Trump's $5,000 Dividend Spooks the Bond Market

The US Treasury sized its first enlarged buyback at $6B, $2B above the expansion flagged on 19 August, and pledged at least $4B for each of the six operations that follow, yet the 10-year yield still rose from 4.79% to 4.85%, its highest since 2023. Trump's promise of a $5,000 dividend to every adult if Republicans keep Congress added to fiscal jitters. Tether and Fasanara launched StableFund, a $400M private credit fund deploying USDT-linked, asset-backed lending across fintech platforms in more than 60 countries.

Crypto

Derivatives

DeFi

Macro

In Today's Note

The US Treasury sized its first enlarged buyback at $6B — $2B above the expansion flagged on 19 August — and pledged at least $4B for each of the six operations that follow. Yields nonetheless moved higher, with the 10-year up from 4.79% to 4.85%, its highest since 2023.
Tether and Fasanara launched StableFund, a $400M private credit fund deploying USDT-linked, asset-backed lending across fintech platforms in more than 60 countries, with plans to raise up to a further $3B from institutional investors.

Market Snapshot: Overnight Moves

Macro & Markets

With Brent crude oil topping $100 a barrel amid continued tensions in the Middle East and 10-year US treasury yields reaching their highest levels since 2023, risk-assets were driven lower for another day.
Yesterday, the US Treasury Department announced that it will purchase up to $6B of longer-dated government debt in its first operation under a newly expanded buyback program. That is an additional $2B above the expansion to $4B that was originally announced on Aug 19, and includes the announcement of at least $4B for the six subsequent scheduled operations.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Tuesday reiterated his view that while he cannot directly change the “equilibrium” price of treasuries in the market, the buybacks are designed to cool the “fever that was building” in the market.
Treasury yields failed to decline on the news, with both two-year yields and yields at the back-end of the curve moving higher, the 10Y yield for example rose from 4.79% to 4.85%.

BTC continued to linger below $80K while the S&P 500 dropped for a third consecutive day (down 0.48%).
All major US stock indices closed lower in the midweek session, with the Nasdaq-100 down 0.29%, while a gauge of semiconductors rose by a modest 0.37%.

President Trump’s newly announced promise yesterday to give all adult citizens in the US a $5,000 dividend if Republicans are able to retain control of both houses of Congress added further jitters to the Treasury market, renewing concerns about the government’s fiscal discipline.
During a prime-time speech in Dallas, Trump said “Because of our tremendous strength and success economically, I will issue a dividend to every adult citizen in the United States of America for $5,000”.
While providing no information on how he would fund such an initiative, Trump did say that a caveat of the dividend would be that it “must be spent in the United States of America”.

In geopolitical news, a senior official from Iran said the country is ready for a more intense war and will escalate counterstrikes against the US if it continues to attack Iranian territory and infrastructure.
Tehran has no intention of backing down to the American naval blockade and attacks on its oil tankers, according to the official.
The comments come as tensions continue to escalate between both sides, with the conflict now in its seventh month.
Overnight, the US military said one of its warships had to evade an Iranian attack, and that it destroyed five Iranian energy tankers in response. Tehran responded by firing around 20 missiles at a Jordanian airbase used by the US.

President Trump however has continued to downplay concerns about the war, particularly when it comes to rising oil and gas prices.
He told reporters yesterday that the weak economic position of Iran means “the war is going to end immediately after the election because they can’t hold out any longer. They’re desperate to try and affect the election so that we can get a nice weak group of people in there and leave them alone and let them have their nuclear weapons”.
When asked about when there would be a relief in energy prices he said, “I think it’s going to take a little bit longer than the midterms. They’re going to be tumbling down, and we’ll get them down. I think for gasoline, we’ll get them below $2 a gallon. But not until after the midterms.”

DeFi / Web3 / Altcoins / Crypto

DoubleZero has added Kalshi’s election and political prediction markets to its DoubleZero Edge market data platform ahead of the November U.S. midterm elections.
The integration expands DoubleZero Edge beyond sports event contracts and crypto perpetual futures.
Institutional users will be able to access Kalshi’s political market data within their existing workflows to monitor shifting expectations around elections and other political events.
Kalshi said the data can help firms price risk, manage exposure and adjust positions as market expectations change.

SkyAI, a Solana treasury company that has recently pivoted toward AI and stablecoin infrastructure, is facing growing shareholder pressure ahead of its September 18 annual meeting.
Forward Industries and a shareholder group led by Bastion Trading are opposing the reelection of SkyAI’s entire board.
Bastion and affiliated shareholders, which control a 9.99% stake, raised concerns over bylaw changes, a poison pill adopted without a shareholder vote and related-party transactions.
Forward is also urging shareholders to reject SkyAI’s proposed equity incentive plan, which would authorize 5.145M new shares and potentially dilute existing shareholders by more than 7%.
Forward previously offered to acquire SkyAI in an all-stock deal worth $1.55 per share, but SkyAI’s board rejected the proposal in July.
Forward says its original exchange ratio now represents a larger premium because its shares have risen more than 50% since the offer, while SkyAI shares have remained near $1.35.
SkyAI currently holds about 2.01M SOL worth roughly $207M, making it the fifth-largest publicly traded Solana treasury.

The Hyperliquid Policy Center has backed the CFTC in its legal fight with CME Group over perpetual futures in the U.S.
HPC filed an amicus brief asking a federal court to dismiss CME’s lawsuit against the CFTC.
The group argues that CME is trying to use litigation to protect its position as an incumbent derivatives exchange and slow the introduction of new products.
CME says perpetual futures would compete directly with its existing offerings and cause it economic harm.
HPC disputes that argument, saying the CFTC’s approval expands the market rather than dividing it and does not introduce a new exchange competitor.
Perpetual futures are contracts with no expiry date that allow traders to speculate on asset prices without owning the underlying asset.
The CFTC recently approved the first perpetual futures for Kalshi and Coinbase, opening the door for these products to trade in the U.S.
The case could have broader implications for how quickly the CFTC can approve new derivatives products and how much scope incumbent exchanges have to challenge those approvals in court.

Tether and Fasanara Capital have launched StableFund, a new $400M private credit fund focused on stablecoin-enabled lending.
The two firms are jointly sponsoring the fund and plan to raise up to an additional $3B from third-party institutional investors.
Fasanara will manage the fund and deploy capital into short-duration, asset-backed credit strategies through its global fintech lending network.
Tether will source USDT-linked financing opportunities and provide stablecoin settlement infrastructure, including on- and off-ramps and treasury rails.
The fund is designed to embed USDT into SME and consumer lending flows across fintech platforms operating in more than 60 countries.
Fasanara manages over $6B in assets and invests across areas including SME loans, consumer credit, trade receivables and supply chain finance.
The partnership is aimed at using stablecoin infrastructure to make cross-border private credit flows faster and more efficient.

Bitget and UNICEF have launched a free online financial literacy module that combines traditional financial education with an introduction to blockchain.
The course forms part of UNICEF’s Game Changers Coalition curriculum and is designed primarily for young learners in emerging economies.
It covers topics including budgeting, credit, loans, interest rates, supply and demand, and blockchain fundamentals.
Bitget contributed to the blockchain sections of the curriculum, with CEO Gracy Chen appearing in the module to explain key concepts.
The course also includes short videos, quizzes and a game called Neon Paycheck, which teaches financial decision-making through scenarios involving earning, spending, planning and avoiding scams.
The module is available through UNICEF’s Agora learning platform, and participants receive a certificate after completing it.
Bitget and UNICEF began working together in 2025, with the wider Game Changers Coalition since reaching more than 642,000 young people, parents and teachers across multiple countries.
The initiative is focused on improving financial and digital literacy as blockchain and digital assets become increasingly connected with traditional finance.

This Week's Calendar

This week's macro and crypto calendar, part 1.

This week's macro and crypto calendar, part 2.

Charts of the Day

Figure 1. Block Scholes BTC Risk-Appetite Index (white, left-hand axis) and BTC spot price (orange, right-hand axis).

Figure 2. Block Scholes ETH Risk-Appetite Index (white, left-hand axis) and ETH spot price (purple, right-hand axis).

Figure 3. BTC at-the-money implied volatility across selected tenors. Source: Deribit, Block Scholes.

Figure 4. ETH at-the-money implied volatility across selected tenors. Source: Deribit, Block Scholes.

Figure 5. BTC 25-delta put-call skew ratio across selected tenors. Source: Deribit, Block Scholes.

Figure 6. ETH 25-delta put-call skew ratio across selected tenors. Source: Deribit, Block Scholes.

Block Scholes is an FCA-regulated institutional crypto derivatives analytics platform. Live data, IV surfaces, and backtesting available via blockscholes.com.