The curious case of China’s not-at-all-diminishing energy stockpiles
And why warehouse receipts originated by foreign participants in China could be the latest incarnation of eurodollars.
What you may have missed
Dear legacy site subscribers, I am writing to encourage you once again to shift your subs over to Substack, where I continue to produce daily content. I will be shuttering the £20 per month option here as of the end of May, because cross-posting is proving too time-consuming. That means this site will remain operational […]
It’s ransomware, Scott, but not as we know it
TLDR: Washington’s $55 billion IMF quota increase, criticised by the WSJ as a bad deal, is better understood as a strategic, one-off liquidity concession to China — wrapped in multilateral optics — to head off a destabilising dollar crunch and BRI unraveling. It also helps accelerate America’s pivot away from weakening multilateral influence toward more controllable bilateral dollar swap arrangements.
We urgently need to talk about swap lines
What looks like a desperate plea from a dollar-rich sovereign is in reality a sophisticated signal about how the plumbing of global finance actually works — and who still controls it in 2026.
Important note to annual subscribers!
To all my highly appreciated annual subscribers who are still signed up on WordPress, This is a quick note to say thank you for your continued custom. Dario and I really do appreciate it. As previously noted, The Blind Spot is in the process of migrating to Substack full-time. While I am still copying key […]
Parlez-vous oil trader?
Everyone’s suddenly talking about backwardation, physical differentials and time-spreads. But what do any of these terms really mean? And why do they matter?
A Q&A about the ‘petrodollar’
From oil power to security power.
The reports of the dollar’s death are greatly exaggerated
Being an extortionist’s preferred currency does not a reserve currency make.
A compendium of counternarratives
Because that’s what the Blind Spot was made for. Today we assess the emerging anti ‘energy lockdown’ narrative and the Trumpian market manipulation grift that may just be a cover for dual-use finance.
Meet Qivalis: The bank-led effort to internationalise the euro with stablecoins
Policymakers are beginning to recognise the importance of homegrown private-sector initiatives in countering dollar-backed stablecoins.