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Gold-backed stablecoins will outcompete USD stablecoins — Max Keiser
Gold-backed stablecoins will outcompete US dollar-pegged alternatives worldwide due to gold’s inflation-hedging properties and minimum volatility, according to Bitcoin (BTC) maximalist Max Keiser.
Keiser argued that gold is more trusted than the US dollar globally, and said governments of foreign nations with an adversarial relationship to the United States would not accept dollar-pegged stablecoins. The BTC maximalist added:
“Russia, China, and Iran are not going to accept a US dollar stablecoin. I predict they will counter the USD stablecoin with a Gold one. China and Russia have a combined 50,000 tonnes of Gold — more than what is reported.”
The potential for gold-backed stablecoins to outcompete dollar-pegged tokens in international markets would upend plans to extend US dollar dominance through stablecoins proposed by US lawmakers.
Source: Max Keiser
Related: Gov’t can realize gains on gold certificates to buy Bitcoin: Bo Hines
Gold-backed stablecoins fulfill the original promise of USD?
Stablecoin issuer Tether launched a gold-backed stablecoin called Alloy (aUSD₮), backed by Tether’s XAU₮ — a token that provides a paper claim to physical gold — in June 2024.
According to PointsVille founder and former VanEck executive Gabor Gurbacs, “Tether Gold is what the dollar used to be before 1971.”
“XAU₮ is up 15.7% year-to-date, while the broad crypto market is in the red. Foundations and businesses should hedge their holdings with XAU₮,” the executive wrote in a March 19 X post.
XAUT is now at all-time highs following a historic rally in the gold market. Source: Gabor Gurbacs
US policymakers have a different idea
United States Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that the Trump administration would focus on using dollar-pegged stablecoins to protect the dollar’s reserve currency status and ensure US dollar hegemony in global financial markets.
Speaking at the March 7 White House Crypto Summit, Bessent indicated that this stablecoin regime would be a top priority for the administration.
Federal Reserve governor Christopher Waller also voiced similar comments and expressed support for using stablecoins to prop up the US dollar before Bessent made the remarks at the summit.
US lawmakers have also introduced several stablecoin bills to establish a comprehensive regulatory framework for tokenized fiat assets, including the Stable Act of 2025 and the GENIUS stablecoin bill.
Magazine: Unstablecoins: Depegging, bank runs and other risks loom
Cryptocurrency exchange Kraken is considering a major capital raise ahead of a potential initial public offering (IPO) early next year, Bloomberg reported on March 24. Citing anonymous sources, Bloomberg said Kraken is exploring a debt package worth anywhere between $200 million and $1 billion. The exchange is reportedly in preliminary talks with Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase about facilitating the transaction. The source reportedly told Bloomberg that the funds would be used to support Kraken’s growth and not for operational expenses. Bloomberg has been reporting about Kraken’s IPO ambitions for the better part of a year. Talks of going public have intensified following the election of US President Donald Trump, with Bloomberg claiming that Kraken’s IPO could come in the first quarter of 2026. Cointelegraph contacted a Kraken representative about the potential debt package and IPO, but they declined to comment. Kraken is one of the world’s largest crypto exchanges, facilitating more than $1.1 billion in trading volume over the past 24 hours, according to CoinMarketCap data. The exchange grew rapidly in 2024, with year-end financial statements showing $1.5 billion in revenue — a gain of 128% compared to 2023. The company’s adjusted earnings reached $380 million for the year. Kraken’s year-end financial statements show significant growth in revenue, funded accounts and assets. Source: Kraken Related: Kraken secures MiFID license to offer derivatives in Europe Kraken is expanding its footprint in the derivatives market with the $1.5 billion acquisition of NinjaTrader, a popular brokerage service specializing in futures contracts. The acquisition is part of the exchange’s broader push into multi-asset services, including equities and payments. NinjaTrader was founded in 2003 and is registered with the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Source: Arjun Sethi The acquisition suggests crypto companies are growing their business with confidence following the election of a pro-crypto Republican administration. As Cointelegraph reported, Kraken was one of several crypto exchanges to be freed from enforcement action by the US Securities and Exchange Commission. A positive regulatory climate may have contributed to Kraken’s decision to resume crypto staking services for US clients after a nearly two-year hiatus. Clients in 37 states can now access staking services across 17 cryptocurrencies, including Ether (ETH) and Solana (SOL). Magazine: Unstablecoins: Depegging, bank runs and other risks loom Decentralized finance (DeFi) trading platform dYdX announced its first-ever token buyback program on March 24, aiming to reinvest in its ecosystem to enhance security and governance. According to the announcement, 25% of the protocol’s net fees will be dedicated to monthly buybacks of its native dYdY (DYDX) token on the open market. Following the announcement, DYDX surged over 10% and was trading at approximately $0.731 at the time of writing, according to CoinGecko. The token has gained more than 21% over the past two weeks. DYDX spikes on buyback news. Source: CoinGecko Related: dYdX explores sale of derivatives trading arm Previously, dYdX distributed 100% of its platform revenue to ecosystem participants. Under the new allocation model, 25% will be used for token buybacks, another 25% will fund its USDC liquidity provision program, MegaVault, 10% will be directed to its treasury, and the remaining 40% will continue as staking rewards. dYdX noted that the current allocation of 25% to token buybacks could increase, with ongoing community discussions potentially pushing this percentage to as high as 100% over time. Related: DeFi market stages a comeback as derivatives surge The platform currently holds a total value locked (TVL) of $279 million, according to DefiLlama. It generated $1.29 million in revenue from fees in February and $1.09 million so far in March. Token buybacks get 25% of revenue, which has been dropping. Source: DefiLlama The DeFi industry commonly references the DeFi summer of 2020 as a benchmark, characterized by rapid user growth driven by yield farming and decentralized applications. In a recent interview with Cointelegraph, dYdX Foundation CEO Charles d’Haussy predicted that the next significant DeFi boom would occur shortly after summer, potentially beginning as early as September and lasting “months and months.” dYdX existed in mid-2020 primarily as a DeFi platform for spot trading, lending, borrowing, and margin trading. Its popularity popped in 2021 following the launch of its layer-2 perpetual futures exchange and the introduction of its native DYDX token. In its 2024 ecosystem report, dYdX projected that the decentralized derivatives market would expand to $3.48 trillion by 2025, up from $1.5 trillion in derivatives volume processed by decentralized exchanges (DEXs) in 2024. Magazine: Memecoins are ded — But Solana ‘100x better’ despite revenue plunge An idea to tokenize or track US gold reserves to make their movements transparent on a blockchain won’t work in the same trustless way as Bitcoin does, but doing so could help the cryptocurrency, says a research analyst. Greg Cipolaro, global head of research at New York Digital Investment Group (NYDIG), said in a March 21 note that Trump administration officials, including Elon Musk, have floated using a blockchain to track US gold and government spending — an idea supported by crypto executives. “Here’s the thing about blockchains. They’re not very smart,” Cipolaro said. “They’re limited in the information they convey. For example, Bitcoin has no idea what the price of Bitcoin is or even the current time.” He said the tokenization or tracking of gold reserves on a blockchain could help with audits and transparency but would still “rely on trust and coordination with central entities” compared to Bitcoin, which “was designed to explicitly remove centralized entities.” Cipolaro added that tokenization and blockchain-tracking ideas aren’t competitive with the crypto market and might help to increase awareness of it, which “could ultimately benefit Bitcoin.” It comes amid calls from some for an independent audit of the United States’ gold reserves. Republican Senator Rand Paul last month seemingly called on Musk’s federal cost-cutting project to investigate the US government’s gold stash at the Bullion Depository in Fort Knox, which the US Mint says holds around half of the country’s gold. The Treasury audits and publishes reports on gold holdings at Fort Knox and other locations across the US every month, but President Donald Trump and Musk have both parrotted decades-old conspiracy theories about the gold and questioned whether it’s all still there. Source: Elon Musk Related: Who’s running in Trump’s race to make US a ‘Bitcoin superpower?’ They have both pushed for an independent audit of Fort Knox. The vaults were last opened in 2017 for Trump’s then-Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin to view the gold and before that, in 1974 to a congressional delegation and a group of journalists. The Mint’s website says that no gold has gone in or out of Fort Knox “for many years,” except for “very small quantities” used to test the gold’s purity during audits. Trump’s Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, said last month that Fort Knox is audited every year and “all the gold is present and accounted for.” Magazine: Elon Musk’s plan to run government on blockchain faces uphill battle Arthur Hayes, Murad’s Prediction For Meme Coins, AI & DeFi Coins For 2025 Expert Sees Bitcoin Dipping To $50K While Bullish Signs Persist Aptos Leverages Chainlink To Enhance Scalability and Data Access Bitcoin Could Rally to $80,000 on the Eve of US Elections Institutional Investors Go All In on Crypto as 57% Plan to Boost Allocations as Bull Run Heats Up, Sygnum Survey Reveals Sonic Now ‘Golden Standard’ of Layer-2s After Scaling Transactions to 16,000+ per Second, Says Andre Cronje Crypto’s Big Trump Gamble Is Risky Ripple-SEC Case Ends, But These 3 Rivals Could Jump 500x
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Kraken’s latest acquisition
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New dYdX distribution model
“DeFi festival” waits for summer to end
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