Byron Gilliam

This is a segment from The Breakdown newsletter. To read full editions, <a href="https://blockworks.co/brand/the-breakdown" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">subscribe</a>.



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<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
&#8220;The dollar is always going to be the reserve currency. Anyway, for a long time.&#8221;&nbsp;



— Jerome Powell
</blockquote>



When the price of oil suddenly quadrupled in 1973, Saudi Arabia was wholly unprepared for the billions of dollars that started flooding in.



Strictly speaking, the money never actually made it “into” the Kingdom: Global buyers of Saudi oil sent their payments to accounts at Citibank and JPMorgan in New York — where the money sat idle because Saudi finance officials barely knew how to move it, let alone invest it.



With billions piling up in non-interest bearing accounts, the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency (SAMA) reluctantly asked an American banker, David Mulford, to manage it for them.



Mulford and a small team moved to the underdeveloped port town of Jeddah where they scrambled to secure accommodation in houses newly-built in a part of the desert with no roads (to get there, you simply drove over the sand).



The houses lacked telephones, televisions, mail delivery and even trash removal (the bankers left their trash in the sand for Bedouins’ goats to feed on).



The office they commuted to six days a week was even worse.



They were assigned a single room in a “decrepit” building, furnished with only chairs and desks — no computers or telephones.



“Across the hall from our room a simple toilet was set in a long, deep room with an open drain behind it,” Mulford wrote in his <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Packing-India-DAVID-MULFORD-ebook/dp/B00NU62U36/ref=sr_1_3?dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.LOBUN5zB9XV0oSGK2tFiXyc1UhA-SVwKAJG3H-rIy99eO7oIlMLcXWcgl9PADmuEt9Hy5s6wE3QoN9rE02IQC7zz1VkT34SDz96Fs0ogcn-bAkQralgtN-7sViJC32oW-vO3BPg-oitFRYSLCnH6M6Np266erYCcdqKUlerTOuHbSV-S8O6TbMGy5BTH3QTF1KsrZmuzjZHUvaQAGLysjbso_Us7htB-mbFGYhXrLzY.QIz7Ev6QkEqIZ1X--TazBzBNkN2BkOtqT8I2pULHYIY&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;qid=1765389659&amp;refinements=p_27%3ADAVID+MULFORD&amp;s=digital-text&amp;sr=1-3&amp;text=DAVID+MULFORD">autobiography</a>. “This was used by our section of the building and flushed once a day at three in the afternoon.”



Investment deals were negotiated, agreed and processed via the building’s single telex machine (a kind of hybrid typewriter/telegraph) that was constantly in use — a single deal required dozens of telex messages and weeks to complete.



And yet, as Mulford recalls, “we had to invest money at the rate of approximately $500 million per day just to prevent ourselves from falling behind.”



Mulford’s account of his nine years at SAMA debunks the persistent conspiracy theory that the Saudis invested their oil money in US Treasurys as a quid pro quo for a security guarantee.



Instead, the Saudis invested in US Treasurys because they had to: No other market in the world could absorb the $20 billion a month the Saudis had to invest.



And none was so safe and easy to invest in — important factors when investing by telex.



SAMA actually tasked Mulford with moving 30% of their investment funds out of the US market. But he struggled to do it.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;



“In most markets outside the US in those days, a currency trade of $5-10 million was enough to move markets,” he explains, “so there were practical limitations on the amount of currency diversification that we could achieve.”



This, I think, challenges the idea that dollar dominance can be engineered through either coercion or clever policy: The Saudis chose Treasurys because of what America was, not what it promised or demanded.&nbsp;



Even in the 1970s economy — plagued with both recession and inflation and a president that resigned in disgrace — US financial markets retained the depth (quantities of high-quality assets), liquidity (easy tradability of those assets) and safety (rule of law) that made it the best option for the world’s largest investor.



Today, the US has all the best companies, too: Non-US investors own roughly <a href="https://www.apolloacademy.com/foreign-ownership-of-us-equities-treasuries-and-us-credit/">$19 trillion</a> of US equities (more than double what they own in Treasurys).



It also has a central bank that&#8217;s retained its inflation-fighting credentials despite political pressure to finance ever-bigger fiscal deficits.



The current head of that central bank, Jerome Powell, fundamentally <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/powell-says-expects-dollar-remain-173200618.html?utm_source=chatgpt.com">attributes</a> the dollar dominance to “democratic institutions” and “the rule of law.”



That institutional foundation is central to its appeal.



“I think the dollar will remain the reserve currency as long as those things are in place,” he added.



There’s no guarantee they forever will be, of course — and many economists doubt they will be for much longer.



Ken Rogoff, for example, <a href="https://www.hoover.org/research/dollar-dominance?utm_source=chatgpt.com">warns</a> that the dollar is “fraying at the edges” as foreign investors worry about a “breakdown of our institutions,” unpredictable policy making (that may disadvantage foreign capital), and threats to central bank independence.



All of which is adding up to “a loss of confidence in investing in the United States.”



If so, efforts to manufacture demand for the dollar — through, say, promoting stablecoins — are unlikely to help much.



Stablecoins are in demand precisely because the dollar is in demand — a dynamic that’s unlikely to ever work in reverse.&nbsp;



If the US chooses to surrender the dollar’s structural advantages, no amount of manufactured demand will save it.



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Dollar

Dollar dominance can’t be manufactured

Ben Strack

This is a segment from the Forward Guidance newsletter. To read full editions, <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/forwardguidance" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">subscribe</a>.



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The word “bitcoin” appeared once in BlackRock CEO Larry Fink’s 2024 letter to investors.&nbsp;



The asset (and tokenization too) got a bigger shoutout this time around.



Fink’s sole mention of BTC last March came when bringing up BlackRock’s recent bitcoin ETF launch. That was part of a broader effort to “bring better liquidity and price discovery to more opaque markets,” he wrote.



The CEO’s 2025 letter, published today, included seven “bitcoin” references. He again addressed the aforementioned IBIT product, which has notched net inflows of $40 billion to date.



More than half of that demand has been from retail investors, Fink noted, with three-quarters of those investors never owning an iShares product before.



But more interestingly, Fink wrote there’s no guarantee that the dollar will forever serve as the world’s reserve currency.  



“If the US doesn’t get its debt under control, if deficits keep ballooning, America risks losing that position to digital assets like bitcoin,” he explained.



He added: “Decentralized finance is an extraordinary innovation. It makes markets faster, cheaper and more transparent. Yet that same innovation could undermine America&#8217;s economic advantage if investors begin seeing bitcoin as a safer bet than the dollar.”



Fink gives this warning while clarifying that he’s “obviously not anti-digital assets.” He has, after all, called <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/blackrock-tokenization-investment">tokenized securities</a> “the next generation for markets.” And we’ve reported on BlackRock’s tokenized money market fund, which earlier this month <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/tokenized-yield-funds-complement-stablecoins">hit $1 billion in AUM</a>.



Fink reaffirmed this sentiment, arguing that <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/stablecoins-tokenization-blackrock-galaxy-das">tokenizing</a> every stock, bond and fund would “revolutionize” investing.



“Markets wouldn&#8217;t need to close,” Fink wrote. “Transactions that currently take days would clear in seconds. And billions of dollars currently immobilized by settlement delays could be reinvested immediately back into the economy, generating more growth.”



Solving for digital verification will be critical if tokenized funds are to become as familiar to investors as ETFs, he added. A TradFi giant like BlackRock continuing to focus on these categories should no doubt make such a thing possible.&nbsp;



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Bitcoin

Could USD lose to BTC? BlackRock’s Fink says it’s possible

Macauley Peterson

Monday registered an all-time market cap high for bitcoin, thanks to its near record high price, plus 27 months of fresh supply issuance since last cycle’s peak. 



But Bitcoin wasn’t the only crypto setting records.



Tether’s USDT stablecoin finally cracked its ninth zero, and is now sitting at a circulating supply of 100,044,694,548 tethers. That’s more than 3.4x the market cap of the number two stablecoin, Circle’s USDC.



Read more: <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/tether-almost-100b-club">Tether prints $10B in 3 months, nears exclusive $100B crypto club</a>



On 24-hour volume basis, tether is nearly five times bigger than its nearest rival FDUSD, which almost exclusively greases trading liquidity on the Binance exchange, per CoinGecko’s <a href="https://www.coingecko.com/en/categories/stablecoins">stablecoin</a> rankings.



USDT still plays a large role on Binance, but its reach is vast, providing USD trading pairs on the overwhelming majority of the 200 or so centralized exchange worldwide.



In DeFi, USDC plays a much larger part, featured in the <a href="https://www.coingecko.com/en/exchanges/decentralized">top pairs</a> on all the top DEXes.



Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino, the operation’s frontman, marked the occasion, calling it “a testament to Tether’s pivotal role in reshaping the landscape of digital finance.”



“Surpassing the $100 billion market cap is not just a numerical achievement,” he said in a statement to Blockworks. “Our success is not measured solely by market capitalization but by the trust and confidence instilled in us by our customers.”



The stablecoin continues to beguile its staunchest <a href="https://x.com/ahcastor/status/1764802213170512257?s=20">critics</a> who, <a href="https://x.com/Bitfinexed/status/1764607142307254549?s=20">mystified</a> by its failure to collapse despite numerous trials both <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/us-judge-orders-tether-to-prove-what-backs-usdt">literal</a> and <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/usdt-selloff-alarm-bells-tether">figurative</a>, over the years.



Read more: <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/stablecoin-tether-castle-island-ventures">Tether is ‘unfairly maligned,’ but will eventually fail, says Nic Carter</a>



The ultimate test of an on-chain dollar is how well it hews to its peg, and on that score USDT is solidly in the green. Tether is objectively the <a href="https://coinkickoff.com/most-and-least-stable-cryptocurrencies/">most stable</a>. 



And while it is likely to remain controversial, the market endorsement coupled with improved <a href="https://tether.to/en/transparency/#usdt">transparency</a> has helped USDT grow into only the fifth ever crypto to reach the $100 billion mark, joining bitcoin, ether, BNB and XRP, although the latter two have slipped back below for quite some time.



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stablecoins

Tether prints 100 billionth USDT

<div id="highlights-block_628da3bc1164c" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>Product is designed to offer collateralized dollar-denominated yield at a 5% rate</li>
 <li>21Shares is looking into expanding its presence in several dozen countries</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



Cryptocurrency exchange-traded product issuer 21Shares’ latest fund is designed to divvy up yields&nbsp; to investors amid concerns around inflation and fluctuating interest rates.&nbsp;



The 21Shares USD Yield ETP (USDY) offers collateralized dollar-denominated yield at a 5% rate, the firm told Blockworks. The product generates yield by taking in US dollars and lending them to crypto counterparties against a minimum of 110% collateral in bitcoin and ether marked-to-market daily.



USDY — an exchange-traded product (ETP) — is set to become available on the SIX Swiss exchange on Wednesday and is available to investors in US dollars, with a fee of 30 basis points.&nbsp;&nbsp;



“We see this ETP as a useful tool for investors to navigate market volatility and stay invested through complex market conditions — like today’s,” 21Shares President Ophelia Snyder said. “While investors grapple with inflation, fluctuating interest rates and a range of economic pressures, this product is a first-of-its-kind way for investors to both gain maximum exposure to risk-adjusted yield and preserve liquidity in their portfolios.”&nbsp;



21Shares, which has more than $2.5 billion of assets under management, has launched a range of digital asset investment products this year, with more in the pipeline.



The Switzerland-based company earlier this month launched two <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/21shares-two-latest-crypto-funds-keying-in-on-defi/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">DeFi-focused ETPs</a> and more recently <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/worlds-largest-crypto-exchange-traded-product-issuer-enters-us-market/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">entered the US market</a> with two index funds offering diversified exposure to some of the space’s largest assets.



21Shares intends to launch between 20 and 30 additional ETPs by the end of this year, Snyder said.&nbsp;



The executive previously told Blockworks that 21Shares intends to establish a Middle Eastern foothold next month in Dubai. Snyder added that the company is looking at bolstering its presence in several dozen countries around the world.



“Our goal is to build bridges between the cryptocurrency and institutional investing world and increase accessibility to some of the world’s largest cryptocurrencies and blockchain ecosystems,” Snyder said.&nbsp;



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