On May 31, 2026, on the same stage at the Dubrovnik Economic Conference, Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller and Bank of England MPC member Megan Greene presented two nearly opposing future paths: Greene bluntly stated that within five years, tokenized deposits are likely to replace the currently popular form of crypto dollars, leading people to wonder why there was such heated discussion about crypto dollars in the first place; Waller, on the other hand, emphasized that the growth in the use of crypto dollars backed by the US dollar could amplify the global influence of US monetary policy, describing it as “just a payment tool, with nothing evil or dangerous about it,” which could also significantly lower the costs of cross-border payments. Off stage, there is a crypto dollar pool whose issuance growth has shifted from high-speed surges to a more stable pace, long serving as the settlement and pricing benchmark for DeFi and centralized exchanges and as the dollar base upon which price discovery for assets like BTC and ETH relies; outside the stage, the market is anxiously waiting for the US non-farm employment and unemployment data, as well as speculating about the prospects of US-Iran ceasefire negotiations and the opening of the Strait of Hormuz, where oil prices and inflation expectations once again influence interest rate paths and risk asset valuations. It is precisely at this point of slowing marginal demand for crypto dollars compounded with macro uncertainties that the two major central bank representatives provide starkly different institutional visions regarding “on-chain dollars”: whether to continue allowing crypto dollars to serve as a new channel for US monetary export, or to gradually redirect liquidity back to tokenized deposits recorded on commercial banks' balance sheets. For the crypto market, this is not merely an academic debate on payment technology, but a direct multiple-choice question pointing to funding preferences: Will central bank division make funds more willing to stay within the high liquidity “dollar shadow layer” of crypto dollars, or will they be drawn away by the more regulated and sheltered tokenized deposits, thereby changing the dollar basis and risk premium structure that BTC, ETH, and other on-chain risk assets rely upon.

Standoff on the Same Stage: Waller Bets on Crypto Dollars

On the same stage in Dubrovnik, Waller rebranded crypto dollars as an extremely “harmless” tool. He emphasized that the growth in the use of crypto dollars backed by the dollar could enhance the global influence of US monetary policy; in his narrative, it is merely a payment tool to reduce payment costs, “with nothing evil or dangerous”. More controversially, he pointed out that other countries could “import” the US monetary environment through crypto dollars. This public statement from the Federal Reserve, which has generally been viewed as cautious towards crypto assets, effectively labels crypto dollars as “qualified payment infrastructure,” thereby alleviating a lingering concern at trading desks: whether the US would directly view the dollar-denominated on-chain settlement layer as a systemic threat and tighten it forcibly.

This rhetorical “relaxation” directly impacts the risk preference of dollar-denominated on-chain funds. Crypto dollars have long been the main unit of valuation and settlement for DeFi and centralized exchanges, serving as the infrastructure for price discovery of assets like BTC and ETH; when a Federal Reserve governor publicly admits that it helps amplify the spillover effects of US monetary policy, institutions would be more inclined to view it as an extended dollar layer rather than a gray area that could be cut off at any moment. Under this narrative, “importing the US monetary environment through crypto dollars” means a new option for emerging markets and offshore dollar demand: not to bypass the dollar, but rather to more deeply tie themselves to the Federal Reserve's interest rate cycle and liquidity conditions. The larger the on-chain dollar pool, the more abundant the liquidity for assets like BTC and ETH in terms of leverage, hedging, and carry trade structures; however, their risk premiums would be more directly anchored to US employment data, inflation expectations, and interest rate paths. This repricing of Waller's position is essentially a bet that the future on-chain dollar cycle will be more in sync with the monetary environment in Washington.

Greene Bets on Tokenized Deposits Route

In contrast to Waller's view of on-chain dollars as a tool to expand the Federal Reserve's influence, Greene effectively provided another timeline on site: she openly judged that the demand and enthusiasm for crypto dollars “may soon fade,” with the only survivors being tokenized deposits issued by banks and recorded on balance sheets. She even pulled the timeline quite short—about five years later, people might wonder why so much effort was spent discussing crypto dollars in the first place. In the Bank of England's consistent thinking, any innovation related to “bank liabilities” is more likely to be absorbed into existing regulatory frameworks rather than left in the shadows; tokenized deposits fit this narrative perfectly: they are formally programmable “tokens” on-chain but essentially remain liabilities of commercial banks, constrained by capital requirements, liquidity regulations, and deposit insurance. For monetary authorities, this means that interest rate adjustments and macroprudential tools can still transmit through the traditional channel of “central bank—bank—depositors” to on-chain, rather than forming a parallel dollar system beyond regulatory oversight like crypto dollars.

If this route is adopted by more central banks and regulators, the DeFi and trading structures built around crypto dollars will no longer just be a technical issue of “dollar spillover,” but will be forced to redraw lines between the banking system and on-chain market. The reason why crypto dollars have become the core benchmark for price discovery of BTC and ETH is that their issuers are often outside the traditional banking system, providing flexible dollar credit expansion for exchanges and DeFi pools; once mainstream policies lean toward tokenized deposits, this flexibility would be constrained by banks' balance sheets and risk weights, with on-chain dollar interest rates more likely to closely follow local monetary policy rather than being determined purely by crypto supply and demand. For commercial banks, this presents an opportunity to reframe crypto platforms from “competitors” back to “distributors,” with on-chain wallets and exchanges resembling the front-end distribution of bank liabilities, potentially being required to integrate KYC, AML, and local currency regulations; for risk assets like BTC and ETH, future leverage, carry trades, and derivative structures are likely to be split into two types of liquidity pools: one continuing around crypto dollars, pursuing higher risk premiums under regulatory pressure and slowing growth; the other migrating to compliance pools dominated by tokenized deposits, directly anchoring interest rates, leverage limits, and liquidity discounts to the monetary policy paths of central banks.

Stablecoins as a Channel for US Monetary Export

At the Dubrovnik conference, Waller defined crypto dollars as “just a payment tool,” but this statement truly points to a new shell for the internationalization of the dollar: beyond the traditional offshore dollar system, a dollar channel has emerged mediated by on-chain contracts and exchange accounts. Crypto dollars have long been the mainstream unit of valuation for DeFi and centralized exchanges, with price discovery for BTC and ETH heavily relying on these dollar trading pairs; when their usage expansion is publicly seen by a Federal Reserve governor as a tool to “enhance the global influence of US monetary policy,” it effectively stamps an official functionality label on this offshore system. Despite claims from a single source that its total issuance has slowed in growth in recent months, with a still-large stock, every fluctuation in US non-farm data, inflation expectations, and interest rate path anticipations will quickly rebalance through crypto dollar positions among global crypto accounts, replaying a dollar cycle that originally operated only in the interbank market onto blockchain addresses.

For emerging markets, the most direct change brought by this new channel is that residents and institutions' asset allocation is no longer merely a choice between “local currency deposits vs. offline dollar deposits,” but now includes a layer of real-time switches between “local currency assets vs. on-chain crypto dollars.” When there are expectations of local currency depreciation, capital account constraints, or heightened geopolitical risks, on-chain crypto dollars become a safe haven that bypasses the local banking system, shifting the structure of on-chain funds from local trading pairs to dollar-denominated pools, weakening the liquidity and pricing power of local currency assets. For BTC and ETH, once crypto dollars are viewed by the market as tools for US policy export, their risk premium and regulatory premium will be rewritten: on one hand, holding crypto dollars becomes an on-chain dollar asset that bets on the Federal Reserve's path, with lowered risk preferences leading funds to remain in crypto dollars rather than sinking into BTC and ETH; on the other hand, if regulators view this system as an “extended off-balance sheet dollar bank,” stricter compliance requirements will raise the compliance costs of the entire crypto dollar pool, embedding the “dollar liquidity discount” of BTC and ETH into valuations, thus determining whether they will be treated as high-beta dollar assets or forced to retreat to purely high-volatility risk commodities in the next round of the dollar cycle.

Macro Warfare: Non-Farm Payroll and US-Iran Negotiations

In the previous section, crypto dollars were examined in the context of the dichotomy between “high-beta dollar assets” and “pure risk commodities,” but what truly determines which label they are affixed to is not just regulatory attitudes, but the two ongoing macro wars: one being the imminent release of US non-farm payroll and unemployment data, and the other being the US-Iran ceasefire and Strait of Hormuz negotiations, which a single source claims have entered a critical stage. If this week’s non-farm data reaffirms labor market resilience and strengthens expectations of “higher rates for longer,” the front end of the dollar interest rate curve will be forced to rise or extend the duration at high levels; for crypto dollars, this presents a scenario where their yield-bearing asset properties are reactivated—USDT, USDC, and others, serving as tools for holding dollar substitutes, will see their dollar spread trades on-chain and off-market regain meaning: dollar funds can switch between banks' liability sides, money market instruments, and crypto dollar pools in search of higher risk-free or quasi risk-free returns, making the opportunity cost of holding BTC and ETH more apparent; as risk preferences slightly recede, funds are more likely to remain in crypto dollars rather than continue descending into highly volatile tokens.

On the other side, the uncertainty of US-Iran negotiations will directly layer the fluctuations of oil prices and inflation expectations onto this interest rate path. Trump claimed to the media that the agreement was “close to being finalized,” demanding Iran give up its nuclear capabilities and open the Strait of Hormuz, whereas Iran denied that it had approved the final text, and the US Secretary of Defense sent signals that “military action is prepared should negotiations fail” (all according to a single source); this means the market must simultaneously price for both downward oil price movements (if a deal is reached) and re-inflation shocks (if talks collapse). Oil prices and US inflation expectations have historically been key variables influencing interest rate paths and risk asset valuations: if a ceasefire and opening of shipping lanes is realized, oil prices falling would lower inflation expectations, alleviating pressures for “higher rates for longer,” benefiting risk assets overall, and BTC and ETH, as part of a global basket of risk assets, might see their risk premiums compressed; however, if negotiations fracture and oil prices rise again, inflation would rear its head once more, putting the market in a position to face prolonged high rates and potential geopolitical shocks, at which point crypto assets might again be partially restructured into “geopolitical risk hedging tools”—on one hand, crypto dollars could be viewed as a supplementary channel for safe-haven dollars, absorbing overseas demand for dollar assets, while on the other hand, BTC and ETH, due to their risk-reducing properties, might gain an additional hedging premium in extreme scenarios, allowing this macro warfare of non-farm payroll data and US-Iran negotiations to directly project onto risk pricing for the crypto dollar pool and mainstream tokens.

Stablecoin Trading in a Five-Year Window

The split within central banks over crypto dollars and tokenized deposits has effectively nailed down a timeline of roughly five years ahead: Greene hints that the current form of crypto dollars may only be a transitional product, with the discourse potentially shifting to bank-issued tokenized deposits in five years; while Waller sees it as a new conduit for the spillover of US monetary policy, hoping it continues to expand in the global payment system. For traders, this presents a race of path games and regulatory pricing: on one side, the issuance curve of crypto dollars has shifted from high-speed surges to a steady state, and its marginal increment as a “tool for dollar export” may begin to be questioned; on the other side are tokenized deposits recorded on bank balance sheets, which could form potential crowding out for dollar liquidity pools in DeFi owing to regulatory advantages and compliance narratives. The result is that the on-chain dollar liquidity that BTC and ETH rely on might enjoy inertia as “still the core valuation unit” over the next five years, while being forced to relinquish margin space for bank-associated tokenized assets; their risk premiums will respond more sensitively to changes in US non-farm payroll and unemployment data, interest rate expectations, and changes in oil prices and inflation expectations stemming from US-Iran negotiations; the variables to be continuously monitored during this window period will include whether the issuance curve for crypto dollars rises again or continues to stabilize, minor adjustments in the wording of regulatory documents regarding these two types of instruments, the speed at which various countries implement pilot tokenized deposits, as well as the migration of funds' risk preferences between “on-chain dollars—bank tokenized deposits—BTC/ETH” amidst geopolitical conflicts and swings in US macro data.

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