🥛 Tether collapse theory gains steam 🤔

GM. This is Milk Road, the ‘noise-cancelling headphones’ of crypto newsletters.

Here’s what we got for you today:

✍️ Is Tether in trouble?
✍️ $11T in capital opens to crypto
🎙️ The Milk Road Show: Retail Sells, Institutions Buy: The Biggest Misread of This Cycle w/ Sid Powell
🍪 Sony moves onchain

DTFs (Decentralized Token Folios) on Reserve are indices that bundle multiple crypto assets into a single token. Read more about DTFs here.

Prices as of 2:00 PM ET. Trade today with Milk Road Swap.

THE ‘TETHER WILL COLLAPSE’ THEORY IS PICKING UP STEAM (AGAIN) 🚂

Q: What’s the common thread here?

Two dudes expressing the value of one another’s friendship, without using insults to soften their shared sense of vulnerability…
Our General Manager, Tyler, wearing a beret to our Monday morning all-hands, without anyone saying anything…
Tether experiencing a bank run so intense that it collapses…

A: They all fall under the category of “Possible. But not likely”.

Today, we’re covering that last point – a potential Tether collapse.

Here’s what you need to know:

1/ Tether’s solvency has recently been questioned

Tether just released a breakdown of its assets, and cash/cash equivalents only made up 77% of its balance sheet.

(Which pales in comparison to other major stablecoins, whose balance sheets are made up of 100% cash equivalents.)

Source: @CryptoHayes

2/ The remaining 23% is made up of volatile assets

See: Gold, Bitcoin, corporate debt, loans, and ‘other’ investments. All things that could lose value and/or cause issues in the event of a market crash.

The fear being: if market dumps and a whole bunch of users try to convert their USDT into fiat cash – Tether may not be able to meet the demand.

(And USDT could lose its $1 peg – à la Terra Luna’s UST 👇.)

Source: TradingView

3/ Here’s a counterweight to that fear…

Sure, seeing a market event that results in more than 77% of the USDT supply being redeemed in quick succession is possible…

But not likely.

Tether is highly profitable, has a bunch of other investments not listed on the balance sheet above (think: BTC mining, AI data centers, farmland), and is a sticky product (meaning the threat of a mass exodus is softened).

Ok, next question: why?

Why would Tether take on this increased risk?

Tether makes most of its money from holding government debt (aka: Treasury Bills) – they buy Uncle Sam’s debt and earn interest on it (~$4.5B per year with their current holdings).

But as the Fed lowers rates, the yield on these Treasury Bills will go down, while other (traditionally riskier) assets like gold & crypto will likely go up.

That’s the bet Tether appears to be making. Move out of Treasury Bills → buy Gold, BTC, etc. → make profits as rates lower.

Source: @CryptoHayes

…with all that said – here’s where we stand:

The risk Tether is taking on here is unnecessary (they don’t need to buy BTC and Gold)
This risk benefits Tether, not their holders (you won’t earn extra yield if the bet pays off)
There’re lower risk stablecoins available – so if you don’t like this risk profile, don’t hold USDT (we don’t)

P.S. Here’s which stablecoins we plan to park our profits in this cycle.

THE FRUIT SALAD OF CRYPTO

What’s easier?

Buying 5 fruits, washing/chopping them, or grabbing a ready-made fruit salad?

Well, Reserve is basically building the fruit salad of crypto.

DTFs (Decentralized Token Folios) on Reserve are indices that bundle multiple crypto assets into a single token.

Here’s why Reserve is catching our eye:

Backed by Sam Altman & Peter Thiel
Partnered with Bloomberg, CoinDesk and CoinMarketCap
Just launched CMC20, the crypto version of the S&P 500

No more managing complex portfolios, just buy DTFs & chill.

$11T WORTH OF CAPITAL JUST OPENED UP TO CRYPTO 💰

Well, well, well…

Look who changed their tune:

Source: @gaborgurbacs

If you’re posing questions like:

Who’s Vanguard?
Why does this matter?
Which crypto assets will benefit from this?
Is this rash contagious – or does it look safe to you?

Lemme answer each one real quick…

Who are they? Vanguard is the world's largest provider of mutual funds and the second-largest provider of exchange-traded funds (ETFs).

(If you have a retirement account, you probably own one of Vanguard’s funds.)

Why does this matter? Vanguard has ~$11T worth of assets under management – and now their clients (who own all that money) can put a portion of it into crypto ETFs if they choose.

(And many likely will – Vanguard changed their tune because their customers demanded it.)

Which crypto assets will benefit? Any crypto token with a U.S.-based ETF stands to benefit from this change (think: BTC, ETH, SOL, XRP, etc.).

Is this rash contagious? No idea, but we’re going to avoid shaking your hand for the moment. (How about a COVID-era-style elbow bump instead?)

The takeaway:

An $11T pile of cash just got the green light to move into crypto.

It’s likely that only a small chunk of it will make the jump – but even a 1% allocation = $110B migrating to crypto.

DON'T MISS THIS (SERIOUSLY, FINAL CALL)

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