Good morning. President Donald Trump announced on Sunday that the 50 per cent tariffs on EU imports, which he threatened would start on June 1, would be delayed until July 9. If only we had a handy acronym for this sort of thing! Email me with suggestions: [email protected].

Stablecoins: it doesn’t take a Genius 

A stablecoin issuer is a bank and a stablecoin is a bank deposit. This is not complicated. If you hand me money and I invest it, and in return I give you something that is a liability for me and an asset for you, and that is redeemable by you on demand and at par, I am a bank and the thing I have handed you is a deposit. It doesn’t matter if that thing also works as an intermediary in a crypto market, a token in a cross-border payment app or gets you a gumball out of a gumball machine. I’m a bank, you’re a depositor, and we’re in this together. 

Keep these facts in mind and several developments of the past week or two become clearer. One was reported by The Wall Street Journal: