EndGame Macro
The IMF’s Stablecoin Warning Is Really a Roadmap for the Future of Money

Once you read past the surface optimism, the IMF paper is making a straightforward point that stablecoins aren’t growing because people suddenly fell in love with crypto, they’re growing because the global payments system is slow, fragmented, and expensive. And people are quietly opting out of that friction.

The IMF lays out the math. The two largest stablecoins have tripled in size since 2023, reaching a combined $260 billion, with $23 trillion in trading volume in 2024. Asia now processes more stablecoin activity than North America, and relative to GDP, Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America stand out as the fastest adopters.

And the chart on page 3 of this shows the deeper truth that stablecoins today are mostly backed by U.S. Treasuries, meaning these crypto dollars are really just digital wrappers around the safest collateral pool on the planet.

But the IMF’s tone changes when it outlines the risks. Stablecoins make cross-border payments dramatically cheaper, some remittances still cost up to 20% yet those same efficiencies can hollow out weaker currencies, bypass capital controls, and erode monetary sovereignty.

When the IMF warns stablecoins could reshape capital flow and exchange rate dynamics, it’s really pointing at the stress building under emerging markets as global liquidity tightens.

And when it notes that regulation is uneven, oversight gaps encourage arbitrage, and some countries are even considering granting stablecoin issuers central bank liquidity, you can see the direction clearly. This isn’t about killing stablecoins. It’s about preparing to contain them.

Where this is actually heading

This is where the paper I read from the BIS titled “On Par: A Money View of Stablecoins” provides the missing frame. The BIS strips away the hype and says stablecoins are essentially on chain private dollar deposits, a digital replay of the eurodollar era.

And the BIS is blunt about the real weakness which isn’t solvency…it’s liquidity. A stablecoin can be fully backed and still collapse if everyone runs for the exit at once. The Terra collapse, the USDC break during SVB all of it highlights the same flaw that crypto has no dealer system, no lender of last resort, no credit elasticity. Without those, par is fragile. The BIS even calls current stabilization mechanisms primitive.

When you set that against today’s macro backdrop with higher rates, slower growth, geopolitical tension, the vulnerability becomes obvious. In stressed environments, people want settlement they can trust. Private tokens backed by assets that must be sold during panics don’t look like the final form of digital dollars. They look like the prototype.

My View

Stablecoins aren’t going away. They’re becoming the digital edge of the dollar system. But they won’t remain in their current wildcat form. They’re heading toward consolidation, regulation, and eventual absorption into the banking hierarchy not because regulators are excited about them, but because the alternative is losing visibility and control over global money flows.

Private issuers opened the door.
Macro stress is accelerating adoption.
And now states and major banks are moving to domesticate the model.

The BIS paper I read lays out the blueprint with tokenized deposits, regulated liability networks, and stablecoins anchored by the full banking apparatus. And the IMF’s reference to possible central bank liquidity access quietly confirms the same destination.

So the future isn’t stablecoins versus the system, it’s stablecoins becoming the system. A faster, programmable extension of the dollar order, built not outside the perimeter, but inside it.

That’s the real trajectory hiding in both reports. @SantiagoAuFund

Stablecoins’ influence is growing due to their interconnections with mainstream finance stemming from their potential use cases and asset backing. Their rapid growth high[...]

lights both promise and new challenges for policymakers. Read new IMF Blog: https://t.co/eVss5tPsFn https://t.co/uliR1gLnkn - IMF tweet

EndGame Macro
Why College Feels Like A Bad Idea Right Now

A lot of younger people aren’t anti education. They’re reacting to a pretty rational mismatch in the fact that the price of the credential went up like it’s a luxury product, while the job market value of a lot of white collar entry roles started acting… normal. Risky. Cyclical.

That chart says it plainly. The share of unemployed Americans with four year degrees is climbing toward the mid 20% range. When degrees were rare, a diploma was a moat. Now it’s often just the ticket to enter a crowded room.

And the lived experience matters here. If you’re 22 and you watched older siblings take on serious debt, graduate into apply to 200 jobs land, and then compete for roles that don’t pay enough to justify the burn… you start doing math differently. Not ideological math. Monthly payment math.

College Is a Business And It Sells What It Can, Not What You Need

Universities don’t get rewarded for aligning majors with the labor market. They get rewarded for enrollment, retention, and tuition revenue. That incentive creates a quiet problem where schools keep producing degrees for paths where demand is shrinking, getting automated, or getting squeezed by globalization while marketing those paths like the old world still exists.

It’s not that these jobs vanish overnight. It’s that the work gets unbundled. A chunk gets automated. Another chunk gets offshored. The entry level ladder gets pulled up. And suddenly the degree doesn’t buy you a career track, it buys you a shot at one.

Meanwhile, credential inflation is real. Jobs that used to train people now ask for a bachelor’s just to filter resumes. So the degree becomes a cost of entry, not a payoff. That’s the psychological break…you paid a premium price for something that feels like a minimum requirement.

Healthcare And The Trades

If you want to think like an investor, you look for demand that’s stubborn and hard to outsource. Healthcare checks that box. An aging population doesn’t pause because rates are high. Chronic disease doesn’t take a soft landing. Someone still needs to show up like nurses, techs, radiology, respiratory, PT, home health, long term care. A lot of those roles are licensed, in person, and backed by structural need. That’s not hype. That’s demographics.

The trades are similar in a different way. You can’t outsource a broken compressor, a rewiring job, a leaky pipe, or a roof. You can’t Zoom an electrician. And in many places, the pipeline of skilled tradespeople is aging out faster than it’s being replaced. Add infrastructure work, reshoring, energy retrofits, and suddenly the boring jobs look like the smart ones.

So the shift you’re seeing isn’t college is worthless. It’s more specific…the blanket promise that any degree automatically pays is breaking. The winners will be paths that connect tightly to real demand, build scarce skills, and don’t rely on a fragile white collar ladder that’s getting narrower every year.

College education value is collapsing https://t.co/iO9UpUIt5m - Darth Powell
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EndGame Macro
Why College Feels Like A Bad Idea Right Now

A lot of younger people aren’t anti education. They’re reacting to a pretty rational mismatch in the fact that the price of the credential went up like it’s a luxury product, while the job market value of a lot of white collar entry roles started acting… normal. Risky. Cyclical.

That chart says it plainly. The share of unemployed Americans with four year degrees is climbing toward the mid 20% range. When degrees were rare, a diploma was a moat. Now it’s often just the ticket to enter a crowded room.

And the lived experience matters here. If you’re 22 and you watched older siblings take on serious debt, graduate into “apply to 200 jobs” land, and then compete for roles that don’t pay enough to justify the burn… you start doing math differently. Not ideological math. Monthly payment math.

College Is a Business And It Sells What It Can, Not What You Need

Universities don’t get rewarded for aligning majors with the labor market. They get rewarded for enrollment, retention, and tuition revenue. That incentive creates a quiet problem where schools keep producing degrees for paths where demand is shrinking, getting automated, or getting squeezed by globalization while marketing those paths like the old world still exists.

It’s not that these jobs vanish overnight. It’s that the work gets unbundled. A chunk gets automated. Another chunk gets offshored. The entry level ladder gets pulled up. And suddenly the degree doesn’t buy you a career track, it buys you a shot at one.

Meanwhile, credential inflation is real. Jobs that used to train people now ask for a bachelor’s just to filter resumes. So the degree becomes a cost of entry, not a payoff. That’s the psychological break…you paid a premium price for something that feels like a minimum requirement.

Healthcare And The Trades

If you want to think like an investor, you look for demand that’s stubborn and hard to outsource. Healthcare checks that box. An aging population doesn’t pause because rates are high. Chronic disease doesn’t take a soft landing. Someone still needs to show up like nurses, techs, radiology, respiratory, PT, home health, long term care. A lot of those roles are licensed, in person, and backed by structural need. That’s not hype. That’s demographics.

The trades are similar in a different way. You can’t outsource a broken compressor, a rewiring job, a leaky pipe, or a roof. You can’t Zoom an electrician. And in many places, the pipeline of skilled tradespeople is aging out faster than it’s being replaced. Add infrastructure work, reshoring, energy retrofits, and suddenly the boring jobs look like the smart ones.

So the shift you’re seeing isn’t college is worthless. It’s more specific…the blanket promise that any degree automatically pays is breaking. The winners will be paths that connect tightly to real demand, build scarce skills, and don’t rely on a fragile white collar ladder that’s getting narrower every year.

College education value is collapsing https://t.co/iO9UpUIt5m - Darth Powell
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Quiver Quantitative
JUST IN: Representative Melanie Stansbury will sign Rep. Luna's discharge petition to force a vote on a congressional stock trading ban.

Now at 17 signatures. https://t.co/EL9mG77Jm3
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Wasteland Capital
Apart from my earnings reviews, I’ve only tweeted five new cases on here over the last year.

They ended up the #1 Mag7 YTD $GOOG, the #1 Semi YTD $MU & #1 China LargeCap YTD $BABA. Plus 2 🚀 smallcaps, $AEO & $LYFT

Average return +111% currently.

Less is more, as they say. https://t.co/LGr5bglq7t
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EndGame Macro
When High Valuations Meet Rising Unemployment, Something Has to Give

This chart looks complicated, but the message is pretty simple. The black line up top….the 5 year CAPE smooths out the noise and shows you how expensive the market really is relative to earnings. Sitting near 32, it’s in territory you only see when investors are pricing in a very optimistic future like in the late 90s, the post COVID boom, and a handful of mid century peaks. Those periods didn’t always end in a crash, but they almost always led to years where returns came in weaker than hoped because so much optimism was already baked into the price.

In plain terms we’re paying premium prices for earnings that haven’t arrived yet.

The lower half of the chart, the equity risk premium makes that clearer. Most versions barely compensate you for taking equity risk over simply sitting in bonds. And the simplest measure, earnings yield minus the risk free rate, is basically flat. When unemployment is rising and growth is cooling, that’s not a great cushion. Models can assume strong future earnings, but the real economy doesn’t care about those assumptions once the cycle turns.

Where the Pressure Builds in a Downturn

High valuations can float for a while, but they become extremely sensitive once the macro tone shifts. Rising unemployment pushes companies to cut hours, freeze hiring, and protect margins. Earnings expectations start sliding. And from a CAPE of 32, the market doesn’t have much room to take a punch.

In a stronger environment, falling long term rates might soften the blow. But if we slide into recession and long yields stay sticky whether because of fiscal pressure, heavy issuance, or lingering inflation expectations you get the worst mix where earnings weaken while the discount rate refuses to give you relief. That’s when valuations find air pockets.

And even if the Fed responds with more sustained cuts or even QE, that doesn’t stop the downside immediately. We’ve seen this before. In 2008–09, the Fed unleashed QE and slashed rates to zero and stocks kept falling, unemployment kept climbing, and the real economy kept deteriorating. Liquidity shows up in the financial pipes instantly, but it doesn’t reach Main Street for 18–24 months. During that lag, markets can still reprice lower because the recession mechanics are still grinding forward.

That’s why fragility replaces optimism in this kind of environment. Investors shift from asking “How high can this go?” to “How much am I being paid to take this risk?” And based on this chart, the answer is: not much.

My Honest Read

This chart doesn’t just whisper asymmetry with unemployment rising and recession signals stacking up, it says it outright. The upside narrows because valuations are already stretched. The downside widens because earnings are likely to soften, and the cushion underneath is thin.

This isn’t predicting a crash. It’s acknowledging that when you enter a downturn from one of the most expensive starting points in history, the margin for error is tiny. And even aggressive Fed easing doesn’t flip the cycle instantly, history shows the market can continue falling while policy is easing, simply because the real economy hasn’t finished correcting.

In that kind of backdrop, today’s stability feels less like strength and more like veneer. A high gloss surface covering cracks beneath it. And veneer eventually gives way, not because markets panic, but because the fundamentals finally pull the price back to where the cycle says it belongs.
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EndGame Macro
A Fourth Turning in Real Time: What the Dollar’s Collapse in Buying Power Really Signals

The top panel shows what $100 from 1792 looks like today, adjusted for inflation. It climbs almost vertically in the modern era. The bottom panel flips it to how much buying power that same $100 has over time. It rises and falls a bit in the early Republic, but after the creation of the Fed, the Gold Reserve Act, the world wars, and finally the Nixon shock, it’s a long slide toward zero.

So the insinuation isn’t just inflation bad. It’s that every time the U.S. has faced a big stress event like a war, depression, financial crisis the answer has been some combination of more credit, more centralization, more flexibility in the currency… and the quiet cost is that each generation’s dollars buy a little less. Politicians come in after the fact and promise reform, but the deeper architecture keeps nudging in the same direction: sacrifice currency stability to preserve political and geopolitical stability.

Monroe Doctrine 2.0 and defending the top of the pyramid

Once you see the dollar that way not just as money but as a power tool, the foreign policy piece starts to line up.

The original Monroe Doctrine said, in plain language: the Western Hemisphere is our backyard. Today it isn’t formally branded that way, but the behavior rhymes. You’ve got a heavier U.S. security footprint around the Caribbean and northern South America, more pressure on unfriendly regimes, and a push to keep Chinese and Russian influence from locking down ports, resources, or telecoms in the region.

At the same time, BRICS and other blocs are experimenting with ways to trade more in local currencies, build alternative payment rails, and reduce exposure to U.S. sanctions and SWIFT controls. Even if those experiments are clumsy and slow, the intent is clear: carve out some space from a dollar system that has been used, repeatedly, as a lever of coercion.

Viewed through that lens, Monroe Doctrine 2.0 is about more than ships and sanctions. It’s the U.S. trying to keep regional control at the exact moment the rest of the world is quietly testing escape hatches from a dollar centric order, an order that, domestically, shows up in charts like this as slow motion debasement.

A Fourth Turning kind of moment

That’s why this all feels like a Fourth Turning phase. Institutions are distrusted. The middle class feels squeezed by a cost of living curve that never seems to flatten. The global system built after 1945 looks less like a guarantee and more like a negotiation, sometimes a threat.

Inside the country, the solution keeps being more debt and more intervention. Outside the country, the solution is to reassert spheres of influence and defend the currency’s central role by any means necessary whether it be financial, legal, military or diplomatic.

The chart is doing more than mocking politicians. It’s saying…the long arc of policy choices has eroded the currency at home to maintain power abroad, and now both fronts are under strain at the same time. That’s exactly the kind of pressure cooker environment that tends to produce inflection points where systems either reinvent themselves or double down on the very behaviors that got them here.

Politicians are like “we’re going to fix this” https://t.co/QG13MEOguW - Lyn Alden
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EndGame Macro
When Interest Becomes the Budget And The Line Washington Can’t Ignore

The blue line is telling you how much of the federal budget is now going toward interest payments. Not the debt in theory, the actual cash going out the door. And because the government rolls its debt over time, there’s a built in delay. Higher rates don’t hurt instantly; they seep in. What we’re seeing now is simply the consequence of the last few years finally catching up.

That’s why the blue line feels so ominous. It’s not reacting to today’s yields, it’s reacting to the entire rate cycle that already happened.

The Last Time We Were Here

The early to mid 1990s is the closest historical echo. Interest costs were eating a similar share of the budget, and Washington felt the squeeze. But the way out wasn’t some clever policy trick. It was a mix of luck, timing, and a little bit of global intervention.

Inflation fell. The Fed eased. Growth picked up. Tax revenues rose. And for a brief moment, there was real political willingness to tighten the belt. All of that helped but there’s a detail people forget…

The Plaza Accord. In 1985, the major economic powers of the time coordinated to push down an overvalued dollar because it was suffocating U.S. competitiveness. The weaker dollar helped set the stage for easier financial conditions and the long 1990s expansion that followed.

The blue line eventually collapsed. But it did so because everything lined up at once: disinflation, lower rates, strong growth, better budgets and crucially, a world willing to cooperate with U.S. needs.

That world doesn’t exist today.

What It Means If the Blue Line Keeps Rising

If interest keeps taking a bigger bite out of the budget, it stops being just a fiscal issue and starts becoming a political and strategic one. At some point, interest payments behave like an unplanned tax, money you can’t spend on defense, healthcare, or anything voters actually notice.

And then the choices narrow fast.

You either do the painful stuff…spending cuts, tax hikes, entitlement changes or you slide into the quieter, more familiar option of financial repression. Keep rates lower than they should be. Manage the curve. Encourage institutions to hold Treasuries. Use policy tools to make the debt easier to carry over time.

That’s the path countries choose when math corners them.

And even if the Fed cuts aggressively, the blue line doesn’t fall right away. We’ve lived through that playbook. In 2008–09 the Fed went to zero, launched QE, and markets still fell while unemployment rose. Liquidity hits the pipes immediately; the real economy moves on its own timetable.

Where This Likely Goes

If the blue line keeps rising, we shift from a world where policy is about optimizing the economy to a world where policy is about managing the financing of the government itself. That usually means more volatility, louder fights over budgets, and a steady gravitational pull toward easier money not because anyone prefers it, but because the alternative is facing the pain head on.

The 1990s had an escape hatch with a global accord that weakened the dollar and gave the U.S. breathing room.
Today, the U.S. is operating in a far more fractured world with far fewer allies willing to coordinate in the same way.

And that’s what makes this version of the blue line feel heavier. It’s not just about interest costs rising, it’s about the shrinking list of ways to bring them back down.

Treasury can’t afford a rise in financing costs: interest already consumes ~14% of federal outlays.
https://t.co/BV8OiX9foY https://t.co/j7j9wvrmz4 - The Market Ear
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Clark Square Capital
I wrote up a review of the alt-data software @tickerplus TickerTrends. You can check it out here:
https://t.co/NAy15kcBSD
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