Hello, everyone, and welcome to the May edition of the virtual seminar series on central banking and digital currencies. Before we start today's session, I want to make a brief announcement, as you can see on the screen here in November. The RICS Bank will be hosting the second conference on the economics of CBDC, organized jointly with the Bank of Canada and with a small measure of support by our virtual seminar series. I think this conference will be of particular interest to people in the audience, and I hope that if you have a paper on CBDC, you'll consider submitting it. As you can see the submission deadline is four weeks away on June 15, and for more information about how to submit and about the conference itself, the QR code here will take you to the call for papers on the RICS Bank webpage. Turning to today's session, our moderator for today is Larry Wall from the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, and so now I'll turn it over to you Larry. Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, as whichever is appropriate. Today we're delighted to have Christopher Birch, a senior economist in the research division of the Swedish Central Bank, the RICS Bank, present his paper Stable Coins, Adoption and Fragility. He will have 25 minutes. Christoph, the floor is yours. Thanks a lot Larry. Let me share my screen. I think now we should be able to see the slides. Thanks a lot Larry for the kind introduction and thanks to the CBNDC webinar organizers for having me here, and especially also to Alex to take the time to prepare a discussion on this paper. My paper is on the topic of stable coins and it's motivated by the rapid expansion of the stable coins market, the inherent fragility of stable coins, and their role as a link between crypto markets and traditional financial markets. The stable coins started to get a lot of attention after the Facebook Libra announcement in June 2019, where Facebook announced to launch a global stable coin back by a basket of currencies, and this was a wake up call for the regulatory community. While the Facebook Libra project was ultimately discontinued after the regulatory headwinds, the stable coin market continued to develop and stable coins play a critical role in crypto markets. Today's dominant stable coins are tether US dollar coin and Binance coin. They are all packed one to one to the US dollar and fully backed stable coins. The paper is motivated by the following three questions. First, what are the reasons behind the fragility of stable coins and what factors contribute to their fragility. Second, can stable coin adoption be excessive and third, how should stable coins be regulated. To address these questions, I developed a theoretical model of stable coins that allows me to analyze the determinants of stable coin adoption and fragility. For this framework, I'd like to contrast the beneficial role of stable coins with a risk of stable coins runs and potential downsides from wider adoption. Furthermore, I would like to shed light on prominent features of the stable coins market, such as the role for payment preferences, transaction costs, network effects and all hazard problems with issues. And last but not least, I'd like to gain insights for the risk assessment and appropriate regulation of stable coins. In the nutshell, what I'm doing is I'm building a two period model. There's going to be an interim date, which is featuring a stable coin conversion game, which is modeled as a global game of regime change. And the next underdate, where I model a stable coin adoptions game, which is built on the premise that stable coins offer a benefit for certain use cases to stable coin holders. And the potential stable coin holders are heterogeneous in how much they benefit from different means of payment. So the consumers when deciding whether or not to dot stable coins, they are trading off the potential benefits of stable coins with a return differential relative to deposits and the risk of devaluations of stable coins. In my model, I'm pretty agnostic about how exactly stable coins are generating a benefit for their holders. The assumption has a clear motivation for stable coin adopters who are interested in crypto applications. Their primary motive may be to economize on transaction costs in the crypto universe they might have also preferences such as such as a law for anonymity, but there might also be real world applications such as low cost remittances and currency substitution in emerging markets going forward. So this is the placement in the literature. So if you know the banking literature, then you have seen often the dynamic depict type of framework which has been used a lot. There typically the focus is on the asset side where banks are choosing the assets to trade off the returns with liquidity provision and run risk. So that is focusing more on the liability side in that I inductionize an adoption game for stable coins and deposits at the ex ante date and relative to other papers on stable coins. A distinct feature of my work is that I focus on the payment aspect and study the determinants for adoption and fragility with a view of the risk assessment and appropriate regulation of stable coins. The first side is the summary of the results. I find first that they are two mechanisms that can justify the concern in the regulatory community that there could be an excessive adoption of stable coins the first mechanism relates to an uninternalized destabilizing composition effect and the second one to an uninternalized network effect which can undermine the role of bank deposits as a mean of payment. Fragility is taking a central focus in this paper, and I find that factors that promote stable coin adoption, typically also tend to make the marginal stable coin holder less frighty which means there's going to be less stable coin runs. So factors that promote adoption tend to be enhancing stability of stable coins. Moreover factors that increase the revenues of stable coin issues are also promoting stability, as well as congestion effects which play an important role in the crypto universe. Last but not least I find support for regulatory disclosure regimes and rules on reserves and the capitalization of stable coin issues. You through the model. The model has three dates and the unit continuum of risk neutral consumers index by I, they're each endowed with $1 and they want to consume at the end of the game at day two. There's a homogeneous and divisible consumption good that's produced at day two by concept competitive consumption good sellers, which produce the good at the unit cost of $1. They are two monies insured bank deposits and stable coins. Consumers can transfer they get $0 endowments to date two by either holding insured bank deposits, or by holding stable coins by adopting stable coins. At day two, the sellers of the consumption good are accepted deposits or stable coins of equal value. Since I'm not interested in the banking side. I model deposits as an outside option, which gives an exogenous interest rate are deep and stable coins instead are issued by a monopolistic in issuer and I go into more detail. The stable coin issuer is offering to convert cash into a digital token and vice versa at a one to one conversion rate at date zero one and two. And this is not the optimal contract here, but this is what we observe in reality this one to one conversion promise where the leading stable coin if issuers all operate a unilateral exchange rate pack to the US dollar. In the model, the stable coin issuer may not be able to keep her promise for one to one conversion at all dates. And that's because the funds collected at date zero die invested in a risky technology with a date to return of theta, which is to hashtag following a uniform distribution. And importantly, theta lower bar is smaller than one meaning there are states of the world where the issuer is unable to redeem all the coins at par. The important ingredient, my model is the demand for stable coins, which is generated by an interplay of two factors first payment preferences, and second conversion costs. Specifically, consumers faith phase edus in credit risk about their consumption preference at day two, and the sellers they have a payment preference. So they might only accept one money or another money. However, they are conversion costs at each date. And importantly, I assume that the conversion cost at date zero is smaller than the future conversion costs tall one and tall two at future dates at date one at that day two. And this is generating an advantage from having the right money on hand at day two. The advantage from making your conversion at date zero, if you believe it's very likely that you're going to need a certain money in future because in future, it's going to be more expensive to do the conversion. Here it comes in as follows. They are capital she groups index by small G, where capital she can be arbitrarily large. And an individual consumer belonging to group G has a probability alpha G of being matched with a consumption good seller who only accepts payment and stable coins of probability better G to be matched with a seller who only accepts bank deposits and a probability alpha minus probability one minus alpha minus beta to meet a seller that accepts both types of payment. Importantly, if a consumer belongs to a group with a higher G, then she has a higher expected need for stable coins because she thinks it's more likely she meets a seller that wants to be paid in stable coins. So the consumers belonging to groups with a high G are going to be the crypto enthusiasts who are most eager to benefit from stable coins, whereas the ones with a low G are more inclined to hold bank deposits. At date zero, there is the adoption game as I said previously and that's modeled as a simultaneous decision where consumers to decide whether to adopt stable coins or instead to adopt to hold insured bank deposits. At date one, there is this conversion game modeled as a global game of regime change. And importantly, if the issue is meeting redemption requests, liquidation is costly. So she has to liquidate part of her long term investment and the premature divestment yields a return of little R, which is smaller than theta lower bar. So meeting early redemption requests is draining the resources of the issuer. And if the issuer is unable to meet her payment obligations, there's an additional bankruptcy cost psi. To close the description of the model I would like to point out an important assumption that has been used also in the literature as a modeling trick. I assume that coin holders are active only with a probability copper, which is smaller than R. So, in this way, I exclude rationing at date one so at that one the issuer is always going to be able to meet the redemption requests of active coin holders. But of course, at day two, the issuer might not be able to meet her promises and might go bankrupt. So the model can be relaxed, but the model becomes much less tractable, but key insights by large go through. Let me skip this graphic illustration of the model and come to the analysis. So the game is soft backwards first we look at the conversion game at date one, and then we look at the adoption game at date zero. How does the conversion game look like. So when solving the conversion game, we take the adoption rate, which is denoted as capital and as given. And we can find using the global games methodology that there exists a unique threshold equilibrium. That looks as follows the issuer faces a run at date one for all fundamentalizations theta that below that fall below a certain threshold theta star, which is given implicitly by this condition here. And this condition here is essentially an aggregation of the group specific indifference conditions of the stable coin holders. Also, why you can see here that this term here gamma upper bar is reflecting the weighted average over the payment type of the individual coin holders. So this is basically the weighted average of the gammas over the coin holders. And for that reason, the composition of the stable coin adopters is going to matter for stability because we can relate this. Gamma upper bar to theta star which is governing the probability of stable and runs. Let me come to the key comparative statics, which you can see here in this table. The first three comparative static results are consistent with what you would expect from the banking literature which gives us some confidence that the stable coins run model is plausible. First, I find that an increase in bankruptcy costs associated with a higher probability of bank runs, because there's less resources available in case of a run. So coin holders are going to become more flighty. The fraction of active coin holders copper is also associated with a higher probability of stable coin runs, because they exert more pressure on the issuer. And then an increase the liquidation value instead is stabilizing it's reducing the probability of runs because a higher liquidation value gives the issuer means more resources to stem against redemption requests. The fourth comparative static is one that I think is relevant for the crypto universe. The probability of runs is decreasing in the conversion cost that they do on. So if for instance due to congestion effects. The conversion cost that that one goes up and I indoctrinize it in an extension also of this model for the time being it's exogenous. Then we have that the probability of runs go down so that's a stabilizing effect here in the system. Last but not least, we have a comparative static result on the composition effect. Specifically, I find that the average relative preference for stable coin payments is negatively associated with the probability of bank runs. Why is that the case. This is reducing the probability of bank runs. Why is that the case. If I have stable coin holders that are more eager to hold stable coins that have a higher gamma. Then this is driving up the average gamma in the pool of stable coin holders. And as a result of that, it's reducing the flightiness of coin holders in the conversion game and reducing the probability of stable coins. And this is a destabilizing composition effect that's going to be also at the core of efficiency result which I will show you in two slides. After having looked at the conversion game at date one we can go to the stable coin adoption game at date zero. In date zero when deciding whether or not to adopt stable coins, the consumers, they are looking at their group specific benefit from adopting stable coins which is given by this formula here. They essentially look at the expected return when adopting stable coins and compare that with the expected return when holding bank deposits. And interestingly this, importantly this benefit from stable coin adoption is increasing in the groups. So if you're more likely to meet a seller that only accept stable coins of course you have a higher benefit from holding stable coins. It's decreasing the deposit rate, higher deposit rate instead makes deposits more attractive relative to stable coins. And the benefit from stable coins is also decreasing in theta star so it's decreasing in the probability of stable coins. So if there's a higher risk of devaluation, you're also less inclined towards stable coins. And this gives me a relation between the adoption rate and the probability of stable coin runs. So we find that belief about a higher probability of stable coins at date zero is associated with a lower adoption rate. And based on this destabilizing composition effect from the previous slide and this comparative static, we can do an equilibrium analysis, and we can find that there exists a unique equilibrium of the adoption game. Now, based on this results as a next step, we look at the efficiency analysis. And here, I like to address the concern of regulators about a widespread adoption, perhaps rapid adoption of stable coins. I think about Facebook Libra for instance. And I want to look at that through the lens of my model and try to understand whether there could be scope for inefficient excessive adoption. And there I focus on two internalized effects first the destabilizing composition effect that we just discussed and second, an internalized erosion of bank deposits. So coming to the destabilizing composition effect, let's have a look graphically at a model where there are two groups of agents, group one and two. And what I do here in this graph, I'm plotting their respective benefits or the payoff differential from adopting stable coins against the adoption rate. What you see here is that the benefit from adopting stable coins starts sloping downwards whenever multiple groups of coin holders are adopting stable coins. And that's because of the destabilizing composition effect which makes it less attractive to adopt stable coins in equilibrium. It's going to be the case that the coin holders here. The marginal coin holder belonging to group one here is going to be just indifferent between adopting stable coins and not, and we cannot compare this equilibrium adoption rate to the constraint plan of problem. And we find that the marginal adopt of stable coins is not internalizing that she poses a negative externality on other coin holders through the destabilizing composition effect. Graphically, you can see that the benefit from adopting stable coins in green is rather small compared to the cost imposed on the other stable coin holders by making the stable coin less stable through the increased adoption. So to sum up, we have the potential for excessive adoption due to a destabilizing composition effect that's not internalized by the marginal stable coin adopter. Now, if we extend the model and introduce network effects, this result can potentially be overturned. And the way I do this is I assume that the probability, the common component of the probability of meeting a seller that only accepts stable coins is increasing in the stable coin adoption rate as stable coins are more prevalent. Instead, the probability of meeting a seller that only accepts bank deposits is declining in the stable coin adoption rate. And if these two effects are sufficiently strong, they can overturn the destabilizing composition effect, and it can be the case that a higher adoption is actually stabilizing. So it's really important to think about both effects when trying to evaluate whether a higher adoption is stabilizing or not. There are some caveats to this when we introduce positive network effects, multiple equilibria of the adoption game can emerge from a viewpoint of regulators. That's not very desirable because then you have potential for rapid shifts in adoption because the beliefs about stability change. And we can also see that the origin of the positive network effects matters. And to dry form this message, we can develop a second reason why stable coin adoption might be too high. And that's because of the uninternalized erosion of bank deposits. For that suppose that a wider adoption of stable coins is reducing the probability that deposits are accepted. Formally, we assume that alpha prime is positive and beta prime is zero to isolate this effect. And here's the case that the marginal adopter doesn't internalize that she poses a negative externality, not another stable coin holders. But this time on the depositors on the ones who decided not to hold stable coins. Because by her decision to adopt stable coins, she makes it less likely that this depositors are going to meet a consumption put seller that is accepting the deposits as a payment. I have a few more extensions of the model to try to analyze the different determinants of stable coin adoption and stability over in the buffer what we have discussed so far. From a regulatory viewpoint, there is an interest in thinking about more hazard problems of stable coin issues, because we see in practice that some of them have rather risky investments. And there's also concerns about the quality of disclosure. And let me look at this extension. And you can refer to the paper if you have interest in some of the other extensions that you can see here on this list. So the way I introduce the more hazard problem is I introduce a portfolio choice problem where on the asset side the issue can choose between the low risk and the high risk portfolio. And the high risk portfolio choice is essentially modeled as the mean preserving spread in the distribution of fetus in combination with the reduction of the liquidation value are. So here it's clearly socially optimal. If the issue chooses the low risk portfolio, which has a lower spread in the theta distribution and the higher liquidation value and therefore also I guess rise to a more stable stable coin. However, the incentives of the issuer are misaligned. And one question is whether a regulatory disclosure regime can help to overcome this problem and to implement the efficient risk choice. I find that this is not always the case. And that's because the issuer is only implementing the low risk choice if the sensitivity of the thresholds theta star and and star is sufficiently high. This is a little bit different to what you typically know from the banking literature where with transparency the price of debt is risk adjusted. Here we have the unilateral exchange rate pack. So what matters is only is the sensitivity of the thresholds to the risk choice of the portfolio. And given that the regulatory disclosure regime doesn't necessarily help always. There are other implications for additional regulation, such as capital requirements and the regulation of research of issuers. I have another extension also on stable coins landing that's also related to one of Alex's papers, where I introduce a stable coins landing game in between the adoption stage and the conversion stage. In a way, as it's done in the traditional currency attack literature in the paper by Corsetti. And I introduced large borrow that is borrowing stable coins, which is got three minutes. Yeah, which is actually great if the larger borrower is not a speculator, because by offering some interest on stable coins. I'm not really promoting stable coin adoption because it becomes more attractive to adopt stable coins if you can earn interest as long as the stable coins are still relatively stable. If it's of course likely that this large borrower is a speculator, then this benefits might be eroded to sum up. I will post a framework in this paper that is modifying existing theories of bank grants and currency attacks by modeling stable coin adoption and by incorporating features that I think are important in the stable coins market, especially this payments role. A key ingredient in my model is the demand for stable coins, which is generated by a heterogeneity in the induced payment preference of the potential adopters of stable coins of the consumers. The main results are first, I identify potential downsides from wider adoption, specifically I isolated to externalities that can lead to excessive adoption of stable coins. Second, I provide some insights for the risk assessment of stable coins from the study of the determinants of stable coin adoption and fragility. Third, I find support for regulatory disclosure regime and roots on reserves and the capitalization of stable coin issues. And last but not least, what I didn't have time to show you here, where I have to refer to the paper, I offer a set of new testable applications. Thanks a lot for your attention and I'm really looking forward to Alex's discussion of the paper. Before we go there. There's one clarification question along treated as just clarification now if we want to go into more depth we can do that in the Q&A. Yeah, general ask the question, can stable coins choose to put their money in bank deposits as well instead of investing in a risky project or asset. A stable coin issues or stable coin holders. I interpret that a stable coin issuers. So, so, so, okay, so it's going to be the case that so that's the slide I didn't show you. So it's going to be the case in equilibrium that we're going to have a threshold on gamma. And the consumers belonging to a group with a high gamma find stable coins more attractive they have a higher probability of needing of benefiting from stable coins as payments at day two, whereas the ones with a low gamma they go for bank deposits. The stable coin issuer collects the funds from the groups with a high gamma and invest them in a risky investment project. Then in the extension when I look at the mall has a problem. I allow for risk choice, a risk management problem here of the issuer, so we can decide whether to invest in a more or less risky portfolio. And you could also model that as a portfolio choice problem where you have a risky asset and a safe asset, and you decide on the mix between the risky and the safe asset. Okay, okay, I think that. So, so in theory it would be possible for them to go riskless and put it all and ensure deposits in a too big to fail bank, say. Not my focus but in principle if you introduce the risk management problem, they can go fully safe. Okay, and I have an extension also in the paper where discuss them. E money and narrow banking with which goes in the direction as well. Okay, I think we need to move on to Alex now. So, discussing the paper will be Alexander Locas, the chief of the macro potential policy analysis section of the financial stability division of the Federal Reserve Board. And Alex four is yours. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Let me serve my slides so. Okay, all good. Can you see them great. Thanks a lot for the organizers for inviting me to discuss this very nice paper. So I enjoyed a lot reading it but let me jump directly to it. Starting with some basics for stable coins. What are they I mean, they're digital assets that they promise to maintain the constant price of $1 and billy Dima bill at parent demand.  They're mostly collateralized by other assets so they get their safety from them. The issue is that a lot of these assets can be risk and illiquid. Now, this is not something new in financial intermediation. This is very similar to what we would have in banks with uninsured deposit and liquid assets or money market funds. So it is very, very reasonable to expect that these stable coins will be exposed to run risk. What is the big difference of stable coins from other money market instruments like deposit money market funds? The big difference is that they don't provide any direct compensation to holders for this run risk. And what is the reason for that? Stable coins pay no interest. Now, we can argue whether this is an optimal outcome at the contracting problem, whether this is regulation because you're trying to avoid being classified as securities without external or it is an asymmetric information thing. But I mean, let's take it as given they don't pay interest and this is a very important thing. Why is that? Because then we really need to ask ourselves, OK, if they don't pay interest and they are risky, where does the demand for stable coins come from? This is a first order question. Now, another question which is related but distinct to that is how can you maintain your peg in secondary markets trade continuously? So this question, of course, are related, but they are a little bit distinct. This paper tactics very nicely the first question and focuses on the role of stable coins to facilitate payments. And I will get more into that because I think there are many novel aspects in this thing. But at the very high level what is the paper saying? The paper is saying that if stable coins can be used more efficiently for some time of payments than other private money, then there will be demand for them. You will demand these things. And how can we actually, this is a quote from other people. So the idea is the following. If I am only willing to exchange my dollars in a foreign country for the local currency that has the risk of devaluation, we can imagine these currencies. If I know that I will need local currency to go and buy a coffee at the local store, otherwise I will not do that. I will use my credit card. So I will only be willing to take the risk of devaluation, inflation from one day to another, or you can think of this, if there is demand. And that's where the paper starts from. Now, Christoph already mentioned this in another paper with Gary Gordon and people from the Fed. We are investigating a complementary channel where the demand for stable coins comes. It will be to take leverage speculative positions in crypto empirically and theoretically, but I'm here to talk about Christoph's paper, so just a little bit there. So what is the sketch of the model? So there are three periods. There is a simple tractably model. There are three periods. There is a stable coin issuer and there are heterogeneous agents with respect to their payment preferences that they choose between insured deposits and stable coins. What happens in this period? At equal zero, the issuer caters the demand for stable coins and invests the process in a single risk and the liquid project. There was already a question about that. Christoph relaxes this in an extension and considers it a portfolio problem. As an aside, I think this is the first of the risks that you should elevate in the paper, so to solve the total optimization problem. I think it doesn't belong in the excess, it belongs to the main part of the paper and you have already done the work. Now, at equal one, some agents become active and some become passive. The active agents decide whether to redeem their stable coins in a global game. This is a typical demo, difficult, standard stuff. There is nothing weird there. They borrow a trick from actually the mutual fund paper that Christoph said that say that only some people are active. Now, I never like this assumption but people are doing it. In this particular case, I think it's a little bit problematic if we want to be realistic how to think about trans stable coins. And the reason is that these things are trading 24-7 decentralized blockchains. There is full transparency about the price. You can even set up and alerting your smartphone app to see where the price goes down. And there is a lot of social media presses. Now, I think this is not to criticize your paper. In general, I think it's a very important aspect to think that runs happen fast. And this is what the March 2023 episode saw that's even for banks. Bank runs have much faster than before. So we shouldn't forget about that. Now, T equal to if the stable coin is solvent, agents can use tokens for certain payments with some probability. If it is insolvent, they get the process. That's the model. Now, the key thing of the paper and I think the big novelty of it is the payment type probabilities. So what's the key aspect? There are heterogeneous preferences such that with some probability, they prefer goods that require payment, either stable coins or deposits. There is a common component and the idiosyncratic component is probabilities. Let me start with the syncratic component. The idiosyncratic component ranks each agent individually such that some people have higher probability, some have lower probability. It's completely exogenous. The first inefficiency that Christoph shows comes directly from this idiosyncratic component. And the idea there is the average pool will determine their own probability. But as you add more people that they have lowered these probabilities, you deteriorate the pool. The probability goes up. This is an externality. This is a novel externality. It's very nice. I like it a lot. There is another common component, which is what we call the network effects that is increasing on the stable coin circulation at equal to. This gives you the d an alpha n or the beta one minus n in the slides of Christoph. Now, I'm less enthusiastic about this component for two reasons. First is a pure modeling theory thing. It is inconsistent with the number of coins circulation in not out of equilibrium parts in the global game. So this component only depends on the number of circulation at equal to zero. If you want to do it properly as a common component, you have to introduce it in the out of equilibrium parts of the global game. It is doable, but it is worth. The more important reason why I'm less enthusiastic about that is it's a little bit of hope. And I think it is very when we talk about contagion externalities. It is a contention in the old search version of the one that you saw. It's very important. You saw in the blockchain, you know, with the gas fees. It's very important to micro found it. And there are two ways you can do it. You can do there. You can do random search with bargaining. You can do directed search either way works. I think it's very important because we need to know which way the matching efficiency goes and which way the congestion externality goes. So I think this is an important part if you want. I mean, it's an important part. It's really there. Now it's also doable because you can do network effects by increasing returns to scale matching functions. There is a paper by Antonio Coppola. Chris Namurthi and Jackson suit that they do this. So you can have a look at this. It's actually a currency adoption paper as well. Not the stable conduction currency adoption. So they do it with increasing the scale. I'll exceed that three minutes. Fantastic. Thank you Larry. Now, as far as I'm concerned, there is already a lot of novelty in the first efficiency you saw. And I personally would be happy to leave it there, but you know, the network effects do not seem to matter for keen sites. So you may consider, you know, pushing it as in the end because there are some. There are these issues. I don't know if this may be me or others, but you know, there's this issue.  I mean, it's a very nice paper. So you want to say, OK, this is the adams. You understand this happening. OK, the theoretical point is very straightforward. We get it. But the paper may benefit a bit from the quantification of the mechanism to see how economical significance. And that will get you. I'll explain why. Let's go to see the main premise of the paper is that table coins are used for payments. So there's a convenience here. Right. This is what gives them their demand. How is how big is this convenience here? If we go to a paper by Scander on the convenience of deposit, it is about 80 basis points in recent years. So if we think that this is a very reasonable estimate or an upper bound, if you like, for the convenience for stable coins, because they cannot use for everything. Can we justify this huge increase from 20 billion to 200 billion in just one year? So I think this is the first order question as well. I'm not sure that with the underlying big risk, you can justify it. It's definitely a component. And we definitely component if Libra is adopted. But here for this market and the policy becomes for this market. Anyway, it's important to quantify. So let me say overall, this is one of the early papers on global game approach to stable coins. It's a very nice paper. I would really recommend that you go and read it in detail. The focus is on the role of stable coins for payments. And I think you're making a very nice contribution with the heterogeneity on the payment types. Thank you so much. You have brief comments and response. Yeah, thanks a lot for this great discussion. So that's definitely food for thought. Maybe a few thoughts. So regarding the convenience yield, I also think it would be really important to try to learn more about that. It's an empirical question. And from my reading of the literature, generally, the use of stable coins and crypto has a lot to do with illicit, illicit activities, money laundering, organized crime and so on. So I guess that can be very strong reasons that lead to adoption for some, right? And that can also potentially explain rapid growth. But it's very difficult to say and I don't have the insights empirically. But that's definitely something interesting to look at. And from the viewpoint of my paper, I really tried to be a bit agnostic about the different use cases. There will be a very strong of different groups of consumers with different use cases and maybe going forward, there will be a very strong use case in currency substitution and emerging markets if providers are penetrating that market and that could lead to a lot of adoption perhaps or not. I also think that your comment on the network effects is really great. And that's definitely something that I have to think a little bit more about and have to see as you said how I positioned in the paper and how much deep I want to go into the micro foundations. Admittedly now it's relatively ad hoc and it's modeled a little bit as in the paper I cited by Itai Agua and co-authors. And there's definitely scope to do more on that if I choose to go in that direction. Maybe it's good to get some more bilateral feedback from you to see whether it's worth to do it. Thanks a lot. Well, while we're waiting for some more questions to roll in, I wanted to pick up on one of the points that Alex raised about how stable coins having managed to maintain their peg with secondary trading. Because you model this as a mutual fund where redemption is required but in fact what we frequently see is that they choose not to redeem it, not to impose those liquidation costs on their holders. But instead, I'll let those who want to run away do sort of discount on the market. Have you thought much about that and what that might mean to the model. No, I didn't think too much about it. I mean, if you have introduced trading and prices that are revealing information in this type of model, you have to be very careful how you do it with the timing in order to keep the global games framework going and get a unique equilibrium of the conversion game. That's that's one aspect to keep in mind but there are possible ways to do that. It is the case that the leading stable coin operators, they have certain agents that are helping them to do this open market interventions in order to stabilize the pack and there are certain types of arrangements. And that's also something that I would have to learn more about first to better see how I could potentially address that. Francesca, you have a question. Hi, yes. Thank you very much for the presentation. I have kind of like two questions. One is more model specific and one I guess it's broader. So I'll ask quickly both. The first one is how dependent is your externality effect against the network one on the assumption of a monopolistic issuer of stable coins. And the reason why I ask is that it seems intuitive to me to think that there may be an incentive for stable coin adopters or crypto enthusiasts, whatever to sort of partition themselves into different sets into different groups that uses one stable coin versus another one. So for example, the, the more enthusiasts or the ones who value their privacy the most, or the ones who are sympathetic with Russia the most. They might be more willing to use tether other ones might prefer to use us DC. So that externality. I wonder how much that externality effect depends on your modeling choice of having one stable coin and one monopolistic stable coin issuer that doesn't, as far as understood, that does not allow this sort of like partitioning different sets of stable coins or monies adopted in equilibrium that might have different characteristics about this externality effect. And the second one I guess it's maybe a bit unfair but and I'm sorry if I missed that, but what is really in this model, the element that distinguishes stable points why is this not a model of banks, instead of stable points versus deposit why is this not a model of bank deposits versus cash. Let me maybe start with the first question so. So that's really interesting so I have formally looked at free entry to the stable coins market but still only at a model where where you know you have one stable coin issuer, but free entry. I, I have been thinking also about multiple stable coins. Then, in order to get the type of situation that you describe where some might prefer one over the other. You would have to introduce some additional element in the model. Maybe, you know, move away from risk neutrality or something in order to have some preferring the risky gambling stable coin. Whereas others go more for the safe stable coin right, but that's definitely something that's potentially relevant and interesting coming more to the core of your question regarding the role of the network effects and all that. If you believe that the network effect has a market specific component and a issue specific component, it would be probably important to to think which one is more important than the other. What I did in the paper in an extension I looked at the fixed cost of operation, which you can, to some extent qualitatively interpret in similar ways so if you are large stable coin issuer, you are better able to cover your fixed cost of operation than a smaller one right, so so so that gives you also some gains, but that's something that's definitely worth to discover more and for some of your questions I think we need additional ingredients in the model to get at it. Your other question was about now I forgot what it was about. It was just, it was just about what is it really in the model about stable coins why is this not a model of instead of stable coins versus deposits of banks and bank deposits versus cash. Yeah, that's that's also good question so so generally, when I started to think about this this this model I was really intrigued by the observation that the crypto crowd seems to be very heterogeneous. And that's why this idea from from the construction of the demand side comes from to the extent that some something like that also matters for traditional banks. And it also applies in a way there I mean if you think about literatures on institutional investors and so on that might be also different groups of investors that have different benefits from certain investment products and that that might be more or less flighty. So to that extent it could also apply more broadly, but I didn't think about that carefully and it was really the motivation that this crypto crowd is really heterogeneous that that was guiding me and how to model that. So, I see a pretty facade hands are, this or her hand up. Did you have a question that you wanted to ask your unmuted. I think you can unmute yourself. Okay, either I'm not handling the technology writer there's not a question here. Let me switch back to the to Todd to ask a question. Okay. Thanks Larry. Yeah, Chris, I think this is super interesting I wanted to follow up kind of on on Francesca's last question. So, you know, like, thinking about stable coin adoption. So what is the comparison or what is the relevant decision margin. So, so you've kind of got a model where everyone's thinking about, I'm either going to use stable coins or bank deposits for something and then different people would value those differently. I have to admit I sort of struggle with who uses stable coins and why but you know if I think that at least part of it is about, you know, I want to trade on the blockchain. I'm speculating on Bitcoin versus something else and stable coins are sort of a useful way of, of running those trades. And for those types of people or bank deposits irrelevant comparison or, or, you know, you know, because the bank deposit you can't, you can't trade on chain. For them is it more about if there were no stable coins I'd just be trading Bitcoin versus ether, instead of Bitcoin versus tether and tether versus ether. I wonder what are your thoughts on that how important is the stable coins versus bank deposit deposits margin or how would we get a sense of how important that margin is versus stable coins versus some other crypto asset. That's a good question maybe Alex is actually in a better position to to answer it given that his paper is making a link between the speculative demanding crypto and the demand for stable coins right, but I think that that generally, if you think about the speculative speculators retail speculators, I mean, one casino is to to to go into, you know, this game shop type of stocks right or big tech stocks and another casino is a crypto and for one casino you use fiat for the other you have the stable coins so so there's certainly some users that, you know, use both. Generally, as you said, there are specific reasons why a lot of crypto investors use stable coins because they can reduce their trading costs in the crypto universe. And my model is in a way stylized but you know when I talk about a seller that is only accepting stable coins and your consumption preference to buy from the seller. So the idea of also mean to encompass is a situation where you know you are likely to be interested in in doing some speculative crypto investments in the future you know that already now. And that's why you you're adopting the stable coin right. So, so I try to interpret that relatively brought with it broadly. I have one question Larry to Crystal. I cannot raise my hand as a whole so I'm wondering. So like Alex last also, it made me wonder it may be hard to justify with the 80 basics point as a convenience user I'm wondering maybe one motivation is about the heterogeneous believe. The crypto are super optimistic about crypto or stable corn that driving on top of the 80% 80 basic point. They may be really cool for it so but is it any different with the heterogeneous believe and heterogeneous demand in your model. Are they the same thing or have some difference. I understood your question right now there's no link so so I mean stable coins don't really offer an upside. As long as we we don't introduce a stable coin lending so that you can earn some interest right. And yeah, so, so there's no rule for you know optimistic optimistic beliefs on the return of stable coins that are justifying stable coin adoption. Some people are worried about the downside of crypto so they want you to park their money in something stable that they provide a safe haven that kind of heterogeneous believe on crypto. That may drive people to hold stable corn I'm wondering maybe it is isomorphic to some heterogeneous demand in your model that okay we can speak to Alex question. So some of the elements look like can justify the basic point in the data. I would have to think about that more carefully, I think it relates to thoughts previous question because then the adoption game would be basically or the choice would be x until about, you know, crypto assets that that are not stable coins like Bitcoin for instance and versus stable coin right Bitcoin versus stable coin would be an index under stage right. And that's part of what I had in mind when and we think about it that way, you know the convenience you could be more than 80 basis points right it's, it's not tether versus treasuries, treasuries you just can't use for this. So, I see Nathan Palmer has his hand up. Nathan would you like to unmute yourself and ask a question. Yes, can you hear me. Yes. A thought that occurred to me recently, listening to some podcast crypto folks talking about crypto things and there's a fair number of like CEOs of crypto companies and one of the things that a couple of them like were complaining about with those when SBB and signature were having their troubles was that they basically paid their employees and stable coin. And there was concerns that their employees, you know, us DC I think you know like DPEG for a little bit and so there is concern that their employees are going to have interruptions of their payments. I had originally just assumed that these sorts of like, I did not even think about the possibility that software engineers are being paid and stable coins. Do we know, do we have any data on, I feel like the answer is no but do we have any data on how many people doing software development type jobs or things like that are being paid and stable coin versus regular fiat. That's my question. I also heard about that before about instances where where some are paid in stable coins. But maybe somebody else in the audience knows more about that. So we are almost at noon, but we can go a little bit longer. Jonathan, you have a question. Just want to provide a little bit of information about the usage of stable coin. So we have some studies at the Canada. So according to that basically the usage of stable coin for for payment of good services very, very much very limited right now. It's only around maybe 0.043% compared to visa transactions. But the main use case is really right now seems to be as a vehicle currency for non US based centralized exchanges as a vehicle currencies and other usage is really for some margin and settlement assets for crypto derivatives. And finally, would be this stable coin is used for for as the funding asset for lending platform in DeFi. So, so given that maybe one way maybe is for us to do we think is how can we think about the role of stable coin and how in financial trade and how that may affect the measure of convenience you. Thanks. Well, I think that's pretty much it unless somebody's got another question they'd like to ask. If there are no more questions. I'll turn it back over. I guess it was. I'll take it to Todd. Okay. Thanks everyone. Thanks Christoph for a great presentation and Alex for a very informative discussion. Thanks Larry for moderating thanks everyone for attending. I'll just throw up one last time the one about the November conference at the ricks bank and I hope you'll consider submitting and please stay posted for announcements about future sessions. Okay, thanks everybody. Thanks everybody for the questions and feedback. Thanks a lot. I appreciate it.


You guys can make it out the window you can come this way whatever's easier for y'all but make sure you have a bag with a dry pair of clothes with the ID cell phones wallets all right we're gonna get there's a whole bunch of people just like y'all thousands of them take take you to a shelter we'll be all right you'll have food water no everybody else is staying they don't want to go so we're gonna go keep on moving


I think national identity and racial identity get tied together and so they're, you know, one way people kind of consolidate national identity is this is who we are. This is our people. These are our traditions. That's why we're a nation. And when you have immigration and people from different places, all of a sudden that gets challenged and you forget that we're all human beings, we have a lot of the same core values. This world is very diverse and that there's always been global migration. There's always been movement and culture that's been shared and language that's shared. But when it becomes political, when politicians scapegoat immigrants, you all of a sudden have a populace that becomes anti-immigrant. How come I don't have a job? They must be immigrants. And often poor people get pit against each other in those situations. People who are struggling and have the same needs are pit against each other. I see the xenophobia. I fear it. And I think the solution to it ultimately is education. It's representation. It's a system where we complicate a narrative that hate groups put out, that people who have political reason to promote hate. We have to make sure we counter that with our own individual stories. I know it sounds very basic, but I think this is why I like persons more than people. I think there's a lot of people who will say all sorts of God-awful things in public spaces, but when they actually deal with human beings on a one-on-one level or lovely, and they're caring, thoughtful, and they make exceptions, they see complication and eventually you have enough examples where those exceptions are no longer exceptions. There's clearly something bigger happening here, clearly the story that I'm being told isn't true. And so I think that's a huge part of combating xenophobia. It's redefining community.


On 30 November 1965, members of the 173rd Airborne Brigade made an assault landing on the outskirts of Foong Lung. Their mission was to seek out and destroy any Viet Cong in the area and establish a perimeter defense post. The landing was made in a nearby rice field. Immediately upon landing, the troops saddled up and moved out. The men filed quickly past the villagers to take up their defense positions around the perimeter of the community. The entire action was carried out without difficulty. Dense undergrowth was encountered on the other side of the village, and patrols began moving out to search for any Viet Cong who may have been hiding in a thick cover. Elsewhere, the general move-up continued. Meanwhile, the commander and another officer determined the most effective deployment of the men in carrying out their defense mission. Logistic support for the mission commenced almost immediately as the cargo helicopters began arriving and offloading vehicles, ammunition and supplies. In rapid succession, the big helicopters unloaded and took to the air again. Overhead, sky raiders appeared to reconnoiter and pinpoint any Viet Cong personnel in the area. But none were found, and the men settled in for their long vigil to deny enemy access to Foong Lung. Cavalry and infantry elements of the 1st Brigade, 101st Airborne Division, carried out a support mission at Bencott on 3 December 1965. Here seen rolling up Highway 13, these units were flown from their base camp at Foong Lung nearly 200 miles north to Bien Hoa Airfield. From the airfield, they convoyed over the sniper-infested road to the 1st Division camp at Bencott. Their mission was to serve as a reaction force, covering the 1st Division's sweeps of the area some distance north of the Bencott camp. In the 1st Division camp area, both units prepared for limited search and clear operations. The initial operations to clear the vicinity of the camp got underway with infantry forces scouring the nearby terrain. Armed vehicles of the cavalry took up strategic positions to await any Viet Cong who might be flushed into the open by the infantry sweep. Action was limited to light enemy sniper fire. While the sweep and clean operation was underway, mortar teams emplaced their weapons and prepared to support the action. Alerted for a firing mission, the mortar crews gave their equipment a final check and awaited the coordinates necessary to shell the suspected Viet Cong positions. Though the firing continued for some time, there was no response from the enemy. In another phase of the mission, the men of the 101st Airborne Division were moved from the Bencott camp site to a nearby rubber plantation. Gun jeeps covered the convoy as the long line of vehicles moved out toward the plantation in Viet Cong territory. By the time the convoy was nearing its destination, it was late in the day. As the vehicles arrived in one of the plantation fields, they were carefully positioned and preparations were made to spend the night in enemy territory. The hours of darkness, however, passed without incident and the following morning, these units secured the position and dug in. Vehicles camouflaged with local greenery and weapons ready, the men waited in vain for the enemy. Finally, the cavalry units were ordered back to their camp at Bencott. Throughout the entire operation, only minor sniper fire was reported. This sign announces the construction of an office building in Tent City B for Baker at Tonsunut. A joint project of an American and Vietnamese construction team, the structure is an odd mixture of a modern American design and primitive methods of hand labor. On 6 December 1965, a group of Vietnamese, young and old alike were carrying out cement work. From the mixing to the pouring, everything was done by hand. This included a rather unique windlass system for lifting the heavy barrels of cement to the second floor of the building, while at the same time lowering an empty steel drum to the workers below. Despite the limited lift capability of the system, it served the purpose surprisingly well. The windlass operators and the mixers below kept the cement coming. Other workers filled the wheelbarrow and carted the mixture from the shaft to the work site. The masons poured and spread the concrete for the new floor. The windlass operators cranked away without any visible signs of tiring. Even in the United States, a cement job this size is something to be reckoned with. Back on the ground, the unusual work gang of Vietnamese men, women and youngsters continued their labors with the crudest of tools. Despite the very warm weather, they didn't seem to mind the job and work progressed on Tent City B's first office building. At Tainin, the special forces are carrying out a program of civic affairs. Through this program, special forces units have financed the building of a school, a modern dispensary, and have repaired a vital road washed out during the monsoon season. This is the school which was erected in the village of Trong Sook on the outskirts of Tainin. Educating the young in Vietnam as elsewhere is a difficult task due to lack of facilities. Even this new school building is incapable of handling the numbers of students who wish to attend. There are three teachers. Classes are divided so that half of the students attend in the mornings, and the other half goes to afternoon sessions. These are first graders in class during the morning session. There were 72 of them when this film was made on 8 December 1965. Vietnamese soldiers gave out chocolates to the students, and the Christmas candy was eagerly accepted by the tots. In the nearby community of Surin Muay, another aid team of the special forces comes to administer medical treatment to the children. These visits provide an exciting event for the youngsters and a welcome service for the parents. At this compound, work is being completed on a dispensary in order to provide the villagers with continuing medical attention. This is the dispensary as it appeared on 8 December 1965. The construction work was still going forward, but for the most part the facility was almost completed. The dispensary is part of the Civic Affairs Program to improve the education and health of the villagers. Gifts of candy were donated by the people of Linesville, Pennsylvania as part of Operation Christmas Star. Through such gifts, the medics gain the confidence of the children and are able to treat their ailments without fear on the part of the child. A thorough job of bandaging is done to prevent the spread of infection, which develops rapidly in these warm temperatures. Various forms of fungi infection are common in this climate. Helping to cure these ailments with modern drugs and teaching the villagers how to safeguard their health is the objective of this phase of the program. Another Civic Affairs project of the special forces units at Tainine was this do-it-yourself ferry, which was built and placed into service at Bensoi in the Tainine area. As of 9 December 1965, the river crossing device was proving a boon to civilians and the military alike. In the early morning hours of 14 December 1965, sentry dog handlers take their canine charges for a training session at a specially designed training area in Tansenute. The animals are first drilled for obedience to commands, given by voice, hand signal and leash pressure. Instant response to the handler's silent command motions is a prime requisite for these dogs. Orderly behavior on duty is also essential. Should the sentry dog be required to pursue an elusive prowler, it must be able to overcome all kinds of obstacles while tracking and chasing the quarry. To build stamina and confidence in the animals, the handlers put them through a rigorous obstacle course. This phase of the training also keeps the dogs agile and physically fit. Some of the obstacles which these canine sentries easily leap would be difficult for a man to clear. Another aspect of the training session is to teach the dog to protect the handler from sneak attack by an assailant. Ranging in weight from 70 to 100 pounds, these military dogs are a formidable adversary for any would-be attacker. Once released, a sentry dog quickly levels the intruder and holds him prisoner. Along the road to Phu Tau Hoa, Ja Dinh, Vietnamese orphans wave their flags to celebrate the building of a new orphanage. The date is 12 December 1965, and the Vietnamese Honor Guard salutes the arriving members of the U.S. Army Signal Corps, whose financial contribution made the new orphanage possible. As in all ceremonies of this kind, there were speeches to thank the U.S. servicemen and the All-Girl Coral Society performed as the assembled dignitaries looked on. For some 50 children, this day's groundbreaking ceremonies would never be forgotten. Even the government in Saigon took notice of the occasion and sent a special envoy to officiate on behalf of the people. At last, the solemn moment arrived when it was time to lay the cornerstone and the Saigon representatives stepped forward to do the honors. When the cornerstone had been set in place, the civilian and military dignitaries returned to the platform, and the smallest orphans sang for them. With their gift of $3,000, the Army Signal Men had created a new home for these unfortunate boys and girls. As the ceremonies came to a conclusion, the commemorative book was signed by the officials, and another civic action was complete. In cooperation with the Civil Affairs Support Command at Natrong, medical officers of the Army and Air Force conducted a sanitation evaluation mission on 7 December 1965. Purpose of the investigation was to locate possible sources of contamination and breeding places for disease-bearing insects. An exposed and unsanitary hotel kitchen was spotted by the investigators and through Civil Affairs Support Command listed for cleanup. Other sanitation hazards were located at the same site, such as these partially empty bottles and cans. Fermented liquids and stagnating sewage water are principal breeding places for germs and disease-bearing mosquitoes. After a thorough inspection, the researchers wrote up their reports and moved on to continue their work. Through such investigations as this, sanitation work is moving forward. At Comron Bay, one of South Vietnam's seaports, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is installing a de-long floating pier. This mammoth pier is capable of providing dockage for several ocean-going vessels at once. The floating pier, which is an engineering marvel, was first towed into the desired position. All heavy equipment needed to accomplish installation, such as this 70-ton crane, was placed aboard. Other material for the job is delivered by LCM motorized barges. When finally installed, the pier will rest upon huge steel pipe pilings called caissons. The pier itself is constructed with holes for the caissons to pass through. On 9 December 1965, the pier was in the desired position, and several of its caisson pilings were already in. Shown here is the crane working with one of the caissons. After the great pipe leg is lowered through its position hole in the pier, it comes to rest on the floor of the bay. However, there is still a great length of the caisson rising above the pier, sticking up through the hole. As each caisson is lowered into position, a permanent jack is placed around it. The jacks are then used to shinny the pier up the caissons until it is in the desired attitude above the water. Here we see the crane moving a caisson with jack attached into position for insertion into its guide port.  When the crane had lowered the cap to within inches of its position, the work crews had to make sure it would seat properly. Otherwise, the bolt holes would not line up. Guiding and moving the heavy caps is not an easy task, and it took quite some time before the crew supervisor was satisfied and allowed it to be lowered and bolted into place.  The crane was then hooked up with the caisson section and it was carefully removed. Welders go to work shortly thereafter and neatly seam the cut-off stub to the cap acceptance collar. Securing bolts are welded to each jack. These are the bolts which will fasten the jack to the deck of the pier. From the nearby barge, the entire caisson assembly and how it functions could be plainly seen. The busiest man on the job was the crane operator. Here he is seen tipping over one of the massive caisson sections as he gets it ready for removal from the pier. Just clearing away, pieces of caisson was a chore in itself. Checking on the welders again, they were busy trimming up the stub from the last cut, which has left a jagged edge. Unless this procedure was followed, it would have made the capping operation difficult. To hold down the caps, outsized bolts were used and these were finally snugged down with great construction wrenches. Camelon Bay had gotten its new pier.


The game has certainly been livened up by that sending off of Jefferson Lerner. And it comes from Jordan Graham, the header away this time from Solanki, only as far as Stundich. And then whipped him to the penalty!


I'll tell you where we are, we're back down at Conway which is the first visit back and of course it'll be on camera, what I'm going to do I'm going to get set up and play probably six holes, I ain't going to play more than that into a video, I'll play six holes I've got a full set of PXG that I've managed to get hold of So I'm going to play with the new 211 irons and the 211 fairways, hybrids and driver Let's see what I score I'm only doing six because everybody will want shot chasers and they can't be bothered doing shot chasers on any more than six holes It's a fact mate I just hate doing it Right, I'm also a bit tired, I'm not a morning person But I'll be alright in a minute Right so what I've got is I've got a few of the irons and I've also gone down to the wedge but I've also got the lob wedge And I'll tell you why in a minute, I've brought out 19 and 22 degree hybrid, three wood and driver I've done this to 0-211 range and it was because A I wanted to get back on the golf course and play some proper golf So we'll record and see what I score with this sort of six holes But more importantly, put these to test in reality out here on the fairways Because everything at the minute we've been doing over the last few months has been in that sort of controlled environment in the driving range The thing is about this at the minute from PXG is that all these are so different in terms of the way they're priced I've been reading a lot of comments about there's I think there's a full bag deal going on right now So I just thought it'd be interesting to play with their whole set So I've managed to get all of these for a while and I'll see how I get on and I'll give you my sort of findings We're starting off on the 12th, I'm going to play 12 through to 17 at Conway Kick it off with the driver, see how we get on Right first drive away it was more than happy with that I think the one thing straight away that I noticed is that again I said this in the bay is the negative that I had against the driver Very much like I've got against the Ping G425 it is really hard off the face and yeah It's just something that you're going to won't matter to a lot of people but for me it's just a little bit too harsh and yeah Very very hard coming off that clubface But we're away anyway, we're on the fairway Right I'm going to play 3 hybrid, I want to be sort of on the brow this is a par 5 opener I want to be right at that bunker You can pick it up on the horizon there you'll see the 12 which is an aiming point I want to be right at that and sitting on the brow after this shot I'll just pull it to at the bunker just slightly left of the bunker Oh that's not too bad that absolutely flew off could anybody lose that golf ball Tor soft response Taylor Mayne we love that Yeah decent start I'm happy with that 5 it was a great chip and first thing to note was that was a 9 iron by the way A little bit of a chip and run the great thing was I love the feel that you get out of the irons That's a real again choke and cheese compared to what I say about the driver There's great feel out of the irons and again don't forget this is a cast head So yeah up and down for par and another point to mention again just on sort of managing your game Was the fact that it was the wrong yardage in terms of what I played second shot You either lay up short of that bunker or you go past it and I sort of got caught in between the two So that was the error there but fortunately we still made par so a decent start Right so yes again I played a real good shot right down the flag But we're playing this was just out of interest it was 165 for the flag I reckon I've come probably 185 almost in the air I played six iron it was a wrong choice And I forgot just how strong a lofted these are so something you have to change But again the ball absolutely zipped out the face and it's the feel it's really good I genuinely believe these are probably and then you put if you put the price tag in On these 0 to 11s I think they're one of the best buys out there right now But we've got a really difficult putt this is just like get it to the brow at dead weight And then it's going to go downhill like a roller coaster The only thing we're not playing in the bag that is PXG is a putter and that was my fault Bad packing All you can do that don't even reach the brow and leave it even worse place Right this will be a good three Well it's been a bit of a nightmare show on the putter I was trickled in a four and that was largely down to that terrible first putt It wasn't a great second one either Right it is great to be back out on the golf course testing golf clubs in reality I love this part of the job but my question for you is How many of you have either tried the PXG range it's new 0 to 11 this kind of budget range In terms of well at least from PXG's perspective How many of you have tried it or how many of you got it on the wish list this year Because I'll be really interested I'll be honest with you it's a hard range to knock at the moment And again when you're throwing that price point it's a massive change up Well I leaked the drive out a little bit but it's a good opportunity The first time I did this this morning it's another par 5 From my initial test again Wasn't too keen on the feel off the face a little bit harsh All the sort of metal would seem to be that way But very shallow and the top had a dress that looks brilliant I think And it's the top line in terms of what you see at a dress Is what was been in the premium products it's like I said I still can't get my head round this whole new different price point But anyway we'll see how this gets on in terms of performance Yeah I leaked it out a little bit but it's sitting up very nice And it shouldn't be no issue to play three wood So down that left hand bunker with a bit of cut is the shot for me Well it didn't cut But it should be fine there carry Yeah it's bouncing we're okay it was at the bunker and just a little bit left of it And didn't quite get the cut I would have hoped for Right one of the things I wanted to speak about was the wedge set up within these 0-11 So they go from four iron through to lob wedge So that includes gap wedge, pitching wedge, sand wedge, lob wedge So we've always looked at like strong lofted irons being a potential issue Gap the bag only wedges you need in the bag all those kind of things The other thing it throws into the equation so this is gapped right Is what I was trying to say there You've then got this issue about We generally go to a lot of golfers go to pitching wedge And then they go to specialist wedges if you like So you know put a Vokey in the bag and all those kind of things Often a blade wedge that's another argument that we've had for long enough And my thought process is this Why do we switch out from pitching wedge and then go into these kind of specialist wedges if you like When really surely it would make sense to keep So the same shaft, same head combination right the way through the bag So that's kind of like it's interesting because these are very The point is these are very playable wedges again They've done a great job in making them Bunker play, short game The way they've been put together really nice indeed and I think a real great option I've got a camera at the back of the green we're playing out of interest 97 yards And I'm hoping I've not played many full shots with this So I don't know my yard But let's see what this does in terms of reaction That's not enough yards is it Go, go We probably should have picked that up on the camera it wasn't enough yards Like you said this is the lob wedge I'm not entirely sure of what the loft is on it But there's plenty of it, I can see that from where it sat down That's probably carried around sort of 80, 85 yards We should have picked that up on the camera at the back of the green And it looks to have pitched and stopped dead But again like I said just a real interesting setup And a lot of manufacturers are doing this is where particularly the strong lofted clubs Is gapping wedges all the way down to like I said into a lob wedge Which I think it needed to be done But there I think we just about grabbed it on the camera to see the stop But out of interest it was about a foot before it came to rest But another fair bit away from the old, no yardages Let's make a better putt than what we did on the previous hole Go ball, go ball Yeah much better I made the excuse after the camera went off on the previous hole Where I left it short of the slope there is still a bit of dew on the ground We're very early morning you can see then Give that one a bit more of an extra hoof as it's a little bit slower than normal So we made five so a one over I can't believe how nice it is to get back out and that's the first thing to say I hope you're all enjoying life back out on the fair Where he's after this rather severe lockdown But the other question I have for you as well is that How many of you have a sort of brand loyalty Where you have the hole set through the bag Because it's kind of like I don't think it's something I've ever done I've gone literally from driver through to putter with the same brand But I think maybe some people do that So I'd be interested to know in the comments down below Are you one of those people? Right on to 16th and a birdie gets us back to level Really pleased with that I'm going to go three wood off 16th it's a tight one It suits my sort of shot really We just need that little bit of a cut It's a bit of a left to right but I've been hitting straight so far And I can't do that I've done it again Come on, it's tight down that left hand side Sit down Sit down, it's bouncing We've got a way with murder there There's some tracks down the left hand side on the gorse And I'm incredibly tight to it but we're alright Actually did alright, got away with murder Because this is so tight to being in the gorse And almost a full swing I think I've just been to this and had a little bit of a bash It's not too bad we've got 160 in But I'm way further left than what I need to be I've hit a lot of balls like I said Straight with no cut whatsoever today But there's a chance to get away with murder A little bit awkward I can't go left here so I've got that really thin but straight It's going to chase down I can't see it because we're right into the sun Hence the camera that way But I reckon that could be in the middle of the green When it was an absolute woeful shot Well look I'm probably A good 20 yards away from the flag But believe me that shot was terrible And I'm more than happy to be here The golfing gods are shining on me Because I've just got away with two horrendous shots It's a type of hole where all of a sudden You're rolling a monster putt for bird I think that would be asking a bit too much Roll out, roll out, roll out Not quite enough Well I think I should be grateful I'm putting to par Because it could have easily been a reload off the tee How did that not go in? Wow Well it's a bogey and probably a bogey That I deserved at least The other point I mentioned is Why isn't Billy Horschel as quick as that Back in his ball and making a putt Right so we've gone back to one over 17th Many of you will know It's an incredibly tight hole Here at Conway and my last of the day So we're going to go hybrid A really solid hybrid Second shot in the morning And I need another one of them Come on That's brilliant The sight of relief is at the same time That's middle of the fairway Woof Right we're on Stay there Bull Stay there Stay Yep we're kind of We're right on side of the green We've got two putt for a four Right so we've got pin high That was 150 by the way I played 8 iron Which I would say is my yard is a little bit stronger Slightly got used to them as the rounds gone on We avoided that with a left bunker Or left as we'd have seen it Come up the fairway but we're away right And a long putt Get up, get up Yeah it's a good weight It fell off the left hand side Wasn't quite firm enough to ever make the hole But it's a decent four And a decent finish And that leaves me I think it is one over I'll have a count back no doubt the squirrel Been tallying up as we go I'm pretty sure that left me one over So really good six hole struck the ball well This is a combination of a me playing golf Out on Conway golf club and seeing how I got on But also how it performed instead of The whole bag of this PXG 0-11 range out on the fairway My opinion would be this Driver three would still a bit too harsh for me off the face That would be my off putt in an overriding comment on those Won't matter to everybody but that would be my negative In terms of the hybrids and in the superb And I don't know whether they use different materials In terms of the face or anything in terms of the body But I don't get that same sort of harsh sound Out of the hybrids and they perform so well And very very consistent But I reckon the star of the show is the irons for me From a cast club, the feel, the sound Yes they're a bit stronger lofted You get used to them yardages And the fact that they've got this wedges right through To that bottom end of the lob wedge Makes them a real appealing buy And for that sort of quality of build and performance And everything that goes into it Like I've said all throughout the video Really worth checking out and putting on your list If you're considering new irons this year Anyway that's me done It's hard to do one of these videos Because you're half concentrating on trying to play Which makes you a little bit miserable Which I'm not the most animated of people at all times But you're trying to concentrate But then talk to the camera So I hope you've enjoyed it, comments down below And we'll see you back on the fairways again pretty soon Is that Lou? Hey what are you, I haven't seen you That's as far as you can come, still two metres Who was missed? Blue tick Lou, as he's better known I didn't even rate your a... A shadow of your former self You've been doing it or what? A little bit of running, sort of lockdown running I hope your audio's getting picked up on here Lockdown running Lockdown running? You were up snowing yesterday That's McDonald's I think that was the last video I was on you were trying to... Shit, over here Trying to give me a Mackie's breakfast That's all we film is on McDonald's Listen, what I want to know is Who wants to see Lewis back on the channel I think to be honest with you He beat me five at four Five and four in an iron hole match It's sandy way and I never let him come back That was the last video I've seen That was a long time ago, wasn't it? Yeah That was when we could sit at the same table Yeah it was So, are we ready for the rematch? Rematch Yeah, how was your game this morning? I've got it, I've got it now I'm too tired, mate See, I'm knackered I don't know about anyone else I've only played six holes How was your game? Good, yeah alright New clubs Yeah, it's nice Yeah, I've forgotten a few There's some left at home Tell everyone what new irons you've got Oh, 770s P770s You love them, don't you? Yeah Took the plunge, didn't I? Yeah Yeah Right, that's it Didn't expect to see Lewis down here Notice this swing can spot that anywhere Pure class on the golf course So, yeah, we'll see you soon And so will Lou Yeah


Of course he has to know. He does a double shrug and that's going to be important to know that given that he's had a stroke he can still raise both shoulders. Then all bets might be off on single shrugs which can you know often denote some indecision. You can get a single shrug in a moment of deception along with other clusters. I have a letter. I don't know what I can deal with. So I'm concerned that when he says I don't know what I'll do with it. He does two single shoulder shrugs one at the start and one at the end. It suggests to me there's a possibility that he does know. He says it's worth a lot of money. I've got a lot of money for the letter. So selling it is an option. I'm burning it before I sell it. He could have just said that at the start. The unfortunate thing is you have got somebody here who when a private message is sent will give it to the Daily Mail. I think he's got some ideas.


Everyone has cravings. They can tell us what we're lacking from a nutrient perspective, vitamins, minerals, and fatty acids. They can also tell us if our gut microbiome is out of balance. Maybe you're lacking lactobacillus in craving some yogurt. Perhaps you have a candida overgrowth and your body really wants sugar. Depending on what those cravings are and how you act upon them can greatly determine your health. Now, s'mores was something I was craving a couple months back and I always try to find healthy alternatives and ways you can have certain things basically without poisoning yourself which can be difficult in most circumstances. That being said, regardless of what food you're craving if you're able to put in the time and the effort to source the ingredient as well as the preparation time you can have a healthy, delicious, and nutritious meal that is free of negative chemicals, pesticides, compounds that will harm your body that you can have on a consistent basis. For this, it was really just about figuring out where to get the graham cracker, the chocolate, and the marshmallow because no one really thinks about making s'mores organic and healthy. So let's go over those ingredients and then we'll prepare them simply. Generally speaking, when you crave a food that has chocolate in it, the chocolate component is what you're craving and that's because it's very abundant in minerals that tend to be deficient in the average diet. Magnesium, copper, iron, potassium, it's calorically dense, sugar, and fat which fuels our cells as well as our gut microbiome and it's very easy to find quality chocolate now. Organic is pretty much everywhere. You can even get raw, single source, minimally processed cacao if you'd like to. This stuff is affordable. It tastes pretty good. It's the 57% organic dark chocolate from Whole Foods. I like this one and that's really the main nutritional component of this snack because all these other two things offer for the most part is caloric energy. The marshmallow was kind of hard to find. This is something I originally ordered online and then I found out they had it at Whole Foods. It's a fluff. It's not the actual marshmallow so you can't exactly roast this over a fire to get that nice smoke flavor. This has organic tapioca syrup, organic cane sugar, spring water, organic egg whites, and organic vanilla extract. So from an ingredient perspective, the only concerns we really have is there anti-nutrients in the tapioca? What's the quality of the egg whites? Are we gonna have an allergic reaction? But compared to what most kids eat, what most people eat for cheat meals and snacks, this is definitely pretty good. So I have two different graham crackers here. The bottom one is what I originally ordered online and the ingredient list is slightly better. The top is what I found at Whole Foods and they actually changed their ingredients to be better. If you wanna make your own graham crackers, it's very easy to do. It's basically honey, eggs, butter, and flour. It's not too difficult. So the ingredients for the Whole Foods is wheat flour, cane sugar, some seed oils, sunflower, safflower, canola, honey, molasses, and then some cane syrup, sea salt, and baking soda. So this has a decent amount of Omega-6. It's not that great. The main difference between these two is the one on the bottom uses high oleic oils, which means the Omega-3 to Omega-6 ratio is much better. Therefore, this is much less inflammatory, but this brand, Simple Truth Organic, might not be available at your local store. You might have to find it online. So the graham crackers and the marshmallow are really just sugar, carbohydrate, energy.  If you do source high-quality ingredients like this, you're removing most pesticides, most agrochemical concerns, but this is something that you definitely don't wanna have more than a few times a week.  So we have the Whole Foods crackers on the right and the other ones on the left, that's fine. And this is basically just whipped egg whites, sugar, and vanilla, so you could throw those ingredients in a stand mixer and basically have the same thing. So I'll pop this in the oven for about two minutes on low broil. So I did say low broil for a minute or two, but I actually put this in the oven, which was previously on, so after about five minutes in a warm oven, everything's completely melted. So now, all we need to do is combine the two sides and there we have a mess. And I'm burning my hands with chocolate. Yeah, this is really melting all over the place. This is like the messiest thing I've ever made. Definitely a kid's food. All right, so that was the Whole Foods cracker. I wanna see how it compares to the other cracker. Definitely just as messy. So the Simple Truth organic crackers are definitely better than the Whole Foods ones. They're moisture, flavor's about the same. If you don't want this to be super-duper messy, what you can actually do is not put this in the oven at all. Just put the chocolate on the graham cracker, put the fluff on top and eat it like that.  Overall, it tastes pretty good. It smores, if you're craving smores, this will definitely be better than eating s'mores pop tarts or just using conventional ingredients for this. So thank you guys for joining me today. Please leave a comment down below. Drop a like on the video. Subscribe so that YouTube can unsubscribe you next week. And if you guys can please sign up for the newsletter at frank-sifano.com to stay in touch when you do get unsubscribed. So if you guys do wanna support me further, you can also see my businesses on there. But thanks again for joining me today, guys. And I'll see you for tomorrow's video.


Hi, my name is Dr. Narasandhi. Consultant Interventional Cardiologist at Manipal Hospital Vijayawada. Every year, September 29th, World Heart Day is celebrating.  Generally, World Heart Federation started in 1999. Main reason being, almost every year 20 million people are dying due to heart disease. It being the leading cause of death. So, to bring awareness to it, they are conducting World Heart Day. Similarly, this year, World Heart Day is being celebrated. Generally, the main theme is using the heart for humanity and for us and to save the planet. My best wishes to you all on this World Heart Day. In World Heart Day, we regularly discuss awareness programmes in OPD. About Triglycerides. There is a part about FATs. A lot of regular health check-ups have increased cholesterol. LDL cholesterol, bad cholesterol increase is awareness for a lot of people. So, everyone knows about the concept. This is another component of FATs. Generally, there are five components and one more component. This has also increased. There are a lot of people coming out of regular health check-ups. So, how common is this? In 2014, ICMR study was conducted. In that, almost 79% and 80% of the members, 15 states are around across India. Around 80% of the population know that a component of cholesterol has increased. That is almost 8 members and 10 people. Most of them have low HDL, almost 80% and 30% of them have triglycerides. And you can imagine, every 10 members have triglycerides. Most of the time, it is found in diabetic patients. Triglycerides are multiple studies. Prove it in E21, BIPs study, inter-heart study. All these studies have been published. There are those who have already had a heart attack and risk factors. Due to this, the risk of a heart attack is increasing. So, for those who have already had a heart attack, in the next two years, even bad cholesterol or LDL cholesterol control, when there are more triglycerides, there is another 40-50% chance of relative risk. So, that is why it is very important. It is called triglycerides management. Generally, in Indians, this visceral obesity, due to the fat in the skin, due to the fat in the nose, we can see more triglycerides. In diabetic people, the good cholesterol will decrease, the bad cholesterol will increase, and the triglycerides will increase. This is a common scenario. Ethrogenic triad. This is very risky for those who have it. So, for normal levels, previously, even if there were 200-250 or 150-200 in between, it would have been normal. But in recent evidence, the Lipid Association of India has given less than 150 is normal and optimal. If it is less than 100, it is optimal. If those levels are maintained, there will be a substantial risk. What is the reason for this? First, the patient thinks that there are more triglycerides. If the doctor consults, there are secondary risk factors for triglycerides. To increase triglycerides, there are diabetes, diabetes, kidney problems, overweight, obesity. There are many thyroid problems. There are more triglycerides for those who have these problems. So, if you address them, the triglycerides will automatically decrease. What is the other reason for this? Because of triglycerides, the cardiovascular risk is explained to you in the cardiologist's algorithms. The next procedure is the main first step is lifestyle modifications. Lifestyle modifications are regular exercise, diet. Diet avoids refined sugars completely. It reduces unhealthy fats and oils. You have to do this. Low salt, whole grain food, nuts, legumes. It is called Mediterranean diet. It is the most evident space diet. You have to take it. Lifestyle modifications alone can decrease triglycerides by 50%. In any case, you have to change your food habits. After that, if there are more triglycerides, there are many medications that you can use. This is just to give you an awareness about bad cholesterol components. Not only LDL, everyone has an idea on LDL. There are many other components. It is called non-HDL. It also has targets. There is a lot of triglycerides in non-HDL. If you keep that in control, it will reduce the risk. There is a risk of heart attack when LDL is under control. Residual risk is caused by other components. If you keep it in control, it will reduce the risk.