the total value of its exports.

Source: Visual Capitalist

Exporting countries face a dilemma: if they convert the dollars earned back into their local currency, it will lead to an appreciation of their currency, thereby weakening the competitiveness of their goods and affecting exports. Therefore, central banks in these countries typically choose to purchase dollars and invest them in U.S. Treasury bonds. This strategy avoids foreign exchange market volatility while earning interest from bond yields, with credit risk nearly as low as directly holding dollars.

This model has created a self-reinforcing cycle: exporting goods to the U.S., earning dollar revenues, and then investing those dollars in U.S. Treasury bonds to earn interest. To maintain this cycle, exporting countries deliberately keep their local currency exchange rates low to promote more exports.

This "export financing cycle" has helped the U.S. address some of its debt issues. Currently, about a quarter of the 36 trillion dollars in U.S. debt has been financed through this mechanism. However, if a prolonged trade war disrupts this cycle, the U.S.'s cheapest source of financing may gradually dry up.

1. Financing the Deficit: The U.S. government has long spent more than it earns, relying on budget deficits to operate. By selling Treasury bonds to foreign entities, the U.S. can share the burden of its deficit. Short-term Treasury bills (T-bills) typically mature within a year, while long-term Treasury bonds mature in 20 to 30 years.

2. Maintaining Low Interest Rates: High demand for U.S. Treasury bonds keeps their yields (i.e., interest rates) low. When buyers like China push up bond prices, yields fall, reducing borrowing costs for the government, businesses, and consumers. This low-cost borrowing supports economic growth and funds expansionary fiscal policies.

3. Global Status of the Dollar: The dollar's status as the global reserve currency depends on the international community's trust in the U.S. economy and assets. Foreign-held U.S. Treasury bonds symbolize this trust, ensuring that the dollar continues to be widely used in international trade, oil pricing, and foreign exchange reserves. This privilege allows the U.S. to borrow at lower costs while maintaining economic influence globally.

However, if this demand decreases, the U.S. will face higher borrowing costs, a weaker dollar, and diminished geopolitical influence. In fact, warning signs have already emerged. Upon leaving office, Warren Buffett stated that his greatest concern was an impending dollar crisis. Today, the U.S. has lost its AAA credit rating from all major rating agencies for the first time. The AAA rating is seen as the "gold standard" in the bond market, indicating that this debt is nearly risk-free. Following the downgrade, the U.S. Treasury had to offer higher yields to attract buyers, which will undoubtedly increase the nation's interest expenses, all while the U.S. debt continues to grow.

If traditional Treasury bond buyers begin to exit the market, who will take on the next round of newly issued trillions of dollars in debt? Washington's strategy is to open new funding channels through a wave of regulated, fully dollar-backed stablecoins. The GENIUS Act stipulates that stablecoin issuers must purchase U.S. Treasury bonds. This is why the government takes a hard stance on trade issues while actively promoting a digital dollar.

The Historical Impact of Eurodollars

Deep Tide Techflow Note: Eurodollars refer to dollar deposits held in banks outside the United States, particularly in European banks. These dollar deposits are not subject to U.S. regulations, so their interest rates and operational methods may differ from those of domestic banks.

Detailed Explanation

Financial innovation is not new to the U.S. The Eurodollar system, which has grown to a scale of $1.7 trillion, has also undergone a process from being completely denied to gradually accepted. Eurodollars are dollar-denominated deposits held in overseas banks, primarily in Europe. These deposits are not subject to the regulatory restrictions of U.S. banks.

The Eurodollar system was born in the 1950s. At that time, the Soviet Union chose to deposit dollars in European banks to evade U.S. jurisdiction during the Cold War. This system rapidly developed, and by 1970, its market size had grown from a few billion dollars to $50 billion, achieving a fifty-fold expansion in just a decade.

Initially, the U.S. was skeptical of this system. French Finance Minister Valéry Giscard d'Estaing famously likened it to a "multi-headed monster", alluding to its complexity and potential risks. However, the oil crisis of 1973 temporarily alleviated these concerns. At that time, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) took action, quadrupling the global value of oil trade in just a few months. In this upheaval, the world urgently needed a stable currency as a medium of trade settlement, and the dollar became the preferred choice.

The Eurodollar system significantly enhanced the U.S.'s ability to influence the world through non-military means. As international trade continued to grow and the Bretton Woods system further solidified the dollar's dominance, this system gradually expanded. Although Eurodollars are primarily used for payments between foreign entities, these transactions must go through a global network of correspondent banks, ultimately involving U.S. banks.

This arrangement places the U.S. in a key position within the global financial system, providing substantial leverage for its national security objectives. The U.S. can not only block transactions directly involving itself but also exclude "bad actors" from the entire global dollar system. As the clearing center, the U.S. can track the flow of funds and implement financial sanctions against nations.

A New Era for Stablecoins

Stablecoins can be seen as a modern version of "Eurodollars," characterized by publicly transparent blockchain explorers. Unlike the traditional model of holding dollars in London vaults, dollars are now "tokenized" and circulated through blockchain technology. This innovation brings significant scale effects: by 2024, on-chain dollar-denominated stablecoin settlements are expected to reach approximately 15 trillion dollars, slightly exceeding the scale of the Visa payment network. Currently, the total amount of circulating stablecoins has reached 245 billion dollars, of which 90% are fully collateralized and dollar-denominated.

Over time, the demand for stablecoins has continued to grow. Investors seek to convert their earnings into stable assets to hedge against cyclical market fluctuations. Unlike the extreme volatility of the cryptocurrency market, the use cases for stablecoins are expanding, indicating that their function is no longer limited to simple transactional tools but is gradually becoming an important financial infrastructure.

The demand for stablecoins can be traced back to 2014. At that time, Chinese cryptocurrency exchanges needed a way to transfer dollars between their order books without relying on banks. They chose Realcoin, a dollar token based on the Bitcoin network and using the Omni protocol.

Realcoin (later renamed Tether) facilitated the inflow and outflow of funds through Taiwan's banking network. This method worked well until Wells Fargo terminated its correspondent banking relationship due to concerns about the regulatory risks associated with Tether's rapid growth. Ultimately, in 2021, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) fined Tether $41 million, accusing it of misreporting reserves and claiming that its tokens were not fully backed by assets.

Tether's operational model is very similar to traditional banks: it accepts deposits, invests the float, and earns interest from it. Tether invests about 80% of its token issuance funds in U.S. Treasury bonds. With a current short-term Treasury yield of 5%, its holdings of 120 billion dollars can generate approximately 6 billion dollars in annual income. Through this method, Tether achieved a net profit of 13 billion dollars in 2024. In the same period, Goldman Sachs reported a net income of 14.28 billion dollars. Notably, Tether has only about 100 employees, while Goldman Sachs has around 46,000. On a per capita basis, Tether generates profits of up to 130 million dollars per employee, while Goldman Sachs generates 310,000 dollars.

To gain market trust, some competitors choose to establish an advantage through transparency. For example, Circle publishes monthly audit reports for USDC, detailing every token minting and redemption record. However, the entire industry still relies on the credit commitments of issuers. In March 2023, the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) temporarily froze Circle's 3.3 billion dollars in reserves, causing USDC's price to drop to 88 cents until the Federal Reserve intervened to cover SVB depositors' losses.

The U.S. government is currently planning to establish a clear regulatory framework. The GENIUS Act proposes the following core rules:

• Reserves must be 100% backed by high-quality liquid assets (HQLA), such as U.S. Treasury bonds and reverse repurchase agreements.

• Real-time audits through licensed oracles.

• Introduction of regulatory tools: including issuer freeze functions and compliance with FATF (Financial Action Task Force) rules.

• Compliant stablecoins will gain access to Federal Reserve master accounts and can obtain liquidity support through reverse repo channels.

Based on this, a graphic designer living in Berlin no longer needs a bank account in the U.S. or Germany, nor does he need to deal with cumbersome SWIFT procedures to hold dollars. He only needs a Gmail account and to complete a quick identity verification (KYC), provided that Europe has not mandated the promotion of its euro CBDC (Central Bank Digital Currency). Currently, funds are shifting from traditional bank ledgers to applications based on digital wallets, and the operating companies of these applications will resemble global banks without branches.

If this regulatory framework becomes law, existing stablecoin issuers will face a crucial choice: either register in the U.S., accepting quarterly audits, anti-money laundering checks, and reserve proofs; or watch as U.S. trading platforms shift to compliant stablecoins. Circle has already placed most of its USDC collateral in money market funds regulated by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), making it more competitive in this context.

Tech giants and Wall Street are actively entering the stablecoin space. Imagine if Apple Pay launched "iDollars": users deposit 1,000 dollars and can earn rewards while using it anywhere that supports contactless payments. The core appeal of this model lies in the interest earnings on idle cash balances far exceeding current card transaction fees, while also reducing the involvement of traditional financial intermediaries. This may also be one of the reasons Apple decided to end its credit card partnership with Goldman Sachs. When payments are made through "on-chain dollars" (i.e., blockchain-based dollar tokens), the traditional 3% transaction fee will be compressed to just a few cents in fixed blockchain fees.

Major U.S. banks are also accelerating their layouts. For example, Bank of America, Citibank, JP Morgan, and Wells Fargo are jointly exploring the possibility of issuing stablecoins. Notably, the GENIUS Act explicitly states that stablecoin issuers cannot distribute interest earnings to users, a clause that may reassure the banking industry's lobbying groups. This stablecoin can be viewed as a brand new "super cheap checking account": operationally instant, globally accessible, and running 24/7.

In the face of this trend, traditional financial giants are also rapidly adjusting their strategies. Mastercard (Mastercard) and Visa have already launched dedicated stablecoin settlement networks. Paypal has issued its own stablecoin, while Stripe completed its acquisition of Bridge this year, marking the largest cryptocurrency transaction to date. These companies have clearly recognized the significant role stablecoins will play in the future financial system.

At the same time, Washington is closely monitoring this field. Citibank predicts that under the baseline scenario, the stablecoin market will grow sixfold by 2030, reaching 1.6 trillion dollars. The U.S. Treasury's research data is even more optimistic, forecasting it will reach 2 trillion dollars by 2028. If the GENIUS Act requires stablecoin issuers to invest 80% of their reserves in U.S. Treasury bonds, stablecoins will replace China and Japan as the largest holders of U.S. debt. This shift will not only further solidify the dollar's global status but could also profoundly impact the global financial landscape.

Applications and Advantages of Tokenized Assets

With the rise of "stable dollars," they are gradually becoming the core funding driving the entire token economy. Once cash is tokenized, people will treat it like traditional funds: storing, lending, or using it as collateral. However, all of this will be done at internet speed rather than the processing speed of traditional banks. This rapid flow of funds will further drive more "real-world assets" (RWAs) into the blockchain system, enjoying the following advantages:

• 24/7 Settlement - The traditional T+2 settlement cycle will be eliminated, as blockchain validators can complete transaction confirmations within minutes. For example, a trader in Singapore can purchase a tokenized apartment in New York in the evening and complete ownership confirmation before dinner.

• Programmability - Smart contracts can embed complex financial logic directly into assets, such as automated coupon payments, yield distribution rules, and built-in compliance parameters.

• Composability - Tokenized assets can be flexibly combined. For instance, a tokenized Treasury bond can serve as collateral for loans while distributing interest payments to multiple holders. An expensive beachfront villa can be divided into 50 shares, jointly owned by multiple investors, and rented out to hotel service providers for management through Airbnb.

• Transparency - The transparent nature of blockchain can help regulators monitor on-chain collateral rates, systemic risks, and market dynamics in real-time, thus avoiding risks similar to those triggered by the opacity of the derivatives market during the 2008 financial crisis.

As BlackRock CEO Larry Fink stated: "Every stock, every bond, every fund—every asset—can be tokenized."

The main obstacle lies in regulatory clarity. Investors know what to expect in traditional exchanges because the rules of these exchanges were established through painful lessons.

Take the 1987 "Black Monday" stock market crash as an example, when the Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted 22% in a single day due to automated programs selling stocks as prices fell, triggering a series of sell-offs. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) responded by introducing circuit breakers, pausing trading to allow investors to reassess the situation. Today, if the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) experiences a 7% drop, trading is paused for 15 minutes.

Tokenizing assets is the relatively simple part, with issuers guaranteeing the rights to the real-world assets corresponding to the tokens. The difficult part is ensuring that all rules are adhered to both on-chain and off-chain. This means embedding wallet-level whitelists, national identity information flows, cross-border KYC/AML (Know Your Customer/Anti-Money Laundering) requirements, citizen holding limits, and real-time sanctions screening into the code.

Europe's Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) provides a complete operational manual for digital assets in Europe, while Singapore's Payment Services Act serves as a starting point for Asia, but the global regulatory landscape remains insufficiently developed.

It is almost certain that the promotion process will occur in phases.

• Phase One: The first to be introduced on-chain will be the most liquid and lowest-risk instruments, such as money market funds and short-term corporate bonds. The operational benefits in this phase are immediate, as settlement cycles can be shortened instantly, and compliance handling is relatively simple.

• Phase Two: The risk curve will rise, involving higher-yield products such as private credit, structured financial products, and long-term bonds. In this phase, the goal is not only to enhance efficiency but also to release liquidity and achieve asset composability.

• Phase Three: This will extend to less liquid asset classes, such as private equity, hedge funds, infrastructure, and real estate-backed debt. Achieving this phase will require widespread acceptance of tokenized assets as collateral and a cross-industry tech stack capable of servicing these assets. Banks and financial institutions will need to custody these real-world assets (RWAs) as collateral while providing credit support.

Although the timelines for different asset classes may vary, the direction of development is clear. Each new batch of stable dollars will push the token economy forward by one phase.

Stablecoins

The dollar-pegged token market is currently dominated by two giants, Tether (USDT) and Circle (USDC), which together control 82% of the market share. Both are fiat-collateralized stablecoins: for example, euro-denominated stablecoins support each circulating token by depositing euros in banks.

In addition to the fiat model, developers are exploring two decentralized experimental methods to maintain price stability without off-chain custodians:

1. Cryptocurrency-Collateralized Stablecoins: These stablecoins are supported by other cryptocurrencies as reserves, typically using over-collateralization to cope with market volatility. For example, MakerDAO’s DAI is a representative in this field, with a supply of 6 billion dollars. After the bear market in 2022, MakerDAO converted over half of its collateral into tokenized Treasury bonds and short-term bonds to reduce the impact of ETH volatility on the system while earning stable yields. Currently, this portion of assets contributes about 50% of the protocol's revenue.

2. Algorithmic Stablecoins: These stablecoins do not rely on any collateral but maintain price stability through algorithm-controlled minting and burning mechanisms. Terra’s UST once reached a market cap of 20 billion dollars, but due to price decoupling, market confidence collapsed, leading to massive sell-offs. Although emerging projects like Ethena have achieved growth through improved models, reaching a market cap of 5 billion dollars, this area still needs time to gain broader recognition.

If the U.S. government only allows fully fiat-backed stablecoins to use the "qualified stablecoin" label, other types of stablecoins may be forced to drop "USD" from their names to comply with regulations. The future of algorithmic stablecoins remains uncertain, as the GENIUS Act requires the Treasury to conduct a study on these protocols within a year before making a final decision.

Money Market

The money market includes highly liquid, short-term assets such as Treasury bonds, cash, and repurchase agreements. On-chain funds "tokenize" these assets by packaging ownership into ERC-20 or SPL tokens. These tools enable 24/7 redemptions, automatic yield distributions, seamless payment integration, and convenient collateral management.

Asset management companies retain traditional compliance processes (such as AML/KYC, accredited investor restrictions), but settlement times have been reduced from days to minutes.

BlackRock's USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund (BUIDL) is a market leader in this field. The company has designated Securitize (a transfer agent registered with the SEC) to handle KYC onboarding, token minting and burning, FATCA/CRS tax compliance reporting, and shareholder registry management. Investors must have at least 5 million dollars in investable assets to qualify, but once whitelisted, they can subscribe, redeem, or transfer tokens 24/7, which traditional money market funds cannot offer.

BUIDL has grown to manage approximately 2.5 billion dollars in assets, distributed among over 70 whitelist holders across five chains. About 80% of the funds are invested in Treasury bonds (primarily 1 to 3-month maturities), 10% in long-term Treasury bonds, and the remaining funds are held in cash.

Platforms like Ondo(OUSG) act as investment management pools, allocating funds to a group of tokenized money market funds, such as BlackRock, Franklin Templeton, and WisdomTree, while providing free stablecoin entry and exit channels.

Although a scale of 10 billion dollars seems trivial compared to the 26 trillion dollar Treasury market, this trend is significant: Wall Street's largest asset management companies are choosing public chains as distribution channels.

Commodities

Tokenizing hard assets is pushing these markets toward 24/7, click-to-trade platforms. Paxos Gold (PAXG) and Tether Gold (XAUT) allow anyone to purchase a small portion of tokenized gold bars. Venezuela's PETRO experiment involved putting oil into barrels; some smaller pilot projects have linked token supplies to soybeans, corn, and even carbon credits.

The current operational model still relies on traditional infrastructure: for example, gold bars are stored in vaults, and oil is stored in tanks, with auditors reviewing reserves monthly. This custodial model introduces centralized risks, and physical redemptions are not always feasible.

The advantage of tokenization lies in enabling fractional ownership of assets, making traditionally illiquid physical assets easier to use as collateral. This market has grown to 145 billion dollars, almost entirely backed by gold. Compared to the 5 trillion dollar physical gold market, tokenized assets still have significant room for growth.

Lending and Credit: New Opportunities in DeFi

Decentralized finance (DeFi) lending was initially achieved through over-collateralized cryptocurrency loans. Users can borrow 100 dollars by locking up 150 dollars worth of ETH or BTC. This model is similar to gold-backed loans. Holders wish to retain their digital assets because they believe their value will appreciate, but they also need liquidity to pay bills or make new investments. Currently, the total lending on the Aave platform is about 17 billion dollars, accounting for nearly 65% of the entire DeFi lending market.

In the traditional credit market, banks dominate lending through long-validated risk models and strict capital requirements. Private credit, as an emerging asset class, has reached a global asset management scale of 30 trillion dollars, keeping pace with the traditional credit market. Companies raise funds by issuing high-risk, high-yield loans, attracting institutional investors seeking higher returns, such as private equity funds and asset management companies.

Bringing credit on-chain can expand the range of lenders and increase transparency. Smart contracts can automate the entire loan process, including fund disbursement, interest payment collection, and ensuring that settlement conditions are transparently visible on-chain.

Two On-Chain Private Credit Models

1. "Retail-Oriented" Direct Lending

• Platforms like Figure tokenize home improvement loans and sell the split notes to retail investors globally. This model is akin to a debt version of crowdfunding. Homeowners can obtain cheaper financing by splitting loans into smaller shares, while retail investors can earn monthly returns, with the entire process managed automatically by the protocol.

• Pyse and Glow tokenize power purchase agreements (PPAs) by integrating solar projects and handle all related operations, including solar panel installation and meter readings. Investors can participate in the investment and earn an annualized yield (APY) of 15-20% from monthly electricity revenue.

1. Institutional Liquidity Pools: On-Chain Transparent Private Credit

• On-chain private credit pools provide investors with a transparent operating environment. Protocols like Maple, Goldfinch, and Centrifuge consolidate borrowers' funding needs into on-chain credit pools, managed by professional underwriters. The depositors of these credit pools mainly include accredited investors, decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs), and family offices. They track investment performance through public ledgers while earning floating returns of 7-12%.

1. On-Chain Credit Protocols Reducing Operational Costs

• These protocols introduce on-chain underwriters to complete due diligence and issue loans within 24 hours, effectively reducing operational costs. For example, the Qiro platform relies on a network of underwriters, each with its own credit assessment model, and rewards them based on their analysis results. However, due to higher default risks, the growth rate of such loans is slower than that of mortgages. When defaults occur, these protocols cannot pursue recovery through legal means like traditional finance but must rely on traditional collection agencies, which inadvertently increases costs.

As underwriters, auditors, and collection agents gradually enter the on-chain space, the operational costs of the credit market will further decrease, attracting more lenders to participate.

Tokenized Bonds: The Future of the Debt Market

Although bonds and loans are both debt instruments, they differ significantly in structure, standardization, and methods of issuance and trading. Loans are typically "one-to-one" agreements, while bonds are one-to-many financing tools that follow fixed formats. For example, a 10-year bond with a 5% annual coupon is easier to rate and trade in the secondary market. Bonds, as public financial instruments, are subject to market regulation and are typically rated by agencies like Moody's.

Bonds are primarily used to meet large-scale, long-term capital needs. Governments, utility companies, and blue-chip corporations usually raise funds by issuing bonds for budgets, factory construction, or short-term financing. Investors receive regular coupon payments and recover their principal at maturity. This market is enormous; as of 2023, the nominal value of the global bond market has reached 140 trillion dollars, approximately 1.5 times the global stock market value.

However, the bond market still relies on traditional clearing systems designed in the 1970s. Clearing companies like Euroclear and DTCC need to process transactions through multiple custodians, increasing transaction delays and resulting in T+2 settlement times. In contrast, smart contract bonds can achieve atomic settlement in seconds while automatically distributing coupons to thousands of wallets. These bonds can also embed compliance logic and connect to global liquidity pools.

The operational cost of smart contract bonds can save 40-60 basis points per issuance. Additionally, financial executives can access a 24/7 secondary market without paying exchange listing fees. Euroclear, as Europe's core settlement and custody network, manages 40 trillion euros in assets, connecting over 2,000 participants across 50 markets. They are currently developing a blockchain-based settlement platform aimed at covering issuers, brokers, and custodians, thereby eliminating redundant operations, reducing risks, and providing clients with real-time digital workflows.

Companies like Siemens and UBS have issued on-chain bonds in ECB trials. The Japanese government is also testing the market in collaboration with Nomura to put bonds on-chain.

Source: WEF Insights

Stock Market

This area naturally appears promising, as it has attracted a large number of retail investors, and tokenization can enable a 24/7 "internet capital market."

The current obstacle lies in regulation. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) custody and settlement rules were established before the emergence of blockchain, requiring intermediary participation and T+2 settlement cycles.

However, this situation is changing. Solana has applied to the SEC for approval to conduct on-chain stock issuances, providing a complete service including identity verification (KYC), educational guidance, broker custody requirements, and instant settlement.

Robinhood has also submitted a similar application, requesting that tokens representing U.S. Treasury strips or Tesla stocks be treated as securities themselves rather than synthetic derivatives.

Outside the U.S., market demand is even stronger. Without strict restrictions, foreign investors hold approximately 19 trillion dollars in U.S. stocks. The traditional investment method is through local brokers like eTrade, which collaborate with U.S. financial institutions but require high foreign exchange spreads.

Startups like Backed offer an alternative solution through synthetic assets. Backed purchases an equivalent amount of underlying stocks in the U.S. market, having completed 16 million dollars in transactions. Kraken has just partnered with Backed to provide U.S. stock trading services for non-U.S. traders.

Real Estate and Alternative Assets

Real estate is one of the asset classes most reliant on paper documents. Every property deed needs to be recorded in government registries, and every mortgage is kept in bank vaults. Unless these registries accept hashes as legal proof of ownership, large-scale tokenization will be difficult to achieve. This is why only about 20 billion dollars of the global 400 trillion dollars in real estate has been tokenized.

The UAE is one of the regions leading this transformation, with property deeds worth 3 billion dollars registered on-chain. In the U.S., real estate startups like RealT and Lofty AI have tokenized over 100 million dollars in residential properties, with rental income flowing directly into investors' wallets.

Money Also Wants to Flow

Cypherpunks believe that "stable dollars" represent a regression, signifying a return to traditional models of bank custody and permissioned whitelists. Meanwhile, regulators are uneasy about permissionless blockchain systems, as these systems can transfer billions of dollars within a block. In reality, the proliferation of blockchain coincides with the intersection of these two extreme discomforts.

Cryptocurrency purists may continue to complain, just as early internet supporters opposed TLS certificates issued by central authorities. However, it is precisely because of HTTPS that our parents can safely use online banking today. Similarly, while stable dollars and tokenized Treasury bonds may seem "not pure enough," they are the way billions of people first encounter blockchain through an application that never mentions the word "crypto."

The Bretton Woods system once bound the global economy within a single currency framework, while blockchain technology breaks this limitation by enhancing the efficiency of currency operations. Every time we push an asset onto the chain, we save settlement time, release collateral that was previously idle in clearinghouses, and allow the same dollar to support three transactions before lunch.

At Decentralised.co, we maintain a belief: accelerating the velocity of money is the core application of cryptocurrency, and putting real-world assets (RWAs) on-chain aligns perfectly with this trend. The faster the speed of value settlement, the more frequently funds can be reinvested, thereby further expanding the overall economic scale. When dollars, debt, and data can flow at network speed, business models will no longer rely on charging for the "liquidity" process but will create new revenue sources through the "momentum" effect.