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A recent blog post from the European Central Bank (ECB) raised alarms about the implications of the US dollar’s dominance in the stablecoin market, especially in light of President Donald Trump’s recent signing of the GENIUS Act into law.

This trend could allegedly lead to increased borrowing costs for European nations, diminish the autonomy of the European Central Bank, and deepen geopolitical dependence on the United States. 

European Union Urged To Fast-Track Digital Euro

The ECB’s adviser, Jürgen Schaaf, claimed that the strategic advantages afforded to the US through its “stablecoin dominance” could allow it to finance its debt more cheaply while extending its global influence.

The post emphasizes the potential consequences for Europe, warning that reliance on dollar-based stablecoins for payments and savings could undermine the ECB’s control over monetary policy. 

According to Reuters, the market for euro-denominated stablecoins is currently minimal, with a market capitalization of less than 350 million euros, compared to similar cryptocurrencies from companies like Tether (USDT) and Circle (USDC). 

In light of this competitive landscape, the ECB’s adviser urged the European Union to accelerate the development of a digital euro and encourage the creation of more euro-based stablecoins.

Amid these tensions, the recently enacted GENIUS Act in the US has ignited fresh interest among traditional finance firms in dollar-pegged cryptocurrencies. 

Wall Street Giants Explore Opportunities In Stablecoins

Interactive Brokers Group, a brokerage firm with a market capitalization of around $110 billion, is reportedly considering launching its own stablecoin. 

The firm’s founder, Thomas Peterffy, indicated that while they are still evaluating how to implement these assets for customers, they recognize the transformative potential of blockchain technology in the broader financial landscape.

Interactive Brokers has already established partnerships with crypto platforms like Paxos and is an investor in crypto exchange Zero Hash, enabling it to offer trading in various cryptocurrencies. The firm is now focused on creating a system for instant, 24/7 stablecoin funding for brokerage accounts. 

However, Peterffy also expressed caution about the rapid adoption of cryptocurrencies, noting, “It’s basically hard to grasp its fundamental value.” He emphasized that while he is open to the idea of stablecoins, he remains skeptical about their intrinsic worth.

In a parallel development, Robinhood has launched its own stablecoin, the Global Dollar Network, in collaboration with other crypto platforms such as Kraken and Galaxy Digital. 

This stablecoin, issued by Paxos, is pegged to the US dollar and aims to facilitate transactions without the need for traditional banking systems. Similarly, asset manager and crypto exchange-traded fund (ETF) issuer WisdomTree recently unveiled its own stablecoin, USDW.

These developments are part of the progressive steps being taken in the US toward a more accommodative digital asset environment. Wall Street firms like JPMorgan, Citigroup, and Goldman Sachs are also exploring the potential of these assets for their operations. 

Featured image from DALL-E, chart from TradingView.com 

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Today, I wrote the following post on the new Second Life social media platform, Primfeed (which you can currently only read if you already have an account on Primfeed, as I have not yet chosen to make my Primfeed profile and posts publicly viewable):

With all the batshit-crazy political news coming out of the U.S. today making me feel anxious and depressed, I have decided that, in order to preserve my mental health, I now have to abandon the very last traditional social media platform I used daily: Reddit. This means that, from now on, I am only going to be using Primfeed, and NOTHING ELSE: No Reddit, no Mastodon, no Twitter/X, no Facebook, no Instagram, no TikTok.

Corporate-run social media platforms are all becoming a toxic cesspool and dumpster fire, with negative effects on my mental health. I quit Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter years ago, and I have never bothered with TikTok. I haven’t bothered checking into Mastodon in well over half a year now. Reddit was my last refuge, but alas, no longer. I am OUT. (I announced late last year that I was shutting down my blog, but in light of me now leaving Reddit, I will have to take some time to reflect a bit more on that decision. I also need to think about whether or not I want to make my Primfeed profile public.)

It looks like 2025 is shaping up to be an even crazier and more chaotic year than 2024, and I might need to escape to my beloved Second Life now more than ever!

A quick update: last November, my doctor stepped in and put me on full-time sick leave for a couple of weeks. I then went back to work on half-time sick leave, and at the moment, that arrangement will continue until the end of April, 2025. My supervisor at work has also stepped in to address my current workload, and I am no longer working on the project of setting up the virtual reality lab at my university library system. I am just feeling incredibly burned out and utterly exhausted, still, and it is probably going to take me quite some time to rest and recover.

In light of my decision today to quit Reddit (the last traditional social media platform I was still using, albeit without setting up an account, i.e. read-only and anonymously), I do now need to re-evaluate my decision late last year to stop blogging completely. The truth is that I am still feeling tired and burned out, and I don’t have the time, energy, or inclination to blog. So I honestly don’t know where things stand for the blog right now.

My blog will remain up; I do not plan to take it down. I will also keep my associated Discord server running, as it is still being used by a good number of people. I have zero plans to take the RyanSchultz.com Discord server down. However, I have, as of January 1st, 2025, suspended charging my existing Patreon patrons (and a very big thank you to those of you who have chosen to support me financially via Patreon these past five-six years; it has been, and is still, greatly appreciated).

Right now, I need to focus on my physical, mental and emotional health, and I need to focus on returning to my paying job, full-time (minus the VR lab project). Those are my priorities at the moment. In order to help achieve that focus, I am avoiding all social media (except Primfeed), and all metaverse platforms (except InSpaze on the Apple Vision Pro, and my beloved Second Life, which reliably puts me in a comfortable flow state during the creative process, and which consistently brings me happiness, especially with so much bad news happening in my real life).

Everything else must wait, including this blog. I will not make a final decision about my blog until much later this year, once I am in a better place. Thank you for your support over the past 7+ years.

UPDATE Jan. 8th, 2025: Meanwhile, over on Elon Musk’s X (formerly Twitter):

Liked it? Then please consider supporting Ryan Schultz on Patreon! Even as little as US$1 a month unlocks exclusive patron benefits. Thank you!

Related Blogposts

Today, I wrote the following post on the new Second Life social media platform, Primfeed (which you can currently only read if you already have an account on Primfeed, as I have not yet chosen to make my Primfeed profile and posts publicly viewable):

With all the batshit-crazy political news coming out of the U.S. today making me feel anxious and depressed, I have decided that, in order to preserve my mental health, I now have to abandon the very last traditional social media platform I used daily: Reddit. This means that, from now on, I am only going to be using Primfeed, and NOTHING ELSE: No Reddit, no Mastodon, no Twitter/X, no Facebook, no Instagram, no TikTok.

Corporate-run social media platforms are all becoming a toxic cesspool and dumpster fire, with negative effects on my mental health. I quit Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter years ago, and I have never bothered with TikTok. I haven’t bothered checking into Mastodon in well over half a year now. Reddit was my last refuge, but alas, no longer. I am OUT. (I announced late last year that I was shutting down my blog, but in light of me now leaving Reddit, I will have to take some time to reflect a bit more on that decision. I also need to think about whether or not I want to make my Primfeed profile public.)

It looks like 2025 is shaping up to be an even crazier and more chaotic year than 2024, and I might need to escape to my beloved Second Life now more than ever!

A quick update: last November, my doctor stepped in and put me on full-time sick leave for a couple of weeks. I then went back to work on half-time sick leave, and at the moment, that arrangement will continue until the end of April, 2025. My supervisor at work has also stepped in to address my current workload, and I am no longer working on the project of setting up the virtual reality lab at my university library system. I am just feeling incredibly burned out and utterly exhausted, still, and it is probably going to take me quite some time to rest and recover.

In light of my decision today to quit Reddit (the last traditional social media platform I was still using, albeit without setting up an account, i.e. read-only and anonymously), I do now need to re-evaluate my decision late last year to stop blogging completely. The truth is that I am still feeling tired and burned out, and I don’t have the time, energy, or inclination to blog. So I honestly don’t know where things stand for the blog right now.

My blog will remain up; I do not plan to take it down. I will also keep my associated Discord server running, as it is still being used by a good number of people. I have zero plans to take the RyanSchultz.com Discord server down. However, I have, as of January 1st, 2025, suspended charging my existing Patreon patrons (and a very big thank you to those of you who have chosen to support me financially via Patreon these past five-six years; it has been, and is still, greatly appreciated).

Right now, I need to focus on my physical, mental and emotional health, and I need to focus on returning to my paying job, full-time (minus the VR lab project). Those are my priorities at the moment. In order to help achieve that focus, I am avoiding all social media (except Primfeed), and all metaverse platforms (except InSpaze on the Apple Vision Pro, and my beloved Second Life, which reliably puts me in a comfortable flow state during the creative process, and which consistently brings me happiness, especially with so much bad news happening in my real life).

Everything else must wait, including this blog. I will not make a final decision about my blog until much later this year, once I am in a better place. Thank you for your support over the past 7+ years.

UPDATE Jan. 8th, 2025: Meanwhile, over on Elon Musk’s X (formerly Twitter):

Liked it? Then please consider supporting Ryan Schultz on Patreon! Even as little as US$1 a month unlocks exclusive patron benefits. Thank you!

Related Blogposts

Today, I wrote the following post on the new Second Life social media platform, Primfeed (which you can currently only read if you already have an account on Primfeed, as I have not yet chosen to make my Primfeed profile and posts publicly viewable):

With all the batshit-crazy political news coming out of the U.S. today making me feel anxious and depressed, I have decided that, in order to preserve my mental health, I now have to abandon the very last traditional social media platform I used daily: Reddit. This means that, from now on, I am only going to be using Primfeed, and NOTHING ELSE: No Reddit, no Mastodon, no Twitter/X, no Facebook, no Instagram, no TikTok.

Corporate-run social media platforms are all becoming a toxic cesspool and dumpster fire, with negative effects on my mental health. I quit Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter years ago, and I have never bothered with TikTok. I haven’t bothered checking into Mastodon in well over half a year now. Reddit was my last refuge, but alas, no longer. I am OUT. (I announced late last year that I was shutting down my blog, but in light of me now leaving Reddit, I will have to take some time to reflect a bit more on that decision. I also need to think about whether or not I want to make my Primfeed profile public.)

It looks like 2025 is shaping up to be an even crazier and more chaotic year than 2024, and I might need to escape to my beloved Second Life now more than ever!

A quick update: last November, my doctor stepped in and put me on full-time sick leave for a couple of weeks. I then went back to work on half-time sick leave, and at the moment, that arrangement will continue until the end of April, 2025. My supervisor at work has also stepped in to address my current workload, and I am no longer working on the project of setting up the virtual reality lab at my university library system. I am just feeling incredibly burned out and utterly exhausted, still, and it is probably going to take me quite some time to rest and recover.

In light of my decision today to quit Reddit (the last traditional social media platform I was still using, albeit without setting up an account, i.e. read-only and anonymously), I do now need to re-evaluate my decision late last year to stop blogging completely. The truth is that I am still feeling tired and burned out, and I don’t have the time, energy, or inclination to blog. So I honestly don’t know where things stand for the blog right now.

My blog will remain up; I do not plan to take it down. I will also keep my associated Discord server running, as it is still being used by a good number of people. I have zero plans to take the RyanSchultz.com Discord server down. However, I have, as of January 1st, 2025, suspended charging my existing Patreon patrons (and a very big thank you to those of you who have chosen to support me financially via Patreon these past five-six years; it has been, and is still, greatly appreciated).

Right now, I need to focus on my physical, mental and emotional health, and I need to focus on returning to my paying job, full-time (minus the VR lab project). Those are my priorities at the moment. In order to help achieve that focus, I am avoiding all social media (except Primfeed), and all metaverse platforms (except InSpaze on the Apple Vision Pro, and my beloved Second Life, which reliably puts me in a comfortable flow state during the creative process, and which consistently brings me happiness, especially with so much bad news happening in my real life).

Everything else must wait, including this blog. I will not make a final decision about my blog until much later this year, once I am in a better place. Thank you for your support over the past 7+ years.

UPDATE Jan. 8th, 2025: Meanwhile, over on Elon Musk’s X (formerly Twitter):

Liked it? Then please consider supporting Ryan Schultz on Patreon! Even as little as US$1 a month unlocks exclusive patron benefits. Thank you!

Related Blogposts

When you’re up to your ass in alligators, it’s hard to remember that your initial objective was to drain the swamp.

—Modern proverb, possibly Cajun

So, as you might have noticed, I haven’t been blogging very much lately (again).

There are a few reasons why, chief among them that I have been through a library move. The building which houses the university science library where I work full-time has been closed, and both the staff and collections have been moved to other locations. The building is going to be completely gutted and renovated over the next 2-1/2-to-3 years. Moving a large library is a MAJOR undertaking, folks! And just days after the move in June, as luck would have it, we hosted a science librarians conference, which had attendees coming from all over North America. The last month has been hectic! I haven’t even had an opportunity to unpack most of my moving boxes in my new office!

But another reason why I haven’t been writing much lately is that the virtual reality lab project I am working on is starting to ramp up. While plans for the necessary room renovations for the future home of the XR (Extended Reality) Lab are proceeding (with a projected ready date of January 2025), I have been given a smaller room in the main arts and humanities library to set up a temporary virtual reality demonstration room, equipped with a wireless Meta Quest 3 VR/AR headset, plus a Vive Pro 2 PCVR setup, attached to a Windows PC with a good graphics card (see image above).

I have been spending most of last week and this week previewing and reviewing a curated selection of apps and experiences, and drafting a “menu” for both the Meta Quest 3 and the Vive Pro 2, which I will be giving to Libraries staff so they can decide what VR/AR experiences they would like to have. Most of them are brand new to virtual reality and augmented reality, so I still need to work out the best procedures for giving these demos, and cleaning the hardware between users, helping them avoid VR sickness, etc.

In fact, I have spent so much time hopping in and out of various VR apps to draw up the menus, that I have often given myself VR sickness, something which surprised me, as a virtual reality veteran! I have been using a wide variety of headsets since January 2017, and I am usually able to be in VR for two hours at a time!

I discussed this at the first meeting of the University of Manitoba VR/AR/MR/XR Group (a new group I helped organize, for U of M faculty, staff, and students working in virtual reality, augmented reality, mixed reality, extended reality, spatial computing—and whatever other umbrella term they come up with next!), and the head of the computer science department told me that, in his opinion, part of the problem is that many newer app developers don’t put the same amount of care and attention into designing affordances that the earliest VR apps had. He has a good point.

In other words, some VR/AR developers are just throwing stuff together using the new and improved content creation tools, without really doing proper testing. I do think that there is some merit in this idea, based on my own experience over the past two weeks. So I am finding that I am having to take breaks from all my VR/AR activity until the nausea passes. And it has reminded me that I definitely need to keep VR sickness top of mind when giving demos!

Along with off-the-shelf apps (educational and non-gaming, although some apps might have a gamification component) from both the Quest store (for the Meta Quest 3) and the Steam store (for the Vive Pro 2), I am also including in my menus some examples of educational worlds which people have created in various social VR platforms. Some examples are the NASA Apollo moon-landing exhibit in Sansar, The Universe microscopic-to-macroscopic experience in Resonite, and the Ancient Athens Acropolis and Agora worlds, which have been moved from AltspaceVR to VRChat. There’s a lot of content out there! I want Libraries staff to be able to experience as much of it as possible, to get a sense of the possibilities of this technology. (Right now, I am focused on free apps and experiences, but eventually I will have a budget to purchase software.)

So, I have been extremely busy, and sometimes I do feel a bit overwhelmed. Quite often, when I come home from work, the last thing I want to do is sit in front of a computer, and especially put on another virtual reality headset! So my trusty Valve Index, with the Knuckles controllers, is quietly collecting dust on my computer desk at home.

So I apologize for the lack of blog posts lately, but as you can see, I’m trying to keep a lot of plates spinning at the moment! I am going to have to put this blog on the back burner for the foreseeable future. Thank you for your patience and understanding.

Related Blogposts

Today, I wrote the following post on the new Second Life social media platform, Primfeed (which you can currently only read if you already have an account on Primfeed, as I have not yet chosen to make my Primfeed profile and posts publicly viewable):

With all the batshit-crazy political news coming out of the U.S. today making me feel anxious and depressed, I have decided that, in order to preserve my mental health, I now have to abandon the very last traditional social media platform I used daily: Reddit. This means that, from now on, I am only going to be using Primfeed, and NOTHING ELSE: No Reddit, no Mastodon, no Twitter/X, no Facebook, no Instagram, no TikTok.

Corporate-run social media platforms are all becoming a toxic cesspool and dumpster fire, with negative effects on my mental health. I quit Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter years ago, and I have never bothered with TikTok. I haven’t bothered checking into Mastodon in well over half a year now. Reddit was my last refuge, but alas, no longer. I am OUT. (I announced late last year that I was shutting down my blog, but in light of me now leaving Reddit, I will have to take some time to reflect a bit more on that decision. I also need to think about whether or not I want to make my Primfeed profile public.)

It looks like 2025 is shaping up to be an even crazier and more chaotic year than 2024, and I might need to escape to my beloved Second Life now more than ever!

A quick update: last November, my doctor stepped in and put me on full-time sick leave for a couple of weeks. I then went back to work on half-time sick leave, and at the moment, that arrangement will continue until the end of April, 2025. My supervisor at work has also stepped in to address my current workload, and I am no longer working on the project of setting up the virtual reality lab at my university library system. I am just feeling incredibly burned out and utterly exhausted, still, and it is probably going to take me quite some time to rest and recover.

In light of my decision today to quit Reddit (the last traditional social media platform I was still using, albeit without setting up an account, i.e. read-only and anonymously), I do now need to re-evaluate my decision late last year to stop blogging completely. The truth is that I am still feeling tired and burned out, and I don’t have the time, energy, or inclination to blog. So I honestly don’t know where things stand for the blog right now.

My blog will remain up; I do not plan to take it down. I will also keep my associated Discord server running, as it is still being used by a good number of people. I have zero plans to take the RyanSchultz.com Discord server down. However, I have, as of January 1st, 2025, suspended charging my existing Patreon patrons (and a very big thank you to those of you who have chosen to support me financially via Patreon these past five-six years; it has been, and is still, greatly appreciated).

Right now, I need to focus on my physical, mental and emotional health, and I need to focus on returning to my paying job, full-time (minus the VR lab project). Those are my priorities at the moment. In order to help achieve that focus, I am avoiding all social media (except Primfeed), and all metaverse platforms (except InSpaze on the Apple Vision Pro, and my beloved Second Life, which reliably puts me in a comfortable flow state during the creative process, and which consistently brings me happiness, especially with so much bad news happening in my real life).

Everything else must wait, including this blog. I will not make a final decision about my blog until much later this year, once I am in a better place. Thank you for your support over the past 7+ years.

UPDATE Jan. 8th, 2025: Meanwhile, over on Elon Musk’s X (formerly Twitter):

Related Blogposts