The book
One hundred billion dollars a year still has to sit still on the corridors that cannot be funded at the last minute.
Daily volume is about $274 million. That is not the float. Most of that money
arrives and leaves. The idle cash is only the slice that has to be in place
before payout — local partner cut-offs, thin corridors, books that cannot borrow on demand.
Each of those routes is still stocked for a busy day. Most days that cash does not move. It earns
0%.
$192M
Idle pre-positioned float
$10.0M
Left on the table each year at 5.2%
$192M is two days of volume on 35% of the book — the funded-in-advance side. $10.0M is that
balance sitting at 0% instead of a 5.2% Midnight lock. About $27,000 a day.
How the float is sized
Opportunity cost is idle cash × a rate the desk could have locked. Not TPV × a rate.
Daily TPV = $100B ÷ 365 = $274M
Idle float = daily TPV × share that must sit ahead × days sitting
= $274M × 35% × 2.0 days = $192M
Cost of 0% = $192M × 5.2% = $10.0M / year
35% and two days are conservative on purpose. Cross-border books often pre-position more than
a third of volume, and buffers are sized for the busiest day the route has ever had — which is
why the cash is unused most days. Stretch either lever and the number jumps:
Annual opportunity cost at 5.2%, assuming the whole idle float could be put to work. Base case highlighted.
| Days sitting |
25% of TPV pre-positioned |
35% (base) |
50% of TPV pre-positioned |
| 1 day |
$3.6M |
$5.0M |
$7.1M |
| 2 days |
$7.1M |
$10.0M |
$14.2M |
| 3 days |
$10.7M |
$15.0M |
$21.4M |
Why they leave it at 0%
The group cannot treat $192M as one wallet. That is why the yield is never taken.
Singapore, the UK, the UAE, the Philippines, and the US each have a regulator and a payout book.
Dump the float into one pool and the trail is gone. Keep it in five wallets and none of it is
large enough, on a quiet Tuesday, to lend usefully — and it still earns nothing.
So the real alternative to Ladder is not “earn 5.2% in a mixed pot.” It is leave $192M at 0%,
because mixing the books is not allowed. The opportunity cost is forced by the entity constraint.
Illustrative split of the $192M float. Yield is that entity’s share of the $10.0M, if the group pooled and still tracked the claim.
| Entity |
Share of float |
Idle USDC |
Cost of 0% / year |
| SG treasury |
38% |
$73M |
$3.8M |
| UK limited |
22% |
$42M |
$2.2M |
| UAE entity |
18% |
$35M |
$1.8M |
| PH ops |
14% |
$27M |
$1.4M |
| US entity |
8% |
$15M |
$0.8M |
Singapore can pull its slice for a Manila payout without touching the UK book. That is the
product. Without it, SG does not put $73M to work.
What Ladder changes
Pool the $192M. Keep five claims. Earn while the corridor is quiet. Recall one book for a payout.
Today
Do nothing
$192M sits in entity wallets at 0%. Five books, five idle piles. Cost: $10.0M a year
at the series rate, every year the float is still required.
Ladder
Same cash, a share ledger
One Midnight position so the size can clear a loan. SeriesVault mints SG, UK, AE, PH, US shares.
Yield posts to the entity that put the dollars in.
Not every dollar can be locked. Keep a slice in the wallet for same-day noise. Put the dated
remainder in a series: variable in Vault V2 while matching, then 5.2% once a borrower fills.
If only 70% of the $192M is ever deployed, the cost of not doing that is still
$7.0M a year — and the 30% that stayed liquid is the same 30% they hold today.
Three years of the base case, unaddressed, is about $30M of treasury income that
never hits the P&L. The float is still there on day 1,090. The payouts still went out.
Open-ended Vault V2 alone can earn while the cash sits, but it has no maturity aligned to a
payout date. That is why the product is a dated lock with a per-entity recall — not a floating APY
on a mixed wallet.
For educational purposes only. Not financial, investment, or legal advice.
TPV, float days, and rates are illustrative. Match rates are not guaranteed.