I went to China 🇨🇳 to explore how it trades with the rest of the world.
China's manufacturing scale has no historical precedent.
$3.8 trillion in exports in 2025.
A $1.2 trillion trade surplus — the largest any country has ever recorded.
China is the top import partner for roughly 40% of the world's countries.
China now trades 50% more with the Global South than with the US and Europe combined!
But trade grew faster than the plumbing underneath it. The banks, correspondent networks, and currency markets that move money between these regions weren't built for this volume, and in many cases, barely exist at all.
Which leaves Chinese exporters with a problem: how do you get paid by countries that aren't well connected to the global financial system?
To answer that question, I visited the electronics markets of Shenzhen, the historical trade ports of Guangzhou, and the financial center of Hong Kong 🇭🇰.
In this episode, we're joined by Vincent Yang, Co-founder of @ObitaGroup.
This episode of Money Trails, a series from The Flip, is presented by @StellarOrg.
Link below to watch the full episode 👇
I borrowed my friend’s self driving Tesla Model Y for the weekend. How are people buying regular cars when this exists?!
I generally hate driving, but this is genuinely the best driving experience I’ve ever had. Magical.
I live in NYC and don’t pay attention to car stuff at all… I actually had no idea Tesla even had full self-driving like this.
Vietnam is, to me, a series of contrasts.
It’s one of the fastest-growing economies in the world, yet its citizens are big buyers of gold as a hedge against devaluation.
It has a $200 billion trade surplus with the US, and an $80 billion trade deficit with China.
It’s the fourth-highest in global crypto adoption, yet the government just banned global crypto exchanges.
It has “a socialist-oriented market economy.”
I went to Ho Chi Minh City to explore it all.
Check it out 👇
It was an average Tuesday morning, and we waited in line for hours to buy gold...
The headlines say that Vietnam 🇻🇳 is one of the fastest-growing countries in the world. Yet this demand for gold is peculiar.
We've been exploring global stablecoin adoption for the past year. Most countries with higher rates of adoption have certain macro conditions: dollar scarcity, trade deficits, currency devaluation.
So it's surprising to see Vietnam, an increasingly strong manufacturing country, ranked fourth on the global crypto adoption index.
But the Vietnamese Dong actually devalues 3-5% per year to support its export-oriented growth.
Vietnam's crypto trade volume is around $200 billion, and the government just banned global exchanges from operating in the country.
And when the price of gold in Vietnam rises, people queue for hours to buy more.
So we're in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, to explore this gap between the headlines and the realities on the ground.
This episode of Money Trails, The Flip's series on global stablecoin adoption, is presented by @StellarOrg.
Watch the full episode here: youtu.be/Qis2GvWeOcw
Is today really the last chance? I’ve been trying every single day 😭😭😭 @NYCMayor @NYCMayorsOffice @NYCDCAS
I just got back from Vietnam 🇻🇳.
I'm interested in places where the realities on the ground don't match the headlines. And I found Vietnam to be one of those places.
It's one of the fastest-growing economies in the world. Factories are absorbing supply chains leaving China. Incomes are rising. The headlines are glowing.
And yet, a contractor recently asked me if I could pay him in stablecoins, because they trade at a 20% premium on P2P markets.
That sent me down the rabbit hole 🕳️
Crypto adoption in Vietnam ranks 4th globally. Yet the government just banned access to global crypto exchanges.
When the price of gold goes UP, people wait in line for hours to buy more.
Vietnam's economy is a series of contrasts. So I went there to understand it better, from the ground up.
The full story is coming soon to @TheFlipHQ.
And yes, we filmed on the back of motorbikes 😅
An importer in the global south who settles invoices in USDT, converts to [local currency] on a P2P app, and hedges FX risk in real time has a more complex treasury operation than most American small businesses.
We just don't call it that.
I went to Nigeria 🇳🇬 to explore how global trade really works
👇👇
In Lagos' Computer Village, Nigeria's largest electronics market, everything is imported from China.
But how merchants access dollars and pay their suppliers is a challenge.
Nigeria imports $20 billion from China every year, yet dollar access problems and legacy banking systems create friction for those doing global trade.
So how do countries like Nigeria and China trade with each other?
The formal banking system works. But for an SME trying to send dollars to China? Not happening.
Instead: OTC traders. Naira-to-RMB swaps over WeChat. "Flyers" — Nigerians who carry goods on commercial flights from Shenzhen to Lagos.
And increasingly: stablecoins.
In this episode, we went to Lagos, Nigeria, to see it firsthand - how money moves, and how new technologies like stablecoins are facilitating global trade.
In this episode of Money Trails, presented by @StellarOrg, we’re joined by Ife Johnson, Co-founder & CEO of @juicywayhq.
Watch the full episode in the post below ⬇️
Why is @mercury business savings account APY 0.001% but personal savings account APY is 3.25%?
I recently listened to a great @InvestLikeBest interview with Martín Escobari, Head of Growth Equity at General Atlantic, and I wrote down a quote:
"The case for global diversification has never been strongest, and the price has never been lower on a relative basis."
But what that means (for Americans) is needing to understand the "rest of the world" much better than they do.
And yet...
The @WashPost has now laid off its Asia editor, its New Delhi bureau chief, its Sydney bureau chief, its Cairo bureau chief, the entire Middle East reporting team, China correspondents, Iran correspondents, Turkey correspondents, and many more. The world is becoming less America-centric by the minute while the United States is becoming more America-centric than ever. It is just a depressing yet somehow perfect summation of our current moment that one of the most important newspapers in the history of the country - one that has actually shaped the history of the United States - doesn't think reporting on the world is of any use anymore. What an utterly perfect encapsulation of where we have arrived.
Justin Norman 🌍 retweeted
This Friday, join us live at 3pm ET for Offchain Hours with @just_norm from @TheFlipHQ and @rubengsp from @airtminc as they discuss what it looks like to earn stablecoins, and what Airtm is doing to make that possible.
