Time: Tuesday, April 14, 2026, 2:00-3:30 p.m.

Venue: Guoshun Campus, Starr Building, Room 603

Moderator: Professor Xintong Zhan, Department of Finance

Topic: Stablecoin Flows, Dollar Convenience Yields and Exchange Rates

Speaker: Associate Professor Tianyu Wang, School of Economics and Management, Tsinghua University

Abstract:

We examine the impact of stablecoins on the convenience yield of U.S. safe assets, the value of the U.S. dollar, and market stability. We find that a one-standard-deviation inflow into U.S. dollar-denominated stablecoins increases the U.S. Treasury convenience yield by 4 basis points and leads to a 0.9% appreciation of the U.S. dollar over the subsequent month. These effects are stronger for USDC, which uses Treasuries as its main reserve asset, when Treasury convenience yields are already elevated and stablecoin prices are more tightly pegged to $1. We further use shocks to the crypto market as an instrument for stablecoin flows to address the endogeneity issue. The results are consistent with a convenience-yield-based theory of exchange rates that incorporates a novel crypto-related demand channel for the U.S. dollar. Finally, we show that the U.S. dollar stablecoin market serves as a transmission channel through which volatility in crypto markets spills over into traditional financial markets.

Bio: Tianyu Wang is Associate Professor at the School of Economics and Management, Tsinghua University. His research focuses on asset pricing, financial institutions and international finance, as well as the impact of artificial intelligence on capital markets. His work has been published in journals including Journal of Finance, Review of Financial Studies, and Journal of Financial Economics. He has also led multiple projects funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, including the Young Scientists Fund and special research programs.