Stablecoins, Tokenized Stocks, and the Trump Administration's Big Picture — A primer for first-time students of macro, finance, and crypto
Standing still is a losing trade. Nominal values stay flat while real values melt away. The definition of 'safe asset' must be rewritten — gold, TIPS, real productive assets, and bitcoin are the new candidates.
A bond is, plainly, a paper IOU. When the US government writes 'I will borrow $100 and repay it in 30 years, paying $5 of interest per year in the meantime,' that paper is a US . Owning it makes you a creditor of the US government.
Two numbers matter. First is maturity. A bond repaid in one year is a 'short-dated' bond; one repaid in 30 years is a 'long-dated' bond. Second is the interest rate. Short-dated bonds carry less risk and pay lower rates. Long-dated bonds carry more risk because anything can happen over 30 years, so they pay higher rates.
As of May 18, 2026, the US 30-year Treasury yield rose to 5.13%. To see how striking that is — in July 2020 the same yield was around 1%. That's roughly 5x in six years. This is not a US-only story. Japan's 30-year yield hit 4.19%, a record since the bond's 1999 launch. UK and German long yields are at multi-year highs as well.
<Chart 1> G7 long bond yields — the synchronized rout
Bond prices and yields move in opposite directions. When yields rise, prices fall. A long-dated US Treasury that traded at $100 in 2020 trades in the $80s today — meaning anyone who bought it six years ago and did nothing is sitting on a roughly 20% loss.
This is the heart of Chapter 1. The asset historically known as 'the safe asset' has become one of the riskiest. To understand why, we need to look at who is — and isn't — buying US Treasuries.
📌 Chapter 1 — Long-dated US Treasuries are down roughly 20% since 2020. The asset everyone called 'safe' has been reclassified as one of the most dangerous in the modern portfolio.
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This report is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any financial instrument. Investment decisions should be made based on your own judgment and responsibility. The analysis and opinions contained herein are based on information available at the time of writing and are subject to change.