“Our wretched species is so made that those who walk on the well-trodden path always throw stones at those who are showing a new road.” – Voltaire ||
Hello everyone! Another month in the bag – summer is whooshing by way too fast.
👀* You’re reading Crypto is Macro Now, which covers the role crypto is playing in the changing plates of finance, economics, politics, culture and markets. *👀
If you missed my Press Publish chat with Michael Howell about newslettering, you can catch it here (a good chunk of the opening got eaten, I don’t know why).
Permit me a rant, though: yesterday clinched it for me, I will never use Substack Live again – I know I should never say “never” but holy cow, the number of messed up episodes due to tech issues… Some have been my fault, yes, but of the seven things that went wrong yesterday, one was down to me (Ethernet cable not plugged in), the others involved having the episode close on us, stream cancelled so we couldn’t get back in, etc. etc. That said, Michael was gracious and interesting as always, the audience was understanding, and it was a great session despite the issues.
Ugh.
How much do stablecoins actually move cross-border?
Together with FXC Intelligence, Allium has sized the flows: in 2025, $135bn moved across borders, up 64% year-on-year vs 9% growth for fiat cross-border transfers.
But the headline hides the real story. Consumer-involved payments over-index ~3x versus fiat, and stablecoins show up first in markets the traditional system serves worst: Turkey, Ukraine, Mexico, Taiwan.
*→ Download the full report * https://www.fxcintel.com/research/reports/ct-stablecoin-share-cross-border-payments-market-allium
The changing shape of onchain ownership
Term of the day: Transfer agent
Macro: US PCE and GDP
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Spare a thought for transfer agents – hardly anyone ever does, even though they are a key piece in the smooth functioning of global securities markets. (See below for a description of what they do, if you’re not familiar.)
On Wednesday, they grabbed the tokenization mic with an announcement that may seem dull on the service but is actually a big deal for the evolving market structure.
BNY has launched an onchain transfer agent service for tokenized funds (Digital Transfer Agency, or Digital TA). The service will be initially open to select clients in the US and the UK, with plans for expansion.
Why is this a big deal? In several ways:
