Is Xiao Hei suggesting that in a high-debt era, rate hikes might actually be a disguised way of handing out money? The higher the U.S. debt, the weaker the tightening effect of rate hikes might be. In fact, it could even stimulate financial assets through interest income channels. When interest rates go up, the Fed pays higher interest on bank reserves, and short-term Treasury holders also earn more interest. After this rate hike, the IORB has already been raised from 3.65% to 3.90%. Sure, the cost of money has gone up, but at the same time, the public sector is paying more interest to banks and bondholders. And this money can easily flow back into stocks, bonds, and crypto assets like $BTC and $ETH. The key point is that the banking system itself is still expanding its balance sheet. According to the Fed's H.8 data, U.S. commercial bank credit has grown from about $18.67 trillion in August 2025 to about $19.82 trillion this August. Loans and lease assets have also increased during the same period, from around $13.04 trillion to nearly $14 trillion. The central bank may not be printing money like crazy, but banks are still creating credit. So "rate hikes" and "money supply growth" can absolutely happen at the same time. This leads to a paradox in the high-debt era: rate hikes punish borrowers while handing out more interest to those holding cash, Treasuries, and reserves. As long as this flow of funds is large enough, the tightening effect could be partially offset. #Finance #Crypto #RateHikes #DebtEra #MacroEconomics