On May 20, The Peg will be presenting an exclusive online briefing for subscribers exploring our contribution to this year’s landmark In Gold We Trust report, with a special focus on the rise of gold-backed stablecoins and the emerging “eurogold” framework.

Hosted by Izabella Kaminska, this exclusive subscriber event will present fresh analysis drawn directly from our chapter on gold tokenisation in the 2026 report. We’ll unpack what we learned from conversations with leading industry participants, how the market is evolving, and the commercial ambitions shaping the next phase of gold-linked digital finance.

The discussion will also examine what a developing gold-based settlement architecture could mean for the future of the US dollar, the stablecoin ecosystem, and the wider international monetary order.

As a self-funded journalistic organisation, The Peg operates independently and without commercial sponsorship. This briefing is designed to provide clear-eyed, matter-of-fact analysis rather than promotional messaging or industry spin.

The session will include extended Q&A and open discussion, and will draw on insights from knowledgeable industry experts to deepen the conversation. There may also be special guests!

Eventbrite Ticket Information

• Annual subscribers to The Peg: Free
  Existing annual subscribers can request their private access code by emailing Izabella Kaminska at izabella@thepeg.co.

• Monthly subscribers: £89 (plus Eventbrite fees)
  Discount access codes are available below the paywall on this post.

• Non-subscribers: £149 (plus Eventbrite fees)

To upgrade to an annual subscription and benefit from free access to all future briefings, see our subscription page here.

To purchase your ticket click here for our Eventbrite page.

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Editorial hello

Today, I wanted to write about what happens to stablecoin assets under management and transaction velocity once AI agents become fully normalised within finance. Unfortunately, I can’t find the original commentary arguing that both are likely to surge — though the thesis strikes me as entirely plausible.

Since I don’t have the goods to back up the claim, I’m instead going to focus on an important caveat: even if agentic usage explodes, that alone does not guarantee a proportional increase in net demand for stablecoin collateral, particularly US Treasuries. Rising velocity could ultimately offset a meaningful share of net inflows. It’s hard to predict, really.

That said, I am becoming increasingly convinced there is another mechanism that will create incremental demand beyond what already exists for USTs: leverage. I’ll have more to say on the mechanics over the coming days, but I wanted to flag the idea now because it’s something I’ve been discussing privately for a while — and, frankly, I’d like the timestamp so The Peg gets some credit if the thesis plays out.

In other news, Ronnie Stoeferle — one of the best-known voices in the gold world and editor of the In Gold We Trust report — has let the cat out of the bag regarding my contribution to this year’s edition. It will be on, you’ve guessed it, gold tokenisation. The full report will be released on May 20, and I have something exciting planned around it.

Back tomorrow.

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Editorial hello

Why does all the big news always have to happen during holidays?! For those who don’t know, yesterday was a UK Bank Holiday, so we’re in catch-up mode again on Monday’s big news, which is that US lawmakers finally agreed on how stablecoin rewards should be treated.

The general consensus is that the final draft is a win for stablecoins, which get to retain the ability to pay interest whenever flows are not “economically or functionally equivalent” to bank deposit interest.

The consequence is that stablecoin rewards (primarily through the updated language in what has been described as Section 404) will take a pragmatic, activity-based approach that will explicitly accommodate new concepts like Coinbase’s CUSHY tokenized credit fund and similar innovations that tie earnings to governance tokens or participation.

More importantly, the legislation paves the way for what the Peg is dubbing the “conscious recoupling” of payment and credit float. For more on that, see the piece I published last week.

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In conventional banking, we observe episodic phases of deleveraging followed by re-leveraging. Viewed through that lens, the rise of stablecoins initially signaled a shift within the endogenous monetary system — the domain central bankers seek to influence, but rarely fully control — toward broad-based deleveraging. Structurally, stablecoins resembled a market-led return to narrow banking in that world. Aka deleveraging.

Many central bankers frowned upon this characteristic of stablecoins, arguing that this is precisely why they would never be able to compete with central bank money. In their eyes, high-performing economies depend on access to credit, which in turn requires a degree of monetary elasticity that stablecoin architectures do not naturally provide.

“Stablecoins offer some promise on tokenisation but fall short of requirements to be the mainstay of the monetary system when set against the three key tests of singleness, elasticity and integrity,” wrote Hyun-Song Shin, now governor of the Central Bank of Korea, for the Bank for International Settlements in June 2025.

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Editorial hello

The stablecoin market is innovating more quickly than even a dedicated stablecoin publication can keep up with.

The latest trend to be aware of is the rise of leverage-exposed yield stablecoins. What’s fascinating about this is what it says about the so-called business cycle.

On that front we talked about CUSHY yesterday. Today, we turn our attention to SKY.

SKY is the rebranded name for MakerDAO’s DeFi system, which recently drew $134 million in support from a consortium including Framework Ventures, R01 Fund LP, and Tether Investments.

Tether participated via the publicly listed Stablecoin Development Corporation (SDEV), formerly the small-cap biotech NovaBay Pharmaceuticals, which pivoted entirely in early 2026 to become an on-chain holding company now owning roughly 9% of SKY governance tokens.

Amazingly, as you will see below, Sky’s USDS stablecoin has already surpassed Ethena’s USDe in market capitalization. It is now roughly twice the size at over $12 billion, positioning Sky as the third-biggest stablecoin issuer behind only Tether and Circle.

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As already noted on Wednesday (in the Blind Spot), I have a sense of what may be coming next.

It’s not something that lends itself to a neat, linear explanation, so rather than forcing one, I’m going to lean on the principles of cartography journalism and sketch the contours of the theory out first, while letting the detail fill in over time.

I certainly won’t get everything right. This is uncharted territory, and there will be missteps. But I’m confident enough to begin framing the argument because I think I can see, at least in the distance, the outline of firmer ground that others haven’t yet mapped.

More details of the thinking inspiring this perspective can be read here:

For those who don’t want to wade through the full thread, the argument can be distilled to the following: eurodollar markets took root in London because the UK — unlike its continental peers—was geopolitically constrained from resisting American interests intent on fostering dollar funding dependencies.

Then, as now, eurodollars served as a tool of statecraft: a way to anchor Europe’s dirigiste and welfare-oriented tendencies within a system geared toward preserving the stability of Bretton Woods.

In this framing, the euro project was an attempt to break free from the eurodollar stranglehold by creating a rival centre of power insulated from external influence.

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Editorial hello

Greetings ahead of the long Bank Holiday weekend.

Today, I bring you news that Bank of England officials are quietly signaling growing momentum behind cross-border cooperation on digital asset regulation. This after a UK parliamentarian told an All-Party Parliamentary Group committee meeting on Wednesday that US regulators had expressed interest in experimenting in a joint “sandbox” to test stablecoin frameworks in real-world conditions.

Speaking at the meeting, senior representatives from the Bank of England — Sasha Mills, Emma Butterworth and Pavel Chichkanov — did not explicitly endorse a joint sandbox initiative, but they did emphasise that international coordination is already central to their work, particularly given the cross-border nature of stablecoins.

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Editorial hello

The digital money APPG meeting will be convening later today with representatives from the Bank of England. They are expected to set out the Bank’s work on the proposed regulatory regime for systemic stablecoins and the Digital Securities Sandbox (DSS).

Beyond that, the outbreak of swap line developments this past week deserves to be framed in some broader historical context. I’m working on a bigger piece, but in the meantime, here’s a three-part thread that gives you some insight into how I see things evolving:

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Macroeconomic Policy Nexus

Currency Swap Lines, Financial Statecraft, and Dollar Dominance

I recently sat down with Izabella Kaminska for a Substack Live to unpack the renewed interest in dollar swap lines, particularly the possibility of extending them to countries like the UAE. What might seem like a technical plumbing issue in global finance is, in fact, a window into something much bigger: the evolving role of the dollar system as a tool …

Listen now

10 days ago · 9 likes · David Beckworth and Izabella Kaminska

TLDR: There’s more going on with swap line diplomacy than meets the eye.

These supposedly technical instruments may be the gunboats of our time, projecting power not across oceans, but across liquidity networks, and drawing seigniorage from them. If that framing holds, then a silent rivalry between USD and RMB systems has already been playing out for some time, as explored in my swap line thread here.

Reports that the UAE may position itself to host swap lines from both sides — while drawing on neither — would signal an emerging role as neutral ground. In effect, it could become a venue where competing blocs “parlay” and negotiate how global liquidity channels are governed and priced.

Apologies for the delay, but there’s been a lot going on.

In terms of monetary system developments… Breugel has been thinking long and hard this week about what global imbalances signify for the world amid escalating geopolitical instability and how best to deal with them.

In a session on Tuesday, Breugel director Jeromin Zerrelmeyer, noted that if these imbalances persist, the world will have to live with growing exposure to the risk that the US could suffer a sudden stop on financing. This is all the harder to manage in the context of growing economic nationalism, i.e. a scenario where countries stop collaborating.

Adding further pressure is that the global financial architecture has shifted since the global financial crisis. It is now dominated by private-sector-driven capital flows intermediated by non-bank financial institutions, not sovereigns, which are more risk-sensitive, less regulated, and more opaque, amplifying the responsiveness of markets to changes in sentiment. [Just ask Liz Truss!']

Breugel’s Zsolt Darvas, meanwhile, questioned whether the imbalances arise from the deficit nation side at all. He highlighted that China has been promising to rebalance for two decades, but its consumption as a share of GDP is still the same as it was in 2005. Meanwhile, the real effective exchange rate of the renminbi has depreciated by 16% in four years under a background of strongly increasing surpluses, implying some degree of currency manipulation.

The panel also included former IMFer Tamim Bayoumi, who argued the persistence of deficits in countries like the US and UK over decades, and corresponding surpluses elsewhere, reflected the fact that these economies have highly developed, market-based financial systems that continuously create attractive assets, drawing in global capital inflows and that these inflows appreciate exchange rates and asset prices, increase domestic wealth, and reduce savings, thereby sustaining external deficits independently of fiscal policy considerations.

In other words, it might not be the fault of China or the deficit nations. Just blame the increasingly creative banking community and their offshore operations.

What’s this got to do with stablecoins? Well, if the real force behind the global imbalance and financial instability problem is the gunboat diplomacy of private-sector interests who patrol international liquidity highways… then challenging them with an armada of stablecoins isn’t a bad option. At the very least, it deprives them of interest.

Enjoy the rest of the day!

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Editorial hello

Apologies for the absent note the past two days, but I got bogged down in longer form work. This has now been published on our sister site The Blind Spot. It will be cross-posted here shortly.

I did manage to find time to catch Nicolas Veron of the Peterson Institute interviewing the ECB’s Piero Cipollone. As noted on X, the highlight came when Veron got Cipollone to admit that some element of the alarmist rhetoric in Brussels about the US cutting off European payment systems in a fit of economic fury may be being encouraged to move digital euro legislation through parliament more quickly.

The dialogue went as follows:

Cipollone also appears to believe that the overall cost of using the digital euro will be much cheaper for European merchants than using Visa or Mastercard.

Have a lovely weekend.

Back on Monday like usual.

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The great and the good of the UK fintech world gathered yesterday in the Guildhall in London for Innovate Finance summit — aka where policy professionals like to go to talk at length without really saying very much at all.

As I learned a couple of years ago, Innovate Finance is very anxious about the prospect of their guest panelists being caught unaware by interviewers. Journalist moderators are obliged to pre-submit questions to panelists days in advance, even though said panelists are supposed to know what they are talking about. Those who decline are unceremoniously knocked off the agenda at the last minute without even being informed. They’re then replaced by slick presenter types who perform as directed. Overall, the whole thing operates like a giant safe space environment for policy wonks who want to appear authoritative without being challenged on their authority.

Predictably, The Peg has been NFI ever since.

Not that it matters. The most creative thing a few hundred policy professionals locked into a medieval court came up with on the day was the “Let’s Go for British Stablecoin Leadership” campaign. The initiative calls on the government and UK regulators to secure a “leading spot for Britain in the next generation of digital finance”. And we’re sure it will be very popular on LinkedIn.

Beyond that, audiences got to experience a not-that-thrilling pre-recorded address from UK chancellor Rachel Reeves, who said little about stablecoins specifically and much about prioritising market tokenisation and the development of the Pisces trading exchange to bolster liquidity. That’s despite the Treasury simultaneously announcing plans that day to consult on how to reform payment regulation to support tokenised payments such as stablecoins.

For reasons that remain unclear, the full agenda was not readily accessible, beyond the occasional panel advertisement on, you’ve guessed it, LinkedIn. What we can glean from the public comms is that stablecoins were, oddly, under prioritised. Even the meatist regulation-focused session was relegated to the confines of the Guildhall crypt. This was moderated by a fellow regulator, ensuring it delivered earth-shattering insights such as: “There was consensus that one element of regulation’s role was to make stablecoins accessible and understandable so more people can experience the benefits presented by these new financial products, and the panel emphasised the importance of consumers understanding the different types of stablecoins that exist.”

Industry news

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Editorial hello

In today’s Daily Peg, we platform Currency of Power’s sharp take on how dollar hegemony is evolving. Plus, Qivalis chooses Fireblocks to develop its infrastructure. If you didn’t catch our interview with the Qivalis boss, see here.

We’ll leave it to that today, since we want to crack on with finishing some other content.

Industry news

Anzens And Credit Bank Partner Up For Stablecoin Settlement

Anzens, issuer of the dollar-backed stablecoin USDA, has partnered with Credit Bank PLC to explore stablecoin solutions for cross-border payments and settlements in Kenya, with customers able to convert fiat to USDA at a 1.5% fee through the bank as custodian (subject to regulatory approval).

https://ibsintelligence.com/ibsi-news/anzens-credit-bank-partner-up-for-stablecoin-settlement/

Tether Discloses Nearly Two Million Share Stake In Antalpha

Tether has disclosed its acquisition of nearly two million shares in Antalpha, a bitcoin mining finance firm linked to Bitmain, as part of the company’s 2025 initial public offering.

https://www.theblock.co/post/398101/tether-discloses-2-million-share-stake-bitmain-linked-antalpha-ipo?

USDM1 Launches Website After Oversubscribed Three Million Dollar Angel Round in March

https://usdm1.com/

USDM1 describes itself as the first USD-denominated, treasury-collateralized sovereign debt instrument issued natively on public blockchain by a sovereign. Background below:

https://www.cityam.com/m1x-global-announces-public-launch-and-oversubscribed-3-million-angel-round-to-scale-on-chain-sovereign-finance/

Major European Bank Consortium Qivalis Plans to Leverage Fireblocks to Power MiCAR-compliant Euro-denominated Stablecoin

Iran Crisis

Indian Oil Tanker Scammed With USDT In Strait Of Hormuz Incident

Regulation

Canada Introduces New Stablecoin Regulatory Framework

Canada has proposed a federal stablecoin framework via Budget 2025 and Bill C-15 that requires fiat-backed issuers to register with the Bank of Canada, maintain 1:1 reserves in high-quality liquid assets, offer at-par redemption, and comply with governance, security, and prudential standards.

https://www.canada.ca/en/department-finance/programs/financial-sector-policy/canadas-stablecoin-framework.html

Analysis

BIS Report Says Stablecoins Act More Like ETFs Than Money

https://www.theblock.co/post/398072/bis-says-stablecoins-act-more-like-etfs-than-money-warns-of-fragmentation-without-global-rules-report?

Regional

Bank Of Korea New Chief Vows To Push Cbdc And Deposit Tokens

The new governor of the Bank of Korea pledged to advance central bank digital currency and deposit tokens in the second phase of Project Hangang while notably omitting any reference to stablecoins in his inauguration speech.

https://www.theblock.co/post/398223/bank-of-korea-new-chief-cbdc-deposit-tokens?

Statecraft

CFR’s Brad Setser Joins Odd Lots To Discuss The War In Iran And The Future Of The US Dollar

Nicolas Colin, of Currency of Power, Does A Sterling Job Plucking Out Selected Highlights From The Podcast

Currency of Power Round Up of The Dollar Debate

The article analyzes how the US dollar’s post-WWII reserve currency status—sustained by petrodollars and now reinforced by AI-driven digital loops and dollar-backed stablecoins — continues to deliver geopolitical power to America despite structural economic costs.

Currency of Power

The Bank Remembers

The Trump administration has made a simple story the centrepiece of its economic worldview: America has been cheated. Foreign countries sell into American markets, accumulate dollars, and use those dollars to lend back to Washington at interest. Trade deficits, in this telling, are a measure of exploitation. The rest of the world gets factories, jobs, and growth. America gets debt…

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19 days ago · 4 likes · Nicolas Colin and Marieke Flament

In today’s Daily Peg, BIS boss Pablo Hernandez de Cos warns that stablecoins, rather than increasing fiscal capacity, could constrain it by transferring seigniorage proceeds from the public sector to the private sector.

The warning comes via a speech that was circulated to journalists on an embargoed basis over the weekend, usually a strong signal that its underlying theme is something the BIS is keen on amplifying far and wide. And indeed, the FT’s Martin Arnold has willingly obliged.

I can’t remember who it was exactly who recently quibbled with my framing that stablecoins intrinsically affect how seigniorage is shared across the monetary system. But, whoever it was, thanks to de Cos, I am now vindicated in that assessment. Not that the argument is new. A very similar argument was made by Armstrong and Snower in November 2025 in Project Syndicate (neither of whom are cited by de Cos, FWIW). We wrote that up here.

Beyond that, the WSJ reports that the UAE has inquired about accessing U.S. swap lines, which implies its dollar peg might be facing stress due to reduced dollar inflows on account of the Hormuz crisis. And US senators are not that keen on ‘Gaza coin’.

We’re also revisiting a few items we missed last week, including the testimonies of Economic Secretary to the Treasury Lucy Rigby and FCA payments boss, David Geale, to the House of Lords Financial Services Regulation Committee, in which the officials set out how a major strategic goal of UK stablecoin policy is establishing a flourishing, GBP-denominated stablecoin market.

Industry news

Circle Rolls Out USDC Bridge For Native Cross-Chain Stablecoin Transfers

https://www.theblock.co/post/397907/circle-rolls-out-usdc-bridge-for-native-cross-chain-stablecoin-transfers

Regulation

ICYMI: UK House Of Lords Heard from FCA and Economic Secretary to Treasury on Stablecoin Growth And Regulation

https://parliamentlive.tv/Event/Index/6fa41318-da1a-4457-be33-acf0860a50cc#player-tabs

Lord Holmes Expresses Concern That Failure To Distinguish Between Stablecoins and Crypto Assets Could Undermine UK’s Digital Asset Ambitions
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/lord-chris-holmes_an-interesting-evidence-session-in-the-uk-ugcPost-7450824864963354626-q14-/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAAE5GgYBwG4i-0335jsQ7wmmx40pdF2RP5A

Bankers Group Rejects White House Stablecoin Report As Wrong Question

The American Bankers Association dismissed a White House report claiming that banning stablecoin yield would only modestly boost bank lending, arguing instead that allowing yields could trigger deposit flight, raise funding costs, and hurt community bank lending.

https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/crypto/articles/wrong-bankers-group-reject-white-131640409.html

Analysis

Visa Analysis Finds Stabelcoin Velocity Reached 13.56 in Q4 2025 — Far Above M1 Money Velocity

However, the velocity is driven mainly by financial transactions, with retail velocity at just 0.08 and overall scale still modest versus traditional systems.

https://corporate.visa.com/en/sites/visa-economic-empowerment-institute/stablecoin-velocity.html

ICYMI: HSBC Reserve Managers Skeptical Of Stablecoins Supporting US Dollar Role

https://www.centralbanking.com/central-banks/reserves/7975545/hsbc-reserve-management-trends-2026

Institutional Stablecoin Use Tripled In March, with Global Settelemnt Volumes Hitting $584.5 million in March

https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/crypto/articles/institutional-stablecoin-tripled-march-140200976.html

Deep thoughts

BIS’s De Cos Warns Stablecoins Could Transfer Public Sector Seigniorage to Private Sector
https://www.bis.org/speeches/sp260420.htm

Institutions Nearing ‘Do Or Die’ Stablecoin Moment Says Bitget Wallet COO

Bitget Wallet COO Alvin Kan warned that institutions face a “do or die” moment and must adopt stablecoins urgently as the market cap surpasses $300 billion and the assets integrate deeper into global payments and traditional finance.

https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/crypto/articles/institutions-nearing-die-stablecoin-moment-221800494.html

Statecraft

Senators Raise Concerns Over Trump Administration Gaza Stablecoin Proposal

U.S. senators wrote to Secretary Rubio expressing alarm over the proposed U.S. dollar-backed stablecoin for Gaza’s post-war reconstruction, citing risks to the Palestinian financial system, surveillance concerns, ethical issues, and potential conflicts of interest linked to Trump’s crypto ventures.

https://www.merkley.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/26.04.16-Letter-to-Secretary-Rubio-on-Board-of-Peace-Gaza-Stablecoin-Proposal.pdf

French Finance Minister Calls For More Euro-Pegged Stablecoins

https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/french-finance-minister-calls-euro-based-stablecoins-2026-04-17/

UAE Seeks Wartime Dollar Lifeline From Us Amid Middle East Conflict

Emirati officials have asked the U.S. Treasury about a potential currency-swap line to guarantee dollar access if the ongoing Middle East conflict escalates and disrupts the UAE economy.

https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/u-a-e-asks-u-s-for-a-wartime-financial-lifeline-3f9ea3a0?

It is with a degree of reluctance that I find myself compelled to draw attention to a rather serious wrong that has, of late, afflicted the monetary world.

It is a wrong that bears significant systemic consequences for all of us, albeit mostly this publication.

It relates to the unfortunate usage of the term “pegging” by parties operating outside financial and monetary contexts. This “appropriation” is now giving rise to a degree of stigma, with negative digital externalities, for those of us who still primarily associate the term with its original financial usage.

I would respectfully remind readers that such usage — leaving aside carpentry, camping, and clothes-hanging — has a long-standing heritage dating back to at least the 1930s: a rightful original claim, if ever there was one.

This is why I have decided, as of this week, to launch an unofficial campaign to reappropriate the term for its proper monetary application.

Why now?

In what can only be described as a fairly profound display of innocence, when I decided to rebrand this publication The Peg from its original Cash Equivalence, I was not aware that the term had, in recent years, been repurposed to denote what might be described mildly as an expression of female empowerment.

I realised something wasn’t quite right while at lunch with a male bank equity analyst late last year, specifically when he began to chuckle awkwardly upon the reference.

I have since educated myself on the term’s “other” meaning, which (as far as I can tell) has a rather less illustrious pedigree, emerging only around 2001.

The proper financial usage, I should point out, was chiefly popularised in the aftermath of Bretton Woods, when the dollar was famously pegged to gold and other currencies to the dollar. This is why the name seemed a perfect fit for a publication focused not just on stablecoins, but on the broader rewiring of the global financial system.

Central bank archives, I would stress, are jam-packed with pegging references — currencies pegged, rates pegged, regimes pegged, etc. Pegs everywhere.

Given this rather weighty heritage, it seemed difficult to justify retreat upon familiarisation with the more salacious application.

On reflection, in a supposedly female-empowered era, there was really only one option: lean into the faux pas. It is not the first time, after all, I’ve been caught out by my naivety (famous Virgin Atlantic story, IYKYK).

Moreover, as a long-time James Bond fan, I decided it was about time that the finance industry loosen its tie, ditch the stiff demeanour, and indulge in a bit of tongue-in-cheek humour like they used to in the good old eurodollar days.

Alas, the real trouble began when I set up my new email: izabella@thepeg.co

It turns out that corporate email filters, now the vigilant defenders of professional decorum in an increasingly no-fun-allowed environment, preemptively block even entirely respectable emails if they originate from an outfit called thepeg.co.

This is, understandably, a problem for a journalist who needs to engage in overt solicitation to land stories. For now, I have resorted to my other “safe for work” domain, the-blindspot.com (ironically named, given this story). But this is proving suboptimal.

This is why, after yet another pingback, I decided this week that something more proactive needs to be done.

Hence, the publicisation of my woeful plight in the hope of stimulating an organic, widespread reappropriation campaign — one that may yet compel corporate filters the world over to open up to The Peg.

At this point, I would gently remind readers that it’s not just the most powerful central banks and publications in the world that boast ample references to pegging. There are 7,263 references to things being “pegged” in the Financial Times alone.

I attach pictorial evidence of this respectable historic usage, in the hope it might assist those wishing to lobby their IT systems administrators on my behalf that pegs should not, in fact, be blocked.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

The destigmatisation of “pegging” is no laughing matter. We must work together to restore the term to its rightful place in monetary discourse.

Editorial hello

The Peg continues to iterate through April as it gears up to its key make-or-break moment. The intent, as ever, is to bring you essential aggregation, alongside original analysis and insight, plus executive interviews. For now, there’s only one of me, so original content is still in bootstrap mode. But I assure you, high-quality new content is incoming.

In the meantime, I thought it might be useful to add a succinct daily editorial note, if only to highlight that all the content is personally curated and that I take pains to pluck out the news that matters.

On that front, today’s defining theme is dollar statecraft.

Venezuela — currently in the process of re-connecting to the dollar system — has binned its central bank governor, Laura Guerra. This comes as the Bank cozies up to US authorities in the hope of opening the Venezuelan economy to investment by introducing new legal frameworks for mining and energy projects. For all the talk about the death of the petrodollar, the picture in parts of South America looks far more like a quiet revival.

There’s also a must-read for those of you who enjoy stablecoin statecraft and a bit of eurodollar reminiscence. It comes via the Bitcoin Policy Institute and goes deep on global currency power play, with some particularly interesting observations on the dollar as a global public good and on how SOFR has altered the incentive structure for offshore institutions that benchmark to the dollar. The institute’s core argument is that the US should use stablecoin regulation to reassert the terms on which dollars are created and circulated globally, and in doing so limit the free-riding that has long defined the offshore dollar system.

Finally, one for the legislative watchers: a source tells The Block that the latest draft of the Clarity Act still includes language that would ban rewards on idle stablecoin balances, while allowing yield tied to activity like transactions.

Have a lovely weekend everyone.

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In today’s Daily Peg, Tether invests (once again) in NYSE-listed Stablecoin Development Corporation, the company that was until March 23 this year known as Nova Pharmaceuticals. The latest $134 million raise also included participation from RO1 Fund LP and Framework Ventures. The company now appears to be pursuing a strategy focused on buying up as many SKY governance tokens as possible. SKY itself was previously known as MakerDAO, one of the oldest DeFi systems.

Plus, inspired by the latest US Treasury action, we’re starting a new occasional “shadow financing” section to shed light on how illicit money flows actually move through the system. The latest scheme shut down by the Treasury depended on gold and diamonds, not stablecoins.

Industry news

Tether Backs $134 Million Raise as Stablecoin Infrastructure Expands Into Mainstream Use Cases

https://tether.io/news/tether-backs-134-million-raise-as-stablecoin-infrastructure-expands-into-mainstream-use-cases/

https://www.theblock.co/post/397654/tether-stablecoin-development-corporation-134-million-private-placement-acquire-sky-tokens?

Tether Gold Is Now Available on The Revolut App
Tether Gold ($XAUT), the 1:1 physical gold-backed digital token stored in secure Swiss vaults, has been officially integrated within the Revolut app for seamless access and trading by millions of users.

Shadow flows

U.S. Treasury Sanctions Iranian Oil Smuggling Network And Hezbollah Gold Scheme

The U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned an oil smuggling network run by Iranian shipping magnate Mohammad Hossein Shamkhani and targets tied to a complex Hezbollah gold scheme that ultimately benefits Iran’s military.

Influence

Former Lutnick-Run Cantor Fitzgerald Donates $10 Million To Crypto Pac Led By Tether Exec

Cantor Fitzgerald, Tether’s reserve custodian since 2021, donated $10 million to the Fellowship PAC led by Tether U.S. executive Jesse Spiro to back pro-crypto candidates pushing for transparent digital asset regulations.

https://www.theblock.co/post/397655/former-lutnick-run-cantor-fitzgerald-donates-10-million-to-crypto-pac-led-by-tether-exec?

Fed Pick Kevin Warsh Discloses Investments In Slew Of Crypto Firms Ahead Of Senate Confirmation

Federal Reserve nominee Kevin Warsh revealed holdings in over 30 crypto projects and firms including Solana, Optimism, Blast, Compound, dYdX, Polychain, and Lightning Network in financial disclosures released ahead of his Senate confirmation hearing.

Trump Family-Backed World Liberty Fi Proposes Unlocking 62.3 Billion Wlfi Tokens With Immediate Burn

Trump family-backed WorldLibertyFi proposes unlocking 62.3 billion $WLFI tokens, immediately burning 4.5 billion, and placing 40.7 billion founder and team tokens on a new vesting schedule that had previously been locked indefinitely.

Statecraft

Circle CEO Sees Tremendous Opportunity for Yuan-Backed Stablecoin With China Launch Possible in Three to Five Years
Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire described a yuan-backed stablecoin as a “tremendous opportunity,” stating that China could launch one within the next three to five years, potentially reshaping global stablecoin liquidity and cross-border payments.

Quick reminder: The Peg’s stablecoin calendar is live at this link. It’s your go-to for upcoming events and key dates — if you’d like us to feature yours, just reach out directly to izabella@thepeg.co.

Industry news

Fireblocks Launches Onchain Lending ‘Earn’ Feature To Unlock Stablecoin Yield For Institutions

Tether Launches Multi-Asset Wallet Supporting USDT, Bitcoin And Gold Tokens
https://decrypt.co/364334/stablecoin-giant-tether-launches-wallet-usdt-bitcoin-gold-tokens

Societe Generale Expands USD Stablecoin Access To Millions Of Crypto MetaMask Wallet Users
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-04-15/socgen-takes-usd-stablecoin-to-millions-of-crypto-wallet-users
https://www.theblock.co/post/397490/societe-generale-adds-stablecoin-metamask?

Visa Launches Tempo Validator Node To Support Stablecoin Infrastructure
https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/crypto/articles/visa-launches-tempo-validator-node-161700303.html

Circle Explores Network Upgrade And Proof-Of-Stake Transition Strategy
https://decrypt.co/364295/circle-exploring-arc-network-token-proof-stake-shift-ceo

Paxos Raises $12 Million To Expand Onchain Financial Products
https://www.theblock.co/post/397348/paxos-labs-raises-12-million-amplify-onchain-financial-products?

Iran crisis

Iranian Regime Leverages Cryptocurrency Including Stablecoins For Sanctions Evasion
https://www.zerohedge.com/crypto/iranian-regimes-crypto-shadow-arsenal

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Paxos Gold Celebrates Hitting 500k Tokens in Issuance

European Banks Selecting Partners for Stablecoin Deployment
https://coinmarketcap.com/academy/article/european-banks-move-past-strategy-now-picking-stablecoin-infrastructure-partners

Y Combinator Backs First All-Stablecoin Startup Focused On USDC And Solana
https://www.theblock.co/post/397304/y-combinator-first-all-stablecoin-funding-usdc-solana?

Iran crisis

Circle CEO Says USDC Not Being Used To Navigate Hormuz-Linked Geopolitical Risk
https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/crypto/articles/circle-ceo-says-usdc-not-142300025.html

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Industry news

AllUnity Expands MiCA-Compliant Euro Stablecoin EURAU To Stellar Network
https://allunity.com/news/eurau-launches-on-the-stellar-network/
AllUnity, a joint venture between DWS, Flow Traders, and Galaxy, has launched its fully reserved, regulated euro stablecoin EURAU on the Stellar blockchain, enabling fast, low-cost, compliant cross-border euro payments and institutional liquidity flows.

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