The Daily Peg
Qivalis moves ahead, and private sector dollar demand continues to soar.
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.
USDM1 Launches Website After Oversubscribed Three Million Dollar Angel Round in March
USDM1 describes itself as the first USD-denominated, treasury-collateralized sovereign debt instrument issued natively on public blockchain by a sovereign. Background below:
“M1X Global is building infrastructure that enables governments to issue and manage financial instruments natively on-chain while maintaining compatibility with global institutional frameworks. Its flagship initiative, USDM1, developed in public-private partnership with the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI), provides a working example of this model. Issued directly by the government of the RMI, USDM1 is a U.S. dollar-denominated sovereign bond fully collateralized (1:1) by short-duration U.S. Treasury instruments and structured under New York law, designed to provide holders with a perfected first-priority security interest in collateral. USDM1 is not a tokenized or wrapped instrument and maintains programmable, 24/7 settlement.”
City Am, March 26
Major European Bank Consortium Qivalis Plans to Leverage Fireblocks to Power MiCAR-compliant Euro-denominated Stablecoin
From the press release: Qivalis, a consortium of twelve major European banks created to launch a euro-backed stablecoin, has picked Fireblocks as its core infrastructure partner to power the MiCAR-compliant offering scheduled for the second half of 2026. Fireblocks will provide its end-to-end platform - including tokenization and treasury management capabilities - to enable secure issuance, distribution, and lifecycle management of the euro-denominated stablecoin.
Scheduled for launch in the second half of 2026, the euro-backed stablecoin will be supported by twelve leading European banks: Banca Sella, BBVA, BNP Paribas, CaixaBank, Danske Bank, DekaBank, DZ BANK, ING, KBC, Raiffeisen Bank International, SEB, and UniCredit. The offering is subject to authorization by De Nederlandsche Bank (Dutch Central Bank) through Amsterdam-based Qivalis, ensuring full compliance with the EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCAR).
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
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
“Most of the commentary focuses on central bank reserves. Countries quietly reducing their Treasury holdings, shifting their official portfolios away from dollars. That trend is real, starting with China. But Brad's point is that reserves are the wrong pool of money to watch, because a second and larger pool has been moving in the opposite direction and getting almost no attention.
The reserve pool sits at around 57% dollars globally. That sounds high, but it is lower than the dollar share of a standard return-seeking portfolio. A global large-cap equity fund runs at 65–70% dollars, simply because US equities have outperformed everything else for fifteen years. Passive index flows mechanically concentrate in US assets. A Taiwanese life insurer's foreign portfolio is around 95% dollars. The Saudi Public Investment Fund's international holdings are around 80% dollars. These allocations follow market weights and yield differentials, not political preferences.
So while reserve managers at central banks have modestly reduced their dollar share, the pool of return-seeking capital allocators has been accumulating more dollars, pulled in by US equity performance. The two trends run in opposite directions, and the second is larger.
Underneath both pools, there is a more fundamental constraint. The US runs a current account deficit of over a trillion dollars a year. The rest of the world must absorb that as financial assets. The only question is what form those assets take: Treasuries, corporate debt, or equities. Last year the split was roughly 50/50 between dollar debt and US equities. Both settle in dollars. The world ended 2025 longer dollars than it ended 2024, despite years of de-dollarisation headlines.
What does that mean? The de-dollarisation shift, if it ever comes, will show up first in the return-seeking pool and in the dollar's exchange rate, not in central bank disclosures about reserve composition. A strong dollar and rising total dollar claims on the US are hard to reconcile with a story of accelerating de-dollarisation. The mechanics will keep pointing in the same direction until the US current account deficit closes, and there is little sign of that.”
Nicolas Colin, Linkedin, April 19
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.
