Banking and Blockchain
The repo market is often described as the beating heart of modern finance, a vast, intricate network that keeps liquidity circulating through the arteries of the global financial system. Every day, trillions of dollars of securities are exchanged for cash, with agreements to reverse the transaction at a later date.
Central Banks and CBDCs
A few days ago, Christine Lagarde made waves at a conference in Lisbon when she expressed, let’s say, a certain skepticism about the benefits of stablecoins, arguing that they would in effect lead once again to the “privatization of money”. At first glance - or if we look at
The world is not witnessing a sudden collapse of the dollar-based system. It is instead drifting—methodically, almost imperceptibly—into a fragmented monetary environment. This is not a revolution, but a shift in structural architecture. The old model, defined by a singular reserve currency, unified capital pools, and centralised liquidity
At its core, the emerging DeFi lending market is built around a simple but powerful mechanism: * Depositors in DeFi provide USD liquidity. * Borrowers use that liquidity to fund leveraged crypto basis trades — typically the difference between perpetual swaps and spot prices across exchanges. This means that DeFi borrow rates are
By Alexandru-Ștefan Goghie Published in: Competition & Change, Vol. 28(5), 2024 I. Introduction: The Paradox of Blockchain and Traditional Power This paper addresses a compelling paradox in the financial world: while blockchain technology emerged as a challenge to traditional centralized finance—particularly banks—it is now being integrated into
In the previous articles "Can new Settlement Structure save our financial system?", "Collateral + Blockchain = Stability" and "Changing the structural integrity of global interbank finance" we explored the systemic frictions in the settlement layer of the repo market, its critical weak point - rehypothecation, and
In the previous articles "Can new Settlement Structure save our financial system?" and "Collateral + Blockchain = Stability" we explored the systemic frictions in the settlement layer of the repo market and its critical weak point - rehypothecation. In this last article we will explore the problem of
In the previous article "Can new Settlement Structure save our financial system?" we explored the systemic frictions in the settlement layer of the repo market and how these can be addressed through integration of blockchain and tokenization solutions. In this article I will touch on another critical weak
Settlement in the repo market, despite its critical role in global liquidity, operates on aging infrastructure built around T+1 or T+2 conventions, meaning actual delivery of cash and securities occurs up to two days after trade agreement. This latency isn’t merely operational—it constitutes embedded credit exposure.
Predictability of the Majority As external uncertainty rises, the behaviour of firms and their stakeholders simplifies. The worse they are at decoding the signals coming from the environment, the narrower and more predictable their behavioural repertoire becomes. This fallback to default settings lets the actors of a business ecosystem keep
The U.S. dollar’s centrality to the global financial system is rooted not only in its function as the dominant reserve and transaction currency, but also in the infrastructure that enables its movement—namely, the interconnected systems of clearing and settlement. These systems, primarily composed of Fedwire, CHIPS, and
The Trans-European Automated Real-time Gross Settlement Express Transfer system, more commonly referred to as TARGET, represents the core of the Eurozone’s payment infrastructure. As the real-time gross settlement (RTGS) mechanism for the euro, it plays a pivotal role in enabling cross-border payments within the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU)
The global monetary system remains one of the least understood yet most consequential structures shaping modern economic life. Despite its centrality to financial stability, international trade, and monetary policy, the mechanisms through which money is created, distributed, and recycled across borders remain obscured by institutional complexity and academic neglect. This
The rise and fall of the shadow banking system—as chronicled by Zoltan Pozsar in his seminal 2008 article—offers a crucial case study in how modern financial innovation evolved under faulty assumptions, and ultimately destabilized the global monetary order. From a systemic perspective, the story is not merely one
The global trading system stands at a crossroads, as outlined in Stephen Miran’s study, A User’s Guide to Restructuring the Global Trading System. The study suggests that the persistent overvaluation of the U.S. dollar, driven by the inelastic demand for reserve assets, is at the heart of
