Brandon DonnellyCanada must become a global superpower
The silver lining to the US starting a trade war with Canada and regularly threatening annexation is that it has forced this country out of complacency. Indeed, I'm hard pressed to remember a time, at least in my lifetime, when patriotism and nationalism has united so much of Canada. According to a recent survey by Angus Reid, the percentage of Canadians expressing a "deep emotional attachment" to the country jumped from 49% in December 2024 to 59% in February 2025. And as further evidence of...
Brandon DonnellyThe bank robbery capital of the world
Between 1985 and 1995, Los Angeles' retail bank branches were robbed some 17,106 times. In 1992, which was the the city's worst year for robberies, the number was 2,641. This roughly translated into about one bank robbery every 45 minutes of each banking day. All of this, according to this CrimeReads piece by Peter Houlahan, gave Los Angeles the dubious title of "The Bank Robbery Capital of the World" during this time period. So what caused this? Well according to Peter it was facil...
Brandon DonnellyThe story behind those pixelated video game mosaics in Paris
If you've ever been to Paris, you've probably noticed the small pixelated art pieces that are scattered all around the city on buildings and various other hard surfaces. Or maybe you haven't seen or noticed them in Paris, but you've seen similarly pixelated mosaics in one of the other 79 cities around the world where they can be found. Or maybe you have no idea what I'm talking about right now. Huh? Here's an example from Bolivia (click here if you can't see...
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Brandon DonnellySorry, I don't have Venmo — stablecoin?
Brandon DonnellyCanada must become a global superpower
The silver lining to the US starting a trade war with Canada and regularly threatening annexation is that it has forced this country out of complacency. Indeed, I'm hard pressed to remember a time, at least in my lifetime, when patriotism and nationalism has united so much of Canada. According to a recent survey by Angus Reid, the percentage of Canadians expressing a "deep emotional attachment" to the country jumped from 49% in December 2024 to 59% in February 2025. And as further evidence of...
Brandon DonnellyThe bank robbery capital of the world
Between 1985 and 1995, Los Angeles' retail bank branches were robbed some 17,106 times. In 1992, which was the the city's worst year for robberies, the number was 2,641. This roughly translated into about one bank robbery every 45 minutes of each banking day. All of this, according to this CrimeReads piece by Peter Houlahan, gave Los Angeles the dubious title of "The Bank Robbery Capital of the World" during this time period. So what caused this? Well according to Peter it was facil...
Brandon DonnellyThe story behind those pixelated video game mosaics in Paris
If you've ever been to Paris, you've probably noticed the small pixelated art pieces that are scattered all around the city on buildings and various other hard surfaces. Or maybe you haven't seen or noticed them in Paris, but you've seen similarly pixelated mosaics in one of the other 79 cities around the world where they can be found. Or maybe you have no idea what I'm talking about right now. Huh? Here's an example from Bolivia (click here if you can't see...
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Back when Canadians used to travel to the US, it was common for a situation like this to arise: "Hey, I'll send you money. Do you have Venmo?" And then, as a Canadian, you'd say, "sorry, we don't have Venmo in Canada. We use our own proprietary system called Interac e-Transfer. Do you have PayPal? I think I still have an account. Let's try." Once this exchange was over, both parties would then sit there and wonder why the hell it's still so expensive and awkward to move money around.
As another example, take global remittances. These are payments sent by a person back to their country of origin, usually to a family member. And in 2024, it was estimated that some $905 billion was sent around the world for this reason, with about $685 billion of it being sent to low and middle-income countries. But it was also estimated that the average cost of doing this was around 6.62%, which is double the UN's target of 3%.
For anyone who has used crypto before, this feels painfully archaic. Sending a wire transfer can cost over $50 and it can take time to clear, assuming that you got in before the bank's cut-off time. Sending things via a blockchain is cheap (it's pennies now) and it happens instantly and securely — 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. This was always one of the promises of crypto, but now we're seeing it play out very clearly with stablecoins. Here's an example.
Stablecoins are a type of cryptocurrency that have their value pegged to another asset, such as gold or a fiat currency. And at the time of writing this post, something like 99% of stablecoins are pegged to the US dollar. The benefits of this are twofold. Firstly, it creates price stability. You're effectively holding US dollars. But now you have a US dollar on a blockchain (or a tokenized US dollar), meaning you can do crypto things with it, like send it around the world instantly and for free.
The other benefit of this is that it can serve as a hedge against a problematic local currency. Would you rather hold the Argentine Peso or the US dollar? The use cases are powerful. So it's not surprising that, by some estimates, a quarter of all global remittances now involve some form of cryptocurrency. Argentina also happens to be the leading crypto market in Latin America. Between July 2023 and June 2024, the country recorded about $91 billion in crypto transactions.
It's fascinating to think about how all of this will reshape the global financial landscape. Already stablecoin transactions are threatening Visa in terms of overall transactions. All someone needs is a mobile phone and a crypto wallet. And by the way, as soon as you link a wallet to a human, you can also quickly determine how much money they've been sending/receiving, figure out tax liabilities, and so on.
Also noteworthy is the fact that the (vast?) majority of stablecoin transactions settle on Ethereum. It is the substrate powering this market, as well as many others. I don't know what that exactly means for Ethereum as a crypto asset. But I do believe it means something meaningful. And in this instance, it stems from a fairly simple want: "I would like to send you money cheaply and securely, and I don't want inflation to then kill my purchasing power."
Cover photo by Alistair MacRobert on Unsplash
Back when Canadians used to travel to the US, it was common for a situation like this to arise: "Hey, I'll send you money. Do you have Venmo?" And then, as a Canadian, you'd say, "sorry, we don't have Venmo in Canada. We use our own proprietary system called Interac e-Transfer. Do you have PayPal? I think I still have an account. Let's try." Once this exchange was over, both parties would then sit there and wonder why the hell it's still so expensive and awkward to move money around.
As another example, take global remittances. These are payments sent by a person back to their country of origin, usually to a family member. And in 2024, it was estimated that some $905 billion was sent around the world for this reason, with about $685 billion of it being sent to low and middle-income countries. But it was also estimated that the average cost of doing this was around 6.62%, which is double the UN's target of 3%.
For anyone who has used crypto before, this feels painfully archaic. Sending a wire transfer can cost over $50 and it can take time to clear, assuming that you got in before the bank's cut-off time. Sending things via a blockchain is cheap (it's pennies now) and it happens instantly and securely — 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. This was always one of the promises of crypto, but now we're seeing it play out very clearly with stablecoins. Here's an example.
Stablecoins are a type of cryptocurrency that have their value pegged to another asset, such as gold or a fiat currency. And at the time of writing this post, something like 99% of stablecoins are pegged to the US dollar. The benefits of this are twofold. Firstly, it creates price stability. You're effectively holding US dollars. But now you have a US dollar on a blockchain (or a tokenized US dollar), meaning you can do crypto things with it, like send it around the world instantly and for free.
The other benefit of this is that it can serve as a hedge against a problematic local currency. Would you rather hold the Argentine Peso or the US dollar? The use cases are powerful. So it's not surprising that, by some estimates, a quarter of all global remittances now involve some form of cryptocurrency. Argentina also happens to be the leading crypto market in Latin America. Between July 2023 and June 2024, the country recorded about $91 billion in crypto transactions.
It's fascinating to think about how all of this will reshape the global financial landscape. Already stablecoin transactions are threatening Visa in terms of overall transactions. All someone needs is a mobile phone and a crypto wallet. And by the way, as soon as you link a wallet to a human, you can also quickly determine how much money they've been sending/receiving, figure out tax liabilities, and so on.
Also noteworthy is the fact that the (vast?) majority of stablecoin transactions settle on Ethereum. It is the substrate powering this market, as well as many others. I don't know what that exactly means for Ethereum as a crypto asset. But I do believe it means something meaningful. And in this instance, it stems from a fairly simple want: "I would like to send you money cheaply and securely, and I don't want inflation to then kill my purchasing power."
Cover photo by Alistair MacRobert on Unsplash
There is an enormous problem here though. There is risk of losing value, and there is no good way to evaluate the level of that risk. https://www.moodys.com/web/en/us/insights/data-stories/stablecoins-instability.html
Sorry, I don't have Venmo — stablecoin? https://brandondonnelly.com/sorry-i-dont-have-venmo-—-stablecoin?referrer=0xD496380248F848c1cAB3e3b0F1106302B9A3cf0b