Crypto’s Institutional Turn — Incentives, Business Models, and Dilemmas
Crypto is no longer a sideshow. From corporate treasuries borrowing to buy tokens, to Wall Street banks edging into bitcoin-backed lending, to Washington opening retirement savings to crypto and private equity—the industry is becoming embedded in the financial mainstream. Each move looks rational for the actors involved: higher equity valuations, new fee streams, more inflows.
The Myth of a Neutral Fed is Over
This confrontation is sharpened by the electoral cycle. Trump’s allies fear that if a recession hits in the coming year, the Fed—staffed by figures they regard as part of a liberal establishment—will stand aside rather than act decisively to rescue the economy.
Crypto Isn’t Replacing Fiat — But It’s Changing Everything
Crypto doesn't need to win to matter. It just needs to persist — and it has. This future, where crypto and fiat coexist uneasily, is not a footnote in monetary history. It's the battlefield. And what’s at stake isn’t just which currency we use — it’s who gets to decide. The question now is whether policymakers are ready to govern it — before it governs them.
The “Brussels defect”, is a bug in a world that needs credible strategy instead
Call it the “Brussels defect”: the habit of treating market rules as a substitute for strategy. As Abe Newman recently coined it in the Financial Times, Europe’s regulatory reflex no longer matches a security-first world. What it needs is a credible plan.
Industry groups: new crypto law has a ‘loophole’ that could cost banks
Banks are feigning surprise at yield on stablecoins. US banks are warning that the new GENIUS Act could trigger trillions in deposit outflows, since it bars stablecoin issuers from paying yield but allows crypto exchanges to keep offering rewards on third-party coins.
Why a Digital Euro really matters (beyond “stablecoin summer”)
The ECB, however, needs to sharpen its communications on the purpose of a digital euro. The underlying logic the FT reports is off: people choose dollar stablecoins because they are dollars. Even if euro demand were strong, the proposed digital euro is account-based—unlike bearer-style stablecoins—and will require onboarding.
Wall Street's dramatic reversal on cryptocurrency
Behind Wall Street's sudden embrace of cryptocurrency lies a troubling reality: major banks are rushing into digital assets despite serious risks to both their stability and consumer protections, according to nine financial executives briefed on their organizations' crypto initiatives.
How stablecoins feed global USD demand
Scott Bessent must be happy. A new IMF study finds that stablecoins boost dollar demand. As a % of GDP, the largest users are Latin America & Caribbean (7.7%) and Africa & Middle East (6.7%)
Why stablecoins are Silicon Valley's Pandora's box
Despite piggybacking on the dollar and often sharing the same blockchain, out of the box their smart contracts remain stubbornly non-interoperable and therefore non-fungible.
Each coin is a brand—and combined with the network effects inherent in money itself, winner-takes-all dynamics emerge. Already, two giants rule: Tether commands a $159 billion market capitalisation - 61% of the market - while Circle's USD Coin holds $62 billion or 24%.
An AI that knows you and your business
It matters that AI has easily updatable memory. Without dynamic memory, AI cannot act sequentially on a plan or get to know you or your business. Up to now, one method to address this, besides expensive one-off fine-tuning, is the so-called Retrieval Augmented Generation or RAG.
The political economy of AI
Size matters in AI. The importance of scale and its cost has implications as to who will benefit most from AI, and it will be felt from geopolitics to competitiveness to the structure of our economies.
Our current AI acceleration started in 2012
Pinpointing the exact moment when the machine learning revolution began is challenging, as advancements have been steadily unfolding for several decades. However, if one has to choose a year, the year 2012 would be it. That year was indeed a significant milestone in the field of deep learning, a subfield of machine learning.
High-status social media users have a license to misinform
Plato saw rhetoric as a powerful tool that could be used to manipulate and deceive people. In contrast, he believed philosophy was supposed to uncover truth and provide genuine knowledge.
Aristotle on rhetoric — the art of persuasion
Rhetoric refers to the art of persuasion, the ability to use language effectively to influence others. It's not just about what you say, but also how you say it and the context in which you say it. Throughout history, philosophers have studied rhetoric and have developed various theories about how it works and how it can be used to achieve specific goals.
Create your own chances, Social CEO
Articulating your vision is not just about speaking words, it’s about painting a picture in people's minds that motivates and inspires them to take action. When you clearly articulate your vision, it becomes contagious, and people will naturally want to follow your lead.