Welcome back!

Here’s what I’ve got for you this week:

The old debasement trade was simple: buy gold and wait for the money printer to do its thing. The new version is gold and Bitcoin, which is what happens when an ancient hedge and a digital upstart realise they're actually on the same team.

Now, let’s jump right into this week’s newsletter! 

Click on any underlined heading/hyperlink to learn more.

Global Greenback

The Premier League is the top division of English football, the wealthiest league in the game and, by a distance, the most global. 

Its distinction, however, lies not in raw audience size, but in reach. 

The competition is broadcast to ~200 countries and claims a cumulative seasonal audience in the region of 3.2 billion. The NFL is richer still and commercially supreme, drawing roughly 18 million viewers to an average regular-season game. Yet, that audience is overwhelmingly domestic, and even the Super Bowl, the sport's global showcase, reaches only around 60 million worldwide, the bulk of them American. An NBA Finals decider pulls some 16 million, again mostly at home.

Simply put: the American leagues own America. The Premier League owns the world.

And starting this season, USDC by Circle sits on the front of Chelsea's shirt, across the men's, women's, and academy teams. Chelsea is one of the world's most-supported football clubs, with a global fanbase and a trophy cabinet that spans Premier League titles, the Champions League, and the 2025 FIFA Club World Cup. It is the first time a crypto firm has claimed the principal position on a Premier League kit. Earlier deals, OKX at Manchester City and Kraken at Tottenham, were confined to the sleeve. 

The interesting part is that Circle also owns a euro stablecoin, EURC, and could have leaned European for a London club. It chose USDC anyway. Chelsea and the Premier League do not sell to Europe, they sell to everyone, and Circle wants the dollar in front of every pair of eyes. The irony: the most American asset imaginable, the US dollar, is being marketed globally through the least American of sports: football, or soccer if you will. 

For a decade, crypto bought attention. Circle has bought legitimacy. 

The distinction matters because attention is rented and legitimacy compounds. A stablecoin on the chest of the reigning club world champions wagers on more than relevance: that the dollar's next chapter is digital, and that the world will be watching when it turns.

Public Stablecoin: JPMorgan Chase disclosed that it has no immediate plan to launch a public stablecoin, though it is examining the option as customer demand grows and the regulatory picture evolves. So for now, internal discussions remain at an early stage.

European Stablecoin: Revolut has begun distributing EURR, its first MiCA-compliant euro stablecoin, to customers in Denmark, Poland, and Portugal. The token is issued through Bridge, the stablecoin infrastructure provider acquired by Stripe.

Stablecoin Rails: Isabel Schnabel, a member of the European Central Bank's executive board, has urged central banks to move money onchain, contending that programmable central-bank money could reinforce both monetary policy and settlement infrastructure.

Bitcoin Migration: BlackRock has lowered the minimum for in-kind transfers into its IBIT Bitcoin exchange traded fund to $1mn, a route that has already processed more than $5bn as holders shift Bitcoin out of self custody and into the fund. The move is frequently driven by real-world concerns, ranging from kidnapping to ransom, that lead investors to exchange personal control for an institutional wrapper.

US Entry: Hyperliquid, one of the largest decentralised venues for perpetual futures and a pioneer of pre-IPO perpetuals that track the expected valuation of private companies such as SpaceX before they list, is in advanced talks with Payward, the parent of Kraken, to bring its products to US traders. American users are currently barred from the platform, and no approved domestic framework yet permits retail access.

Tokenised Government: Japan's government and the Bank of Japan are preparing to tokenise government bonds and equities on blockchain infrastructure. The initiative would place one of the world's largest sovereign debt markets onto onchain rails.

And that's a wrap!

You can reach me anytime over on 𝕏 or drop me a line.

Talk soon!

J264G

_{DISCLAIMER
None of this is financial advice. This newsletter is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. Please be careful and do your own research. Lastly, please be advised that we discuss products and services from our partners from which our team members may hold tokens/equity.}