Global Stablecoin Strategic Research Report: From Dollar Hegemony to Financial Operating Systems

Abstract

Stablecoins have evolved from “crypto-native settlement tokens” to “the infrastructure for global digital dollarization.” Over the past two years, the total market capitalization of global stablecoins has surged from about $120 billion to a range of $290-300 billion, reaching an all-time high; on-chain cross-border settlement and fund transfer have become the strongest real-world use cases, while the demand for “currency substitution” in emerging markets provides a long-term structural tailwind. The United States has anchored the federal framework for stablecoins through the passage of the GENIUS Act, creating a triangular resonance of “rules-supply-demand” with the expansion of dollar-pegged stablecoins; major economies such as the EU, Hong Kong, and Japan have also provided their own regulatory and industrialization pathways. Meanwhile, the structural concentration of “excessive dollarization,” the interest rate constraints of reserve assets and operational incentives, and the potential “crowding out effect” of CBDC (central bank digital currency) form the core of the next stage of policy and business competition.

1. Overview of the Stablecoin Track

From the perspective of scale and structure, stablecoins are experiencing a threefold inflection point of “quantity-price-usage.”

The first aspect is the level of “quantity”: Since the third quarter of 2025, multiple authoritative and industry media have almost simultaneously provided observations in the range of “close to/first breakthrough of 300 billion USD,” while the industry association AFME on the capital market side anchored it more cautiously at 286 billion USD in September. This difference mainly stems from the varying statistical windows and inclusion criteria, but the direction of “returning to and refreshing historical highs” is no longer in dispute. Furthermore, AFME pointed out that the proportion of dollar-denominated stablecoins reached 99.5%, pushing the structural certainty of “unipolar dollarization” to a historical peak. At the same time, FN London, under the Financial Times, approached from the perspective of issuance patterns, presenting a long-term encirclement of USDT and USDC as a dual oligopoly in market share and liquidity, with their combined share maintaining in the range of 70-80% at different measurements/time points, reinforcing the anchoring power of dollar stablecoins on the on-chain capital curve and pricing system.

The second aspect is the aspect of 'use': cross-border settlement/remittance and B2B fund transfers have become the strongest engines for real-world adoption. Morgan Stanley Investment Management disclosed that the cross-border stablecoin payment scale in Turkey alone will exceed $63 billion in 2024, while countries like India, Nigeria, and Indonesia have all entered the high adoption country list. This demand is not a 'circular economy within the crypto space', but a systematic alternative to traditional cross-border financial friction and uncertainty. Furthermore, Visa's latest white paper extends the technical scope of stablecoins from 'payments' to 'cross-border credit/on-chain credit infrastructure', emphasizing that under the combination of programmable cash and smart contracts, global lending will usher in automation, low friction, and high verifiability throughout the entire lifecycle of 'matching—contract signing—performance—settlement'. This means that the marginal value of stablecoins will leap from 'reducing cross-border payment costs' to 'rewriting the cross-border credit production function'.

The third aspect is the level of “price” (i.e., efficiency and financial conditions): Ethereum L2 (such as Base) and high-performance public chains (such as Solana) create a “last mile” settlement network with lower latency and lower costs, combined with compliant RWA and tokenized short-term treasury asset pools, allowing stablecoins to be not only “transferable dollars” but also “dollars that can be re-collateralized and can enter funding curves,” thus reducing the radius of capital turnover and increasing the efficiency of turnover per unit time.

The above threefold increase in volume has jointly driven a paradigm shift from cyclical rebounds to structural penetration: “thickening” market capitalization, “strengthening” the dollar anchor, and “deepening” scenarios. This has upgraded stablecoins from “matching intermediaries” to “operating capital and credit generation bases” through higher capital reuse rates. Along this curve, short-term public sentiment or individual case events (such as the recent accidental over-minting during internal transfers of certain stablecoins quickly rolling back) serve more as a pressure test for “risk management and audit visualization,” without altering the main trend: a historical high at the total level, dollar extremization at the structural level, and the extension of use from “payments” to “credit” at the functional level.

In terms of driving force, the demand side and supply side have formed a double curve overlay of 'real rigid demand × rule dividends', which has reinforced the aforementioned threefold increase.

The demand side primarily comes from the “currency substitution” necessity in emerging markets. Against the backdrop of high inflation and significant depreciation, the spontaneous adoption of on-chain US dollars as “hard currency” and a settlement medium has become increasingly evident. Joint observations by Morgan Stanley and Chainalysis show that bottom-up cross-border payments/remittances are the fastest-growing penetration point for stablecoins, exhibiting typical counter-cyclical characteristics, meaning “the more turbulent, the greater the volume.” Secondly, the demand side stems from the operational capital efficiency constraints of globalized enterprises: cross-border e-commerce, foreign trade, overseas platforms, and the developer economy all require T+0/minute-level receipt and low payment refusal certainty. Therefore, stablecoins have become the “second track substituting for the SWIFT/agent bank network,” consistently driving down the “last mile” cost under the technological dividend of multi-chain parallelism and L2 proliferation. Cross-border settlement/remittances, B2B payments, and capital pool turnover have become the primary strong scenarios for “real-world adoption.”

The supply side is mainly reflected in the regulatory dividend curve: The U.S. “GENIUS Act” was signed into effect on July 18, 2025, establishing a unified regulatory baseline for stablecoins at the federal level for the first time, mandating 100% high liquidity reserves (such as U.S. dollars or short-term U.S. Treasury bonds) and monthly reserve disclosures, and clearly defining redemption, custody, supervision, and enforcement powers, equivalent to writing “safety - transparency - redeemable” into the regulations as a strong constraint; Hong Kong's “Stablecoin Ordinance” will take effect on August 1, 2025, establishing a licensing framework and activity boundaries, with the Monetary Authority having released supporting pages and guidelines to ensure reserve quality, redemption mechanisms, and risk control through transparent management; The EU's MiCA will gradually enter into force starting at the end of 2024, while ESMA has successively released Level 2 and Level 3 regulatory technical standards and knowledge/competence guidelines, marking Europe's inclusion of stablecoins into a prudent regulatory system at the “financial infrastructure level.”

There are two results of clear regulation: first, it significantly reduces the compliance uncertainty and cross-border compliance costs for issuers, clearing networks, and merchant acceptance points, leading to a continuous decrease in the friction of “real-world adoption”; second, it alters the industry’s “risk-return-scale” function, internalizing the externalities of reserve safety and information disclosure as compliance costs, thereby raising the industry threshold and accelerating the strong getting stronger. Coupled with the public chain technology curve (L2 popularization/high TPS chains) and RWA capital curve (short debt tokenization/on-chain money market funds), stablecoins have transitioned from being “cross-border payment gateways” to the “foundation of cross-border credit and on-chain capital markets”: Visa clearly states in its latest white paper that stablecoins will become the foundational layer of the “global credit ecosystem”. The automation capabilities of smart contracts in pre-loan matchmaking, in-loan monitoring, and post-loan clearing and disposal mean that the generation, circulation, and pricing of credit will shift from being mainly “manual and document-based” to being mainly “code and data-based”; this also explains why, at a time when the total amount is at a historical high and the structure is extremely dollarized, the industrial logic has switched from “cyclical rebound” to “structural penetration”. In this process, the simultaneous launch of the U.S. federal anchoring, the implementation of Hong Kong licensing, and the EU MiCA has formed a cross-continental institutional synergy, elevating the global expansion of stablecoins from a “business phenomenon” to a systematic project of “policy and financial infrastructure collaboration”, and providing a credible, auditable, and composable underlying cash and clearing layer for subsequent more complex trade finance modules such as cross-border credit, accounts receivable securitization, inventory financing, and factoring.

2. Trends and Analysis of US Dollar Stablecoins

In the global stablecoin landscape, the US dollar stablecoin is not just a market product, but a key lever deeply embedded in national interests and geopolitical financial strategies. The underlying logic can be understood from three dimensions: maintaining dollar hegemony, alleviating fiscal pressure, and dominating global rule-making. Firstly, the dollar stablecoin has become a new tool for maintaining the international status of the dollar. Traditional dollar hegemony relies on its status as a reserve currency, the SWIFT system, and the petrodollar mechanism. However, over the past decade, the global trend of “de-dollarization,” though slow, has been gradually eroding the dollar's settlement share and reserve weight. Against this backdrop, the expansion of dollar stablecoins provides an asymmetric pathway, bypassing sovereign currency systems and capital controls, directly transmitting the “value proposition of the dollar” to end users. Whether in high-inflation economies like Venezuela and Argentina, or in cross-border trade scenarios in Africa and Southeast Asia, stablecoins have essentially become the “on-chain dollars” that residents and businesses actively choose, permeating local financial systems in a low-cost, low-friction manner. This penetration does not require military or geopolitical tools, but is realized through spontaneous market behavior, achieving “digital dollarization” and thus extending the coverage radius of the dollar ecosystem. As highlighted by JPMorgan's latest research, by 2027, the expansion of stablecoins could bring an additional $1.4 trillion in structural demand for the dollar, effectively offsetting part of the “de-dollarization” trend, meaning that the US has achieved a low-cost extension of its monetary hegemony through stablecoins.

Secondly, the US dollar stablecoin has become an important new buyer supporting the US Treasury market at the fiscal and financial level. Although global demand for US Treasuries remains strong, the continuous expansion of the fiscal deficit and fluctuations in interest rates put long-term pressure on the US government in terms of financing. The issuance mechanism of stablecoins is naturally tied to the demand for high liquidity reserves, and under the clear requirements of the GENIUS Act, these reserves must primarily consist of short-term US Treasuries or cash equivalents. This means that as the market value of stablecoins gradually expands from hundreds of billions to potentially tens of trillions in the future, the underlying reserve assets will become a stable and continuously growing buying force in the Treasury market, acting similarly to a “quasi-central bank buyer.” This can not only improve the maturity structure of US Treasuries but may also lower overall financing costs, providing new “structural support” for US finances. Several research institutions have modeled that by 2030, the potential scale of stablecoins is expected to reach $1.6 trillion, resulting in an incremental demand for US Treasuries of several hundred billion dollars. Finally, the United States has achieved a strategic shift in rule-making from “suppression” to “incorporation.” The early regulatory attitude was not friendly towards stablecoins, as legislators were concerned about their threat to monetary policy and financial stability. However, as the market size continued to expand, the US quickly realized that it could not stifle this trend through suppression, and instead adopted a model of “rights confirmation - regulation - incorporation.” The GENIUS Act, as a landmark piece of legislation, will officially take effect in July 2025, establishing a unified regulatory framework at the federal level. This act not only imposes mandatory requirements on reserve quality, liquidity, and transparency but also clarifies the parallel legality of bank and non-bank issuance channels, while incorporating AML/KYC, redemption mechanisms, and custody responsibilities into compliance hard constraints, ensuring that the operation of stablecoins remains within controllable boundaries. More importantly, this act gives the US a first-mover advantage in international standard-setting. Through the demonstration effect of federal legislation, the US will be able to export its stablecoin regulatory logic at future multilateral platforms such as the G20, IMF, and BIS, making US dollar stablecoins not only dominant in the market but also the “default standard” institutionally.

In summary, the strategic logic of the United States regarding the issue of dollar stablecoins has achieved a threefold convergence: from the perspective of international currency, stablecoins are an extension of digital dollarization, maintaining and expanding dollar hegemony at a low cost; from the perspective of fiscal finance, stablecoins create new long-term buying power for the U.S. Treasury market, alleviating fiscal pressure; from the regulatory institutional perspective, the U.S. has completed the confirmation and incorporation of stablecoins through the GENIUS Act, ensuring its dominant discourse power in the future global digital financial order. These three strategic pillars not only complement each other but also constitute a synchronous resonance in practice: when the market value of dollar stablecoins expands to trillions of dollars, it will not only strengthen the international monetary status of the dollar but also support the sustainability of domestic fiscal financing, while also establishing global standards at the legal and regulatory levels. This overlapping effect of “institutional priority” and “network first-mover advantage” makes dollar stablecoins not only a market product but also an important extension tool of U.S. national interests. In the future global competition landscape of stablecoins, this moat will exist for a long time, while non-dollar stablecoins may have certain development space in regional markets but will find it difficult to shake the core position of dollar stablecoins in the short term. In other words, the future of stablecoins is not only a market choice of digital finance but also a monetary strategy under the great power game, and the United States has clearly occupied a commanding height in this game.

3. Trends and Analysis of Non-U.S. Dollar Stablecoins

The overall pattern of non-USD stablecoins is beginning to show a typical “globally weak, locally strong” characteristic. Looking back to 2018, their market share once approached 49%, almost forming a balance with USD stablecoins. However, in just a few years, this share has fallen to less than 1%, with industry data platform RWA.xyz even estimating an extreme low of 0.18%. The Euro stablecoin has become the only one with visibility in absolute scale, with a total market cap of about $456 million, occupying the vast majority of non-USD stablecoin space, while stablecoins of other currencies like those in Asia and Australia are still in the initial or pilot stages. Meanwhile, the Association for Financial Markets in Europe (AFME) pointed out in its September report that the share of USD stablecoins has risen to 99.5%, meaning that global on-chain liquidity is almost entirely tied to the USD as a single point. This excessive concentration constitutes structural risk, as any extreme regulatory, technological, or credit shocks occurring in the U.S. could quickly transmit spillover effects to the global market through the settlement layer. Therefore, promoting non-USD stablecoins is not merely a matter of commercial competition, but a strategic necessity for maintaining system resilience and monetary sovereignty.

In the non-US dollar camp, the Eurozone is at the forefront. The implementation of the EU's MiCA legislation provides unprecedented legal certainty for the issuance and circulation of stablecoins. Circle has announced that its USDC/EURC products fully comply with MiCA requirements and is actively promoting a multi-chain deployment strategy. Driven by this, the market capitalization of Euro stablecoins achieved a triple-digit growth by 2025, with EURC alone rising by 155%, from $117 million at the beginning of the year to $298 million. Although the absolute scale is still far smaller than that of US dollar stablecoins, the growth momentum is clearly visible. The EU Parliament, along with ESMA and ECB, is intensively launching technical standards and regulatory rules, imposing strict requirements on issuance, redemption, and reserves, gradually building a compliant cold-start ecosystem.

Australia's path differs from that of the Eurozone, leaning more towards a traditional bank-led top-down experiment. ANZ and NAB from the big four banks have respectively launched A$DC and AUDN, while the retail market is filled by the licensed payment company AUDD, primarily positioned for cross-border payments and efficiency optimization. However, overall development remains at a small-scale institutional and scenario pilot stage, failing to form large-scale retail applications. The greatest uncertainty lies in the absence of a national unified legal framework, while the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) is actively researching the digital Australian dollar (CBDC). Once officially issued, it may replace or even squeeze existing private stablecoins. If regulation opens up in the future, backed by banks and leveraging the dual advantages of retail payment scenarios, the AUD stablecoin has the potential for rapid replication, but its substitution or complementary relationship with CBDC remains an unresolved issue.

The South Korean market presents a paradox: despite the country's high overall acceptance of crypto assets, the development of stablecoins has almost come to a standstill. The key issue is that legislation is severely lagging behind, and it is expected to take effect no earlier than 2027, leading conglomerates and large internet platforms to choose to collectively wait and see. Additionally, the regulatory authorities tend to promote “controllable private chains,” and the scarcity and low returns of the domestic short-term government bond market impose dual constraints on issuers regarding profit models and commercialization incentives.

Hong Kong is one of the few cases where “regulations are ahead of the game.” In May 2025, the Hong Kong Legislative Council passed the “Stablecoin Ordinance,” which officially took effect on August 1, becoming the first major financial center in the world to launch a comprehensive regulatory framework for stablecoins. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority subsequently issued implementation guidelines, clarifying the compliance boundaries for the Hong Kong dollar peg and local issuance. However, while the system is ahead, the market has experienced a “partial cooling.” Some mainland Chinese institutions have chosen to proceed cautiously or delay applications under the prudent regulatory attitude of the mainland, leading to a decline in market enthusiasm. It is expected that by the end of 2025 or early 2026, regulatory authorities will issue a very limited number of initial licenses, conducting rolling pilots in a “prudent pace - gradual opening” manner. This means that although Hong Kong has the advantages of being an international financial hub and having regulations in place, its development pace is constrained by the mainland's cross-border capital controls and risk isolation considerations, leaving uncertainty in the breadth and speed of market expansion.

Japan has taken a unique path in institutional design, becoming an innovative model of “trust-type strong regulation.” Through the “Amendment of the Fund Settlement Law,” Japan established a regulatory model of “trust custody + licensed financial institution dominance,” ensuring that stablecoins operate fully within a compliant framework. In the fall of 2025, JPYC was approved to become the first compliant yen stablecoin, issued by the Progmat Coin platform of Mitsubishi UFJ Trust, with plans to issue a total of 1 trillion yen within three years. The reserve assets are anchored in Japanese bank deposits and government bonds (JGBs), aiming to connect cross-border remittances, corporate settlements, and the DeFi ecosystem.

Overall, the current development status of non-dollar stablecoins can be summarized as “overall predicament, partial differentiation.” On a global scale, the extreme concentration of dollar stablecoins has compressed the space for other currencies, leading to a significant collapse in the share of non-dollar stablecoins. However, in the regional dimension, the euro and yen represent a long-term route of “sovereignty and compliance certainty,” which is expected to create differentiated competitiveness in cross-border payments and trade finance; Hong Kong maintains a unique position with the advantage of being a financial hub and having a leading system; Australia and South Korea are still in the exploration and observation phase, and their ability to break through quickly depends on the legal framework and the positioning of CBDCs. In the future stablecoin system, non-dollar stablecoins may not be able to challenge the dominance of the dollar, but their existence itself holds strategic significance: they can serve as a buffer and backup plan for systemic risks, and also help countries maintain monetary sovereignty in the digital age.

4. Investment Prospects and Risks

The investment logic of stablecoins is undergoing a profound paradigm shift, gradually transitioning from the past “coin-based” thinking centered around token prices and market share to a “cash flow and rules-based” framework built on cash flow, institutions, and regulations. This shift is not only an upgrade in investment perspective but also an inevitable requirement for the entire industry to move from a crypto-native stage to financial infrastructure. From the perspective of the industry chain hierarchy, the most directly benefited segment is undoubtedly the issuance side. Stablecoin issuers, custodians, auditing institutions, and reserve managers have gained clear compliance pathways and institutional guarantees with the implementation of the “GENIUS Act” in the United States, as well as the EU's MiCA and Hong Kong's “Stablecoin Ordinance.” Requirements such as mandatory reserves and monthly information disclosure, while increasing operational costs, have also raised the industry entry threshold, thereby accelerating the industry's concentration and reinforcing the scale advantages of leading issuers. This means that top institutions can rely on interest margin income, reserve asset allocation, and compliance dividends to achieve stable cash flow, creating a “winner takes all” pattern.

Apart from issuers, settlement and merchant acceptance networks will be the next important investment direction. Whoever can first integrate stablecoins on a large scale into the enterprise ERP systems and cross-border payment networks will be able to build sustainable cash flow in payment commissions, settlement fees, and working capital management financial services. The potential of stablecoins goes beyond on-chain conversions; it hinges on whether they can become the “daily currency tool” in the business operation process. Once this embedding is realized, it will release long-term, predictable cash flow, similar to the moat established by payment network companies. Another noteworthy aspect is the tokenization of RWA (real-world assets) and short-term debt. As the scale of stablecoins expands, the allocation of reserve funds will inevitably need to seek yield; the tokenization of short-term government bonds and money market funds not only meets reserve compliance requirements but also builds an efficient bridge between stablecoins and traditional financial markets. Ultimately, a closed loop is expected to form between stablecoins, short-term debt tokens, and the capital market, making the entire on-chain US dollar liquidity curve more mature. Furthermore, compliance technology and on-chain identity management are also fields worthy of investment. The US “GENIUS Act,” EU MiCA, and Hong Kong regulations collectively emphasize the importance of KYC, AML, and blacklist management, which means that “regulatable open public chains” have become an industry consensus. Technology companies providing on-chain identity and compliance modules will play an important role in the future stablecoin ecosystem. From a regional comparison, the US is undoubtedly the market with the largest scale dividend. The first-mover advantage of the US dollar and the clarity of federal legislation allow banks, payment giants, and even tech companies to deeply engage in the stablecoin space. Investment targets include both issuers and financial infrastructure builders. The opportunity in the EU lies in institutional-level B2B settlement and the euro-denominated DeFi ecosystem; the MiCA compliance framework and expectations for a digital euro together shape a market space centered on “stability + compliance.” Hong Kong, with its system advantages of prior approval and international resources, is expected to become a stronghold for offshore RMB, HKD, and cross-border asset allocation, especially against the backdrop of low-key promotion by Chinese institutions, where foreign and local financial institutions may gain faster access. Japan, on the other hand, has created a highly secure model through a “trust-based strong regulation” approach; if JPYC and its subsequent products can achieve a trillion yen issuance scale, it may change the supply-demand structure of certain maturities of JGBs. Australia and South Korea are still in the exploration phase, with investment opportunities mainly reflecting small-scale pilots and the window period after the release of policy dividends. In terms of valuation and pricing frameworks, the issuer's revenue model can be simplified to reserve asset interest income multiplied by AUM, adjusted according to the profit-sharing ratio and incentive costs. Scale, interest spread, redemption rate, and compliance costs are key factors determining profit levels. Revenue from settlement and acceptance networks mainly comes from payment commissions, settlement fees, and financial value-added, with core variables being merchant density, ERP integration depth, and compliance loss rates. Revenue from on-chain capital markets is directly related to net interest margins, programmable credit stock, and risk-adjusted capital returns, with stability of asset sources and efficiency of default disposal being key.

However, the risks in the stablecoin sector cannot be ignored. The core risk lies in systemic concentration. Currently, US dollar stablecoins account for as much as 99.5%, and global on-chain liquidity almost entirely relies on a single point in dollars. If there is a significant legislative reversal, regulatory tightening, or technical event in the United States, it could trigger a global deleveraging chain reaction. The risk of regulatory repricing also exists; even if the United States has the GENIUS Act, its implementation rules and inter-agency coordination may still alter the cost curve and boundaries for non-bank issuers. The strong constraints of the EU's MiCA may force some overseas issuers to 'Brexit' or switch to a restricted model; the high compliance costs, stringent custody, and make-up clauses in Hong Kong and Japan have raised the barriers for capital and technology. The potential 'crowding out effect' of CBDCs cannot be overlooked; once the digital euro and digital Australian dollar are put into use, they may create institutional biases in scenarios such as public services, taxation, and welfare distribution, compressing the space for private stablecoins in domestic currency pricing scenarios. Operational risks are also evident; recently, some issuers have encountered incidents of over-minting, which can be quickly rolled back but highlight the need for real-time audits of reserve reconciliation and minting-destroying mechanisms. Mismatched interest rates and terms present another potential risk; if issuers chase returns while misaligning assets with redemption obligations, it could trigger bank runs and market turmoil. Finally, the risks of geopolitical and sanctions compliance are also increasing; as an extension of the dollar, stablecoins will face higher compliance pressures and blacklist management challenges in specific scenarios. Overall, the future prospects for stablecoin investment are enormous, but it is no longer a story of simply betting on scale; it is a compound game of cash flow, rules, and institutional certainty. Investors need to pay attention to which entities can establish stable cash flow models within the compliance framework, which regions can release structural opportunities as rules evolve, and which sectors can generate long-term value through the extension of compliance technology and on-chain credit. At the same time, there must be a heightened awareness of potential shocks from systemic concentration and regulatory repricing, especially against the backdrop of dollar dominance and the accelerated advancement of various countries' CBDCs.

**V.**Conclusion

The evolution of stablecoins has reached a qualitative turning point, no longer just a story of “how high can market value go” but rather a leap from dollar tokens to a global financial operating system. Initially, it serves as an asset, carrying the basic function of neutral market conditions and on-chain transactions; subsequently, through network effects, it enters the realm of small, high-frequency settlements in global B2B and B2C transactions; ultimately, under the dual support of rules and codes, it develops into a programmable cash layer capable of supporting complex financial services such as credit, collateral, promissory notes, and inventory financing. Under the combined forces of monetary, fiscal, and regulatory frameworks, the U.S. has shaped dollar stablecoins into tools for the institutional output of digital dollarization: expanding the global penetration of the dollar, stabilizing demand for U.S. treasury bonds, and securing international discourse power. Although non-dollar stablecoins are inherently disadvantaged in terms of network effects and interest rate differentials, their existence supports regional financial sovereignty and system resilience, with regions such as the EU, Japan, and Hong Kong constructing their own spaces through regulatory foresight or institutional design. For investors, the key is to complete the framework shift: moving from imaginations of coin price and market share to validating business models based on cash flow, rules, and compliance technology. In the next two to three years, stablecoins will achieve compliant model implementation across multiple jurisdictions, evolving from “over-the-counter channel assets” to the “foundation of a global financial operating system,” profoundly changing the paths of monetary transmission and the production methods of financial services.