A Very Stablecoin Genius 🧠
Trump team touts new token
In this week’s edition of The Context, we talk Trump’s stablecoin, the tokenization of everything, and why Bitcoin miners must innovate.
[World…coin? 🌎]
Donald Trump-backed DeFi project World Liberty Financial announced plans for a US dollar stablecoin. Meanwhile, Trump Media said it would partner with Crypto.com to launch crypto exchange-traded funds (ETFs).
What Media Said 🧑💻:
Stablecoins, which are backed 1:1 by a reserve of cash or government bonds and provide shelter for traders weathering crypto price fluctuations, are “big business,” wrote Ben Weiss (Fortune). Issue a stablecoin and sit back as you collect 5% interest for holding treasury notes; top stablecoin Tether raked in $13B in profit last year with just 100 employees.
As for the ETFs, which Trump Media wants globally available, Singapore-based Crypto.com and U.S. affiliate Foris Capital will help bring them to market, wrote MacKenzie Sigalos (CNBC). They “include a unique basket of digital assets like bitcoin and cronos (Crypto.com’s native token), alongside traditional securities spanning industries such as energy.”
First there were Donald and Melania memecoins, then came the WLFI token for his DeFi platform, and now a stablecoin, noted David Yaffe-Bellany (New York Times). “Mr. Trump’s aggressive forays into the crypto market have come at the same time that his administration eases enforcement of crypto companies and rolls back regulations. His efforts to profit from an industry that he oversees amount to an enormous conflict of interest.”
PR Perspective 🔎:
With the Trump administration firmly in control of regulation, these announcements strategically position World Liberty Financial as a leader in regulated digital assets. The SEC, which has been stripped of Democrat commissioners, can tip the scales toward Trump’s products—or risk his wrath.
[Token representation 🪙]
A handful of traditional finance firms—and several crypto firms—announced plans to tokenize assets.
What Media Said 🧑💻:
Tokenization refers to “taking financial assets that exist ‘off chain,’ like paper bonds or stocks, and recording their existence ‘on chain,’ or on a blockchain,” explained Ben Weiss (Fortune). BlackRock, which manages more assets than any other firm, for instance, is adding a money market fund to Solana.
CoinDesk is keeping track of all the deals in this hot sector: China Pacific Insurance is putting a money market fund onchain; derivatives trading firm CME group is using Google Cloud to look into tokenization; a Singapore index fund is putting Apple, Tesla, and Microsoft stocks onchain; and Abu Dhabi and Chainlink are collaborating on a tokenization framework.
This has been a long time coming, wrote Digital Asset CEO Yuval Rooz for the World Economic Forum. Putting real-world assets onchain is a way of “enhancing efficiency” and making markets more liquid because blockchains run 24/7. It also allows for collateral to move quickly and transactions to settle instantly.
PR Perspective 🔎:
The tokenization of real-world assets is shifting from concept to infrastructure—but regulatory clarity will be essential to keep the momentum going.
[Mine your own business ⚒️]
A year after the Bitcoin halving, which cut block rewards to miners by 50%, BTC’s hashprice—a measure of mining profitability—remains flat. But that’s also led to innovation and competition.
What Media Said 🧑💻:
“Mining firms have been struggling,” wrote Vince Quill (Cointelegraph). Transaction fees are going down, there’s more competition, and everyone is worried about a US-Canada trade war. If Canada puts tariffs on energy exports, the pressure will grow.
But Pakistan, which has electricity to spare, eyes an opportunity. Miners typically spend most of their earnings on electricity, noted Khaleeq Kiani (DAWN). According to his sources, the government is “working on special electricity tariffs to attract crypto mining and blockchain-based data centres.”
Electricity is also cheap in Zambia, where an enterprising miner connects to the Zambezi hydro-electric power plant and shares revenue with the energy company, reported Joe Tidy (BBC).
PR Perspective 🔎:
Pakistan and Zambia are counternarratives to the criticism that Bitcoin wastes energy. When addressing environmental concerns, pointing to real-world examples where mining supports sustainable development is crucial, as the industry's future depends on effectively communicating these complex energy economics to policymakers and the public alike.
[Tweet of The Week]
Credit - @lukedelphi
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The usual disclaimer: This newsletter collates the main themes and headlines of the week in DeFi/crypto/metaverse/Web3/NFT land and tries to provide unbiased context. It's aimed at anyone who wants to keep an eye on the space. It's put together by a team at YAP and doesn't contain any promotion of our clients (if one is mentioned, we'll flag that).
The team: Founder Samantha Yap and consulting editor Jeff Benson, Andrew Wickerson, Nathalie Larrea, Meghna Dembla, Samvidha Sharma, Trisha Goswami and Shajar Qureshi. Your feedback is, as always, welcome. Ping us at thecontext@yapglobal.com. Old newsletters can be found here.
This newsletter is prepared by YAP Global, an international PR Consultancy focusing on helping cryptocurrency, Decentralised Finance (DeFi) and brands through impactful storytelling. Find out more about us here.