Just when financialisation seems maxed out, it expands further. The Senate may vote on the Clarity Act, Donald Trump's landmark crypto bill, which exemplifies a growing "holographic distortion" of US markets. These are financial products replicating price, yield, or liquidity of underlying assets—like stocks—without equivalent ownership, disclosure, or leverage rules. This mirrors shadow banking growth, which accelerates during late-stage bull runs. The financial sector now dwarfs the real economy at six times its size, versus 3.5x pre-2008.

Crypto, tokenisation, and prediction markets enable trading second-order "holograms" of contracts for Tesla deliveries or election results. Perpetual futures—never-expiring contracts allowing speculation without ownership—are booming. Kalshi's Robert De Nault reported $17.5bn in perpetual futures trading since May, with rising institutional interest. The Clarity Act draft lacks language ensuring SEC rules apply to stock tokenisation, potentially letting crypto firms offer lightly regulated virtual stocks.

This obscures beneficial ownership. An investor could hold 3% of a company directly plus tokenised derivatives across platforms, exceeding the 5% disclosure threshold without reporting. This echoes the Archegos Capital Management collapse, where $10bn was lost via total return swaps evading disclosure. SEC commissioner Hester Peirce warned tokenised securities are "enchanting, but not magical" and require equal regulation. Without clear legislation, regulation remains holographic.