代幣化國債發行人認為降息是福音，不是禍根

在聯準會開始升息以對抗通膨之前的十年裡，持有現金和持有國債之間沒有太大區別

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell essentially confirmed on Friday what traders already knew: Interest rate cuts are coming.

聯準會主席鮑威爾週五基本上證實了交易員已經知道的事情：降息即將到來。

Still, don’t expect businesses that offer or rely on tokenised treasuries, which benefit from high interest rates, to lose any sleep, several market players told DL News earlier this month.

不過，一些市場參與者本月稍早告訴 DL News，不要指望提供或依賴從高利率中受益的代幣化國庫券的企業會失眠。

That lack of concern prevails now that Powell has all but confirmed interest rate cuts, according to issuers of tokenised treasuries.

據代幣化國債發行人稱，由於鮑威爾幾乎已經確認降息，這種擔憂普遍存在。

In the decade before the Fed began raising interest rates to combat inflation, there wasn’t much difference between holding cash and holding treasuries, Jim Hiltner, head of business development at Superstate, told DL News.

Superstate 業務開發主管 Jim Hiltner 告訴 DL News，在聯準會開始升息以對抗通膨之前的十年裡，持有現金和持有國債之間沒有太大區別。

“Now, obviously there is, and I believe that that will continue to be the case,” he said.

「現在，顯然是存在的，而且我相信這種情況將繼續存在，」他說。

Issuers of tokenised treasuries include multitrillion-dollar asset managers BlackRock and Franklin Templeton, as well as firms with a background in crypto like Superstate.

代幣化國債的發行人包括價值數兆美元的資產管理公司貝萊德和富蘭克林鄧普頓，以及像 Superstate 這樣具有加密背景的公司。

With $93 million in assets under management, Superstate, which launched in January, is the sixth-largest issuer of tokenised securities.

Superstate 於 1 月推出，管理資產達 9,300 萬美元，是第六大代幣化證券發行人。

“You have an incentive for the Federal Reserve to continue to have a tight-ish environment with high-ish rates, but they’re not going to bring them back to zero in the next six months. It’s just not going to happen unless the economy falls off a cliff.”

「聯準會有動力繼續保持高利率的緊縮環境，但他們不會在未來六個月內將利率恢復到零。除非經濟跌落懸崖，否則這種情況就不會發生。

Mission accomplished?

任務完成了嗎？

Interest rates hovered just above zero for several years after the Great Recession. Although they began to creep up during the presidency of Donald Trump, they shot back down to near-zero when the pandemic hit, with policymakers pulling out all the stops in an attempt to prevent economic calamity.

在大衰退後的幾年裡，利率一直徘徊在零以上。儘管在唐納德·特朗普擔任總統期間它們開始緩慢上升，但當大流行來襲時，它們又回落到接近於零的水平，政策制定者使出渾身解數試圖防止經濟災難。

The subsequent recovery was much faster than they expected. Coupled with lingering, post-pandemic supply chain issues, prices began to skyrocket. The Federal Reserve, tasked with balancing stable prices and low unemployment, raised interest rates to their highest point since mid-2007.

隨後的恢復速度比他們預想的要快得多。再加上疫情後供應鏈問題揮之不去，價格開始飆漲。聯準會的任務是平衡物價穩定和低失業率，將利率提高至 2007 年中期以來的最高點。

The effective federal funds rate — the median interest rate for overnight loans between US banks — hit 5.33% a year ago and has stayed there since.

有效聯邦基金利率（美國銀行之間隔夜​​貸款的中位數利率）一年前達到 5.33%，此後一直維持在該水準。

The high rates hobbled DeFi projects, whose relatively high risk was no longer worth their yield. But it was a boon to projects that invested in treasuries such as MakerDAO.

高利率阻礙了 DeFi 項目，其相對較高的風險不再值得其收益。但這對 MakerDAO 等投資國債的項目來說是一個福音。

Yields from those treasuries has hovered above 5% — a lucrative and safe way to earn from assets that would otherwise be sitting dormant.

這些國債的收益率一直徘徊在 5% 以上，這是一種從原本處於休眠狀態的資產中獲利的有利可圖且安全的方式。

In just a few months, money invested in projects offering tokenised treasuries has soared from about $750 million in March to more than $1.9 billion today, according to data from RWA.xyz, an analytics firm tracking the tokenisation of real-world assets such as treasuries, stocks, and bonds.

根據追蹤國債等現實世界資產代幣化的分析公司RWA.xyz 的數據，在短短幾個月內，投資於代幣化國債項目的資金已從3 月份的約7.5 億美元飆升至如今的超過19 億美元。

But the Fed’s strategy has worked — inflation is now hovering just above the Fed’s 2% target. Meanwhile, a cooling labour market suggests a recession could be on the way, forcing the central bank to revisit its strategy.

但聯準會的策略奏效了——通膨目前徘徊在聯準會 2% 的目標之上。同時，勞動市場降溫顯示經濟衰退可能即將來臨，迫使央行重新審視其策略。

“The upside risks to inflation have diminished. And the downside risks to employment have increased,” Powell said at the Fed’s annual gathering in Wyoming on Friday.

「通膨上行風險已經減弱。就業的下行風險增加，」鮑威爾週五在懷俄明州舉行的聯準會年度會議上表示。

“The time has come for policy to adjust.”

“政策調整的時候到了。”

‘Degen mode’

“重劍時尚”

Martin Carrica, co-founder of Mountain Protocol, a stablecoin issuer that used tokenised treasuries as collateral — and passed that yield to stablecoin holders — isn’t too worried about what the lower rates will mean for his business.

Mountain Protocol 的聯合創始人Martin Carrica 是一家穩定幣發行商，使用代幣化國債作為抵押品，並將收益傳遞給穩定幣持有者，他並不太擔心較低的利率對其業務意味著什麼。

“Clearly, 5% is better than 2%,” he told DL News, referring to the yield offered by Goldman Sachs’ savings account when it grew to $100 billion in user deposits. (Goldman’s Marcus now offers an interest rate above 4%.)

「顯然，5% 比 2% 好，」他告訴 DL News，指的是高盛儲蓄帳戶用戶存款增長到 1000 億美元時提供的收益率。 （高盛的 Marcus 目前提供高於 4% 的利率。）

“To me the critical thing is, how much money can be made with ‘funny money’ (e.g. token incentives) [versus] how much yield-bearing assets can contribute,” Carrica said.

「對我來說，關鍵是，『有趣的錢』（例如代幣激勵）可以賺多少錢，[相對於]有收益的資產可以貢獻多少，」卡里卡說。

“If you can lend USDC and get 6% APY kicker on token XYZ, why would you go with [Mountain’s] USDM?”

“如果你可以藉出 USDC 並在代幣 XYZ 上獲得 6% APY 獎勵，那你為什麼還要選擇 [Mountain 的] USDM？”

While high-risk, high-reward DeFi yields will become more attractive as interest rates come down, Hiltner said that nonetheless he isn’t afraid of competition from the unregulated badlands of the crypto economy.

儘管隨著利率下降，高風險、高回報的 DeFi 收益率將變得更具吸引力，但希爾特納表示，儘管如此，他並不害怕加密經濟中不受監管的荒地的競爭。

“Maybe you’re a retail person, or you’re some degen that doesn’t want to onboard to a regulated security, you can go and get 4.91%” on USDC by lending it on Aave, he said.

他說，「也許你是一個散戶，或者你是一個不想加入受監管證券的人，你可以透過在 Aave 上借出 USDC 來獲得 4.91% 的利率」。

“That’s suitable for a certain audience. It’s not suitable for everybody. You’ve got big institutional hedge funds that have hundreds of millions of dollars that are like, ‘Yeah, we love that USDC rates are 8%, but I don’t have any interest in doing that.’”

「這適合特定的觀眾。它並不適合所有人。擁有數億美元資金的大型機構對沖基金會說，’是的，我們喜歡 USDC 的利率為 8%，但我對此沒有任何興趣。

Moreover, as rates go lower and people go into “de

此外，隨著利率下降，人們進入“去