Is the US Treasury bond time bomb finally about to explode?

I recently looked through some data and found a startling fact: the amount of tradable US Treasury debt has surged to $30.2 trillion, with total debt reaching $38.4 trillion. In just seven years, the scale has doubled. At this pace, even the printing presses are overheating.

How did it get this way? Two key turning points:

In 2020, the pandemic year, the government borrowed $4.3 trillion in a single year to bail out the market, causing the debt curve to shoot straight up. Even worse is the structural problem—federal spending has long exceeded revenue, and with the Fed aggressively raising interest rates, the cost of issuing new debt to pay off old debt has skyrocketed.

Now the bill is coming due. In the 2025 fiscal year, interest payments alone are projected to burn through $1.2 trillion, second only to Social Security spending and even higher than the defense budget. No wonder a certain former president keeps pushing Fed Chair Powell to cut rates—those interest payments are real money.

But the bigger drama is yet to come. Powell's term is ending soon, and his replacement has become a hot topic on Wall Street. Some major institutions are frantically lobbying, hoping not to see economic advisor Kevin Hassett take the helm—they're clearly worried: if the Fed becomes “someone’s megaphone,” market confidence could collapse.

Speaking of timing, the ASTER airdrop is quite interesting. At a time when the traditional financial system’s debt is off the charts, the narrative for decentralized assets gains another layer of real-world support. Of course, this isn’t investment advice to go all in—just a reminder: cracks in the macro environment often hide new opportunities.

Who do you think will be the next Fed Chair? Can rate cuts save the US debt crisis?