Cofounder & CFO @defidevcorp. Ex-Goldman, Binance, Kraken. Views are my own. Not financial or tax advice.
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Hi there - I'm John, CFO of DFDV. I've spent half my career in crypto (Binance, Kraken) and half in TradFi (Goldman Sachs TMT equity research, then hedge fund and long-only public equity investing), I write about thoughts and experiences across both halves here.
These are my personal thoughts, usually with a chart. I try to be analytical without being hard to read. Sometimes it's a niche corner of the market, sometimes it's the story of the week.
Tether now holds about as many U.S. Treasury bills as South Korea holds Treasuries: $132.4 billion against $134.2 billion. A stablecoin has become one of Washington's bigger lenders, and its customers are people who just want dollars.
Some thoughts on a stablecoin issuer as a Treasury buyer.
The new report from Tether (@Tether_to), attested by BDO, covers 30 September. The $132.4 billion is $122.8 billion of bills held directly plus $9.5 billion through overnight loans. The Treasury's latest table has Saudi Arabia at $141 billion and the United Arab Emirates at $116 billion. Those country figures are from August and cover all maturities, so read this as scale.
Countries decide at meetings. Tether's demand arrives one phone at a time, from people abroad who want dollars. Its reserve buffer also nearly doubled in the quarter, to $7.95 billion from $4.1 billion.
Watch 18 November, when the Treasury's September table gives a same-date comparison.
TL;DR: Tether reports $132.4 billion of Treasury exposure at 30 September, close to South Korea's $134.2 billion, and that buyer grows with every digital dollar bought abroad.
ALT Ranked lollipop of U.S. Treasury holdings: Brazil, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Tether highlighted, the UAE.
John Han retweeted
Satoshi posted this on a forum in February 2009, a month after the first block.
The market's answer turned out to be trust you can check. Tether reported more than $122 billion of Treasuries held directly for 2025, and the GENIUS Act now requires one-to-one reserves from every permitted issuer.
When you hold a dollar token, read the latest reserve report. It takes two minutes.
Satoshi posted this on a forum in February 2009, a month after the first block.
The market's answer turned out to be trust you can check. Tether reported more than $122 billion of Treasuries held directly for 2025, and the GENIUS Act now requires one-to-one reserves from every permitted issuer.
When you hold a dollar token, read the latest reserve report. It takes two minutes.
Eighteen years ago today a nine-page PDF went out to a cryptography mailing list. That paper now has a futures market, U.S. spot ETFs holding 1.29 million bitcoin, and a federal stablecoin law beside it.
Some thoughts on the Bitcoin white paper at 18.
Satoshi Nakamoto sent the email on 31 October 2008, linking to nine pages. Block zero followed on 3 January 2009. The chain is at about block 974,000 today.
The dates that turned a paper into a market came late. CME listed bitcoin futures in December 2017, nine years in. The SEC approved spot bitcoin ETFs on 10 January 2024, fifteen years in. The GENIUS Act gave stablecoins a federal law on 18 July 2025.
What this means for you is how new the plumbing is. For fifteen of those eighteen years, a brokerage account had no U.S. spot bitcoin ETF to offer. Today one trades there like any stock fund, and that choice is under three years old.
TL;DR: The Bitcoin white paper turns 18 today, and the U.S. spot ETF that put it in ordinary brokerage accounts is under three years old.
Visa's head of growth products said this on 16 December 2025, when Visa launched USDC settlement for U.S. banks.
A card network settling in stablecoins is the quiet milestone. The dollars still come from a bank; they now move on a rail that runs on weekends. Stablecoins moved $11.6 trillion in 2025, and the card networks are joining that rail.
Watch your own bank's settlement options over the next year.
I think Hong Kong got this right by going slowly.
36 firms applied for a stablecoin licence in the first round and two were approved.
One of those two is now coming to a public network, which is the part I've been waiting to see.
teapawt.org/solana/status/21161632…
ALT One large number, 2, the stablecoin issuer licences Hong Kong granted on 10 April 2026 to Anchorpoint Financial and HSBC, beside a smaller gray number, 36, the applications received in the first round.
As someone who used to work at @binance, I think CZ (@cz_binance), He Yi (@heyibinance) and the team handled this very well. They moved quickly, kept everyone informed and calmed the market.
Rooting for them and all Binancians today.
Binance has begun recovering affected assets for users and continues to work with law enforcement, issuers, blockchain intelligence firms and industry partners to trace, freeze and recover additional funds.
The company has already publicly committed to cover losses through company funds in the prior announcement.
Binance has already reserved over $6.34B of company funds to cover this incident. $5B of these funds are already held in the exact token assets that were impacted. We are completing the purchase of the remaining amount by buying token assets through market channels and OTC channels. We are doing this to match the format of the remaining token assets and address any asset shortfalls. This step can take longer because some tokens may have low liquidity and OTC settlement also takes time. We will share more progress as soon as we can.
These figures do not include frozen or protected assets, which remain subject to ongoing recovery and verification. Currently, $3bn has been frozen, with thanks to our industry partners. We are working with partners and law enforcement to recover the frozen assets.We will continue to use company resources to cover confirmed shortfall and will provide further verified updates as recovery efforts progress. Ultimately, all user funds will be verified publicly through our Proof of Reserves.
We will weather this storm. Thank you for the support.
Wyoming now runs its own dollar. Its Frontier Stable Token opened to the public on 7 January 2026, backed by cash and Treasury bills worth at least 102% of the tokens outstanding, and the interest above that line goes to the state's school fund. If you've wondered who earns the interest on the dollars inside a stablecoin, a state just answered: its schools.
Some thoughts on a state-issued stablecoin.
The design is the GENIUS Act template, the federal stablecoin law, with a public owner. Franklin Templeton manages the reserves, the token runs on eight public chains including Ethereum and Solana, and you can buy it on Kraken.
What the state gets is the float. Every dollar parked in the token earns the bill rate for Wyoming's schools instead of a private issuer.
If this is real, watch for the next legislature to copy the statute, because it asks every state why the interest on residents' idle dollars goes anywhere else.
TL;DR: Wyoming's Frontier Stable Token, public since 7 January 2026, is backed 102% by cash and bills with the surplus interest paid to its school fund; the private coins' economics with a public beneficiary, and a statute other states will read.
ALT Two tiles: 1st, the first U.S. state to issue its own stablecoin, Wyoming, public since 7 January 2026; and 102%, highlighted, the reserve backing its statute requires, with the interest above that line paid to the state's school fund.
Honored to see $CHAD on Strategy's ($MSTR) Q3 earnings deck, seven weeks in. @saylor and @PhongLe wrote the playbook for this market. Grateful to be part of the chart, and to be building this industry alongside them.
Strategy Q3 2026 Earnings Call teapawt.org/i/broadcasts/1dKrPrXyY…
Hester Peirce (@HesterPeirce) said this at the SEC's tokenization roundtable on 12 May 2025.
Smarter means the asset can settle itself, post itself as collateral and move at any hour. The first assets to get the upgrade were Treasury bills: tokenized Treasury funds now hold $14.9 billion across 117 products.
Ask which of your assets gets the smartphone upgrade next. Stocks are in the queue.
I love seeing a stablecoin get an ordinary, useful job.
Japan had 42.7 million visitors last year.
A tax refund that lands in your wallet before you get home is something a lot of them would use.
teapawt.org/avax/status/2115810973…
ALT One large number, 42.7 million, Japan's international visitor arrivals in 2025, a record, beside a smaller gray comparison, 36.9 million in 2024.
JUST IN: Japan's tax refunds for travelers are coming to Avalanche via JPYC stablecoin
Japan Tax Free, @jpyc_official, and UPBOND are developing a way for international visitors to receive eligible refunds on Avalanche C-Chain, directly to their wallets.
Real-world payments built on Avalanche.
DFDV does not have any exposure to Binance, but wishing my former colleagues at Binance all the best.
Stablecoins have an earnings season too. It's called an attestation, and the interesting part is not the $188 billion headline, it's what the $188 billion is made of.
Some thoughts on reading the document instead of the headline.
I started in equity research at Goldman Sachs, where the job was the 10-Q and its footnotes. The headline was always somebody's summary, and the summary was where the mistakes lived.
Tether's attestation for 30 June, prepared by BDO, lists $187.8 billion of assets against $183.6 billion owed to token holders, a $4.1 billion cushion. The mix is the part worth knowing. Three quarters is Treasury bills and repo, about $141 billion, which turns back into cash within a week. A tenth is gold, 146 tonnes worth $18.8 billion. About 3% is bitcoin, 98,933 coins. The rest is secured loans and other investments.
So a dollar of USDT is backed by about 75 cents of T-bills, 10 cents of gold, 3 cents of bitcoin and 12 cents of other things, plus a 2-cent cushion on top. That is the sentence the headline never gives you. Find it in the next report, and note the date beside it.
TL;DR: Equity research taught me to read the filing before the headline; Tether's June attestation backs each dollar with about 75 cents of T-bills and repo, 10 cents of gold, 3 cents of bitcoin and 12 cents of other assets, with a $4.1 billion cushion over the tokens.
ALT One bar split into what backs a dollar of USDT at 30 June 2026: 75 cents of Treasury bills and repo in red (about $141 billion), 10 cents of gold (146 tonnes, $18.8 billion), 3 cents of bitcoin (98,933 coins, $5.8 billion) and 12 cents of secured loans and other investments, in grey. A note below says a $4.1 billion cushion sits on top, about 2 cents on every dollar. Source: Tether Q2 2026 attestation prepared by BDO; gold and bitcoin values as reported by CoinDesk and FRNT Financial.
J. P. Morgan said this to Congress in December 1912, a year before the Federal Reserve existed.
Character now has a filing. The GENIUS Act requires one-to-one reserves from every permitted issuer, and Wyoming's own stablecoin runs at 102% reserves by statute.
In money, trust was always the product. The difference today is that you can check it yourself.
Measured like a token, the dollar has a 99.4% market share on-chain, and the Treasury Secretary says stablecoins can make it stronger.
Some thoughts on stablecoins and the dollar.
Quick numbers. DefiLlama counts $304 billion of stablecoins today, and $302.5 billion of that is pegged to the dollar. Euro coins add up to about $820 million. In central-bank reserves, the dollar's share is 57%, per the IMF.
So the money moving on blockchains is already almost all dollars. Someone in Buenos Aires or Lagos who wants dollars can hold them on a phone and send them at 3am on a Sunday, and each of those tokens is a dollar someone abroad chose to hold.
The number I'd watch is the euro's share. It's under 0.3% today.
teapawt.org/WatcherGuru/status/211…
ALT A ring filled 99.4% in red: the dollar's share of all stablecoins, $302.5 billion of $304.3 billion.
The Fed held its rate at 3.75 to 4% today, and the average savings account still pays 0.38%.
Some thoughts on today's Fed decision.
The vote at @federalreserve was 10 to 2. The two dissenters, Lisa Cook and Beth Hammack, preferred a quarter-point increase, so nobody in the room voted for a cut.
Quick numbers. A 3-month Treasury bill paid 4.22% at the 27 Oct close (U.S. Treasury). Savings pay 0.38% on the FDIC's 19 Oct table. Americans keep about $10.5 trillion in savings-type accounts, so the difference is worth roughly $400 billion a year.
The bill tracks the Fed's range within days. The average savings rate has moved far less.
If you want a rate closer to the Fed's, the bill is the direct route, and it takes about ten minutes to set up.
TL;DR: The Fed held at 3.75 to 4% by a 10 to 2 vote; bills pay 4.22% and the average savings account pays 0.38%, a gap worth about $400 billion a year.
ALT Dumbbell chart: interest checking 0.07%, savings 0.38% and government money funds 3.70% against the 3-month bill at 4.22%, after the Fed held at 3.75 to 4%.