“If you do not use tools, they use you.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
*Hello all! Since this week seems to be about overturning established political regimes, happy *Guy Fawkes Night to those who celebrate (if you know, you know). 😉
IN THIS NEWSLETTER
Hong Kong: tokenized firsts in an evolving market
TMMFs and secondary trading: a blurring of boundaries
Ensemble: when boundaries expand and layers become more porous
RedCoin: hard boundaries changing shape
A new type of emerging market
*Crypto is Macro Now offers ~daily commentary and updates on *crypto’s evolving role in the changing geopolitical and financial landscapes. Plus links and more.
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Most stablecoin payment value involved a business while most payments were between consumers. Businesses were involved in 64% of the $482 billion in payments Jan-Sept 2026, but consumer-to-consumer transfers made up 64% of the total payments count of 1.04 billion.
Download Allium’s State of Stablecoins and Payments Q3 2026.
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WHAT I’M WATCHING
Hong Kong: tokenized firsts in an evolving market
Leaving behind the hubbub of the US midterms and the noise of the post-defeat diagnoses, let’s travel to the other side of the world, where big changes of a different type but of perhaps equal long-term importance are taking place. Let’s go to Hong Kong.
Normally quiet and careful, over the past month the region has unleashed a lively rhythm of announcements and launches that paint an intriguing picture of an emerging digital asset and digital money landscape. More than just news, the announcements draw a map of landmark firsts, pushing Hong Kong to the fore of financial market innovation.
To be more specific, in the US, the current focus of digital asset innovators seems to be on tokenizing already existing equity – not exactly new. Hong Kong, on the other hand, is taking steps that history will judge as much more transformative.
Below, I’ll briefly summarize three of them, and tie them into the emerging outline of tomorrow’s financial rails. Space and time constraints mean that much nuance unfortunately gets left on the cutting room floor – but this is meant as an introduction to why the region is becoming increasingly relevant, a region I’ll be coming back to with more detail soon.
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