Written in Singapore on September 4, 2025

In August 2025, global financial cities began to undergo drastic market changes under the impact of the stablecoin wave. The promotion of Genius Act and Project Crypto , combined with the wealth creation examples of Mstr and Circle, broke the balance of interest games in traditional finance. Stablecoins, coin-stock linkage, DAT, RWA and on-chain asset management quickly became hot spots of competition in the new environment.

In essence, the implementation of the Stablecoin Act is the starting point for a comprehensive reform of the global financial chain. The second curve of Crypto's growth will follow the application scenarios of stablecoins and the tokenization of various assets, combined with the flexibility of Crypto finance and the historical experience of professional finance, to form differentiated development under different compliance frameworks in different regions.

1. The essence of the Genius Act is to decentralize the issuance and settlement rights of currency, thereby gaining enhanced currency pricing power.

In a previous article, " The GENIUS Act and On-Chain Shadow Currencies ," I detailed the irreversible decline in the traditional dollar's control and the Genius Act's decision to decentralize issuance and settlement rights in exchange for a larger circulation of the dollar. In fact, within three months of the Genius Act's proposal, the market further demonstrated the foresight of this move. The decentralization of dollar issuance and settlement rights at this stage effectively allows dollar-derived stablecoins to gain wider market application scenarios through the form of shadow currencies, strengthening pricing power more broadly. Currency pricing power is the embodiment of the consensus competitiveness of future on-chain finance. Issuance and settlement rights will gradually fade into a common infrastructure, losing their moat and competitive value.

The future currency war will be a competition for consensus on currency applications, not for authority over currency issuance and settlement. This is why on-chain finance is forcing a fundamental reform of traditional finance. Clearly, this is a concept that many national and regional policies, as well as some traditional financial experts, scholars, and entrepreneurs, have not yet grasped or are struggling to adapt to. In other words, the M² of on-chain currency will gradually lose its original meaning. The over-issuance of large amounts of currency and tokenized assets will be a form of freedom, but this freedom does not necessarily equate to equivalent value. True value lies in the consensus of currency and tokenized assets, reflected in their liquidity, purchasing power, interoperability, community recognition, and other tangible and quantifiable market value feedback.

At this juncture of qualitative change, paradigm shift flexibility is crucial. Many traditional economic definitions, market management methods, and asset management models will undergo changes. For example, while M² loses its original meaning, it may be modified using a liquidity factor as a multiplier to derive the effective circulation value of a currency or asset. Naturally, all monetary and fiscal policies will also need to undergo fundamental changes to adapt to the new approach to on-chain economic governance.

2. Stablecoins have triggered reforms in global financial and asset chain integration by changing the form of currency pricing.

After the Genius Act quietly kicked off this new currency war, countries and regions around the world have been competing to introduce their own stablecoin bills. Although many of these bills are still based on the inertial rules of traditional monetary finance and require time to iterate and adapt, the on-chain reform of the overall financial market has begun.

While the pricing of assets settled in 1 USD and 1 USDC (or other stablecoins) may appear similar, the fundamental differences in their monetary mechanisms significantly alter the financial significance of these assets. This is primarily reflected in the programmability, composability, market liquidity, ecosystem-differentiated liquidity, and the flexibility of financial derivatives.

Recently, when friends with a traditional finance background asked about the characteristics of CICADA Finance's on-chain asset management, I used the metaphor of a "financial motherboard" to illustrate. Various financial asset strategies are very similar to "financial chips" with different algorithms. Through the selection of asset management, they can be plugged in and out of the financial motherboard to form a flexible financial combination. Stablecoins play the role of "financial current" (Note 1) connecting the chips and the motherboard in series.

3. Reforms are rapidly dismantling the long-standing cartel alliances in traditional finance, creating opportunities for profit restructuring amidst the chaos.

From the Genius Act to Project Crypto , stablecoins and on-chain financial reforms have fundamentally subverted the inherent interest model of traditional finance. At other times in history, this would have certainly triggered large-scale conflicts, but this time the transition seems very smooth and acceptable. Is it because modern financial laws have made competition fair or because contemporary institutions are more civilized than in history?

Of course not. The reason is simple: the current global social development curve is too rapid. The additional profits accruing to companies that understand the trend and rapidly transform far outweigh the losses associated with clinging to existing interests and resisting. The financial cartels of the previous phase were quickly broken up and abandoned by these rapidly transforming companies. From Wall Street to New York City, everyone has adopted a (+3, +3) model to enter a new phase of competition. This transition will inevitably lead to a period of chaotic restructuring in the financial market, creating a wealth of trading opportunities for new assets and funds.

Over the past month in the New York market, I've observed significant differences in the degree of cartel formation across different industries. While the financial sector has rapidly transformed under the Genius Act and Project Crypto , many traditional sectors (such as real estate) remain stubbornly entrenched. Due to the cartel's strict control over entry requirements and information flow, the trading environment in many industries remains primitive, and many RWA assets are far from ready for the current tokenization upgrade.

4. Trump successfully grafted his own interests onto the juncture of historical transformation, creating incredible legitimacy.

Worthy of note is President Trump, the man who has driven these rapid developments in crypto. Historically, promoting reform has always been a high-risk, unwelcome undertaking, especially when one's own interests are involved, which only adds fuel to the fire. However, Trump's actions were cleverly timed at a unique historical juncture, achieving incredible legitimacy and correctness. He offset significant negative resistance with the opportunity for profit restructuring brought about by an inevitable industry trend, achieving a unique and unrepeatable effect.

5. Two Directions of Crypto-Stock Linkage: Securitization and Tokenization and Their Market Characteristics

Coin-stock linkage is a key topic for Q3 2025. Essentially, this approach involves two main directions: one is to embed tokenized assets into listed companies, generating a capital premium in the form of stocks; the other is to tokenize stocks, following the development of existing policies, to create a 24/7 stock token market. The former is a process of securitization, typically governed by a country or region's securities regulatory authority; the latter is a process of tokenization, typically governed by a country or region's alternative asset management regulations. Some fall under the banking industry's regulation of currency or payments, while others fall under the regulation of alternative securities.

The securitization process of token-to-equity linkages evolved into a new term in Q3 2025: DAT (Digital Asset Treasury). This is a more flexible and universal process after ETFs, integrating token assets into publicly listed companies to generate a capital premium for their shares. The success of DATs in cases like the first-generation Mstr has created premium multipliers of 1.5x-2x (peaking at nearly 4x), and has become a mainstream wealth creation method in major financial cities like New York and Hong Kong over the past six months. The DAT market, which entered late Q3 and early Q4, differs from the first-generation Mstr-BTC in the following ways: 1) The inclusion of assets has expanded to include non-BTC tokens such as ETH and SOL; 2) Beyond the stock price premium multiplier directly generated by the inclusion of assets, financial instruments are being leveraged to achieve higher capital or monetary multipliers; and 3) Unlike Mstr, which has a benchmark political and economic significance, the practices of small and medium-sized listed companies are mostly purely commercial, making the potential for a Davis double-kill after achieving a premium more significant.

The tokenization process of coin-stock linkage is still in its early stages as of Q3 2025. The main issues are as follows: 1) It's premature for consumer-to-consumer (B2C) scenarios, and the current demand isn't substantial (typically limited to increasing transaction times and avoiding taxes during non-compliant periods). It's still in the early stages of infrastructure development and B2B. 2) It's not user-friendly for small and medium-sized project participants. Due to the difficulty in generating profits caused by issue 1), only established players like Robinhood and Ondo Finance are currently capable of supporting the initial market. 3) The demand for infrastructure development and B2B is relatively hidden and long-term, and independent business models struggle to generate profitability. Achieving overall synergy requires the formation of an industry chain, which will require some time to grow. Many entrants into the market made certain incorrect assumptions about the development of stock tokenization in the early stages. At the current stage, the following points are truly needed or in demand: 1) Implementing compliance paths in different regions; 2) Achieving large-scale issuance of stock tokenized assets through low-cost securities purchase/short lending/holding; 3) Forming a large amount of liquidity providers; 4) Forming leverage multipliers and derivatives markets through financial instruments such as lending; 5) Providing a large number of highly liquid assets with alpha value to the involuted token quantitative strategy market.

In comparison, as of Q3 2025, the securitization process of the cryptocurrency-stock linkage is closer to money than the tokenization process, but the window of opportunity is also shorter; on the contrary, the tokenization process of bonds, stocks and foreign exchange is a long-term development direction, an important step in the asset chain process, and will open up a larger market for strategic quantitative financial assets.

6. Industry Characteristics and Issues of Stablecoins, DATs, Stock Tokenization, RWAs, and On-Chain Asset Management

Stablecoins, DATs, stock tokenization, RWAs, and on-chain asset management can be said to be the five golden flowers of the second curve of crypto growth and asset chain integration. Stablecoins, DATs, and stock tokenization have been discussed above and will not be repeated here.

RWA is an interesting track. It was unpopular last year, but although it has become popular again this year, more problems have emerged, mainly including: 1) Most assets or even platforms that do RWA regard RWA as a fundraising tool, without considering the issues of turnover purchasing power, exit, liquidity, interest generation, market making, and sustainability after the asset issuance; 2) There is no or no consideration of the evaluability of the fair value of RWA assets and the Oracle process; 3) In addition to the fundraising function, there is no economic design and ecological construction for composability and programmability, which is no different from the P2P and Crowd Funding ideas of Web 2.

Over the past few months, we've engaged with numerous RWA partners. In abstract terms, RWAs essentially build a semi-primary market for non-standard assets . This is a complex issue: do not impose on others what you would not have them do to you. For assets that lack sufficient consensus, purchasing power, and liquidity, it's difficult to achieve this through RWAs in one go. The entire asset tokenization process still requires standardization, fair treatment, marketization, and financialization. The most challenging issue for RWA assets is the liquidity of large, medium-term turnover, a challenge faced by structured finance institutions and liquid asset disposal agencies in traditional markets. Effective solutions for this issue remain lacking in the current crypto asset tokenization market.

Compared to real estate, digital collections, and artworks that many people are intuitively interested in, Supply Chain Fi and PayFi are more suitable for RWA asset tokenization at this stage. The characteristics of their underlying liquidity assets support the feasibility of tokenized transaction traffic.

On-chain asset management is a comprehensive approach to categorizing and managing various assets within the context of the stablecoin trend. Essentially, it involves a systematic process for connecting liquid assets (Liquid Assets) with liquid funds (Liquid Funds). From economic model design to platform products, asset screening to asset management operations, it is more complex than TradFi and requires comprehensive actuarial and quantitative expertise. CICADA Finance has rapidly iterated its on-chain asset management capabilities during its second-wave growth over the past six months, pioneering new standards for on-chain asset management. We welcome collaboration and collaboration from diverse assets and ecosystems.

7. Industry and cultural fragmentation after the launch of the second crypto curve

Following the SEC's Project Crypto launch in August, the rapid growth of the second wave of cryptocurrencies has accelerated the further differentiation of the entire crypto market. Markets such as North America, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Africa have begun to show completely different characteristics.

The development of Native DeFi and stablecoin ecology is strongest in New York and the East Coast; RWA and currency-equity linkage have opportunities in global financial cities, but each is affected by the particularity of its own policies, which, combined with the thinking inertia of mainstream market practitioners, presents different interpretations; Africa, South Asia and South America are developing more from the perspective of Supply Chain Fi and PayFi applications. In fact, they are truly mainstream emerging markets. They have not yet been priced in by the Crypto Market, but they have great follow-up power; Southeast Asia has become a base for the subsequent development of the first curve. Centralized exchanges and narrative projects are gathering here to form new purchasing power.

Different social environments in different geographies have led to a fragmented and stratified Crypto market. Global finance is facing financial reforms and disruptive changes in asset pricing methods in different dimensions. Stablecoins are just the first step.

Author: Yang Ge Gary

Date: September 4, 2025

X:https://x.com/gary_yangge

E: gary_yangge@hotmail.com

BW: https://cicada.finance

BX: https://x.com/cicadafinance

Note 1: The concept of financial current is defined in the article " Financial Circuits and the Principles of Web 3 Economic Models ".