The Technodollar ETF marks a new turn in Nouriel Roubini’s career: the economist, who for many years sharply criticized cryptocurrencies, has supported the tokenized investment product USAFi, which is linked to the Atlas America fund traded on Nasdaq.
Nouriel Roubini, nicknamed “Dr. Doom” after predicting the 2008 financial crisis, has become a co-author of the USAFi white paper. The project is being developed by the Atlas Capital Team, and the token itself is intended to become a blockchain version of the Atlas America Fund, or USAF.
- Nouriel Roubini supported USAFi, a tokenized product based on the Atlas America fund.
- The underlying fund is traded on Nasdaq, and the token launch is planned for the third quarter of 2026 under the VARA Dubai regime.
- Securitize was chosen as the tokenization infrastructure provider for the project.
What Is Behind USAFi
USAFi is described as a tokenized security that gives investors access to the underlying fund and can be transferred and settled on blockchain networks. The idea is simple: the fund itself remains the anchor of value, while the blockchain adds a layer for transferring rights and settlements. Essentially, this is an attempt to combine a traditional exchange-traded fund with blockchain infrastructure.
The Atlas America Fund is managed by Nouriel Roubini and is presented as an investment fund focused on capital protection in an unstable macroeconomic environment. This structure is closer to classic investment logic, where it is important to quickly understand the key parameters of the product.
- Asset: the Atlas America Fund, which underpins USAFi.
- Portfolio: the set of fund investments that determines the outcome for the investor.
- Portfolio manager: the team led by Nouriel Roubini.
- Issuer: the Atlas structure, which plans to issue USAFi.
- Valuation: price, market value, and net asset value help to understand how much a share in the fund is worth.
Atlas plans to issue USAFi in the third quarter of 2026 through the VARA Dubai regulatory framework. Securitize, one of the largest players in the tokenization market, announced that it will provide the technological infrastructure for the project, calling it Roubini’s first step into blockchain.
Compared to a traditional ETF, this approach bets on more flexible transfers and settlements in blockchain networks. But the usual questions remain: investors still need to look at regulation, fees, taxes, prospectus restrictions, and the reliability of the tokenization infrastructure.
Why Roubini’s Pivot Attracted Attention
For years, Roubini called cryptocurrencies speculative assets with little intrinsic value. In the case of USAFi, the emphasis is different: the token is not positioned as an independent cryptocurrency but is based on a fund with a set of traditional assets.
According to Atlas, the core portfolio should aim for stable returns in various economic conditions while also protecting the principal value of investments. To achieve this, the fund uses several types of assets:
- U.S. Treasury bonds
- Real estate
- Gold
- Agricultural commodities
In debt market logic, this is a bet on assets that can provide income, interest, or yield, as well as help reduce risk during market shocks.
“We are experiencing the most dangerous period for savers in a generation,” said Nouriel Roubini, pointing to inflation, trade wars, and geopolitical tensions that are eroding investors’ purchasing power.
He added that many digital assets, in his view, do not solve this problem because they are not backed by real assets. This is the dividing line between his previous criticism of the crypto market and his support for tokenizing a fund product.
Tokenization Moves Beyond the Crypto Market
The launch of USAFi fits into a broader trend: traditional funds, bonds, and stocks are gradually being moved to blockchain networks. Proponents of tokenization believe that this technology can simplify asset transfers, speed up settlements, expand the pool of investors, and make trading available around the clock.
Major companies are already testing and launching similar solutions. Among them:
- BlackRock
- Franklin Templeton
- Apollo
Against this backdrop, the market for tokenized assets, excluding stablecoins, has exceeded $30 billion, according to data .
For a financial advisor and a major stakeholder in such products, several practical questions are especially important.
- Expenses, fees, and total cost: how much the investor pays to participate in the product.
- Taxes: how transactions with a share in the fund may affect the tax burden.
- Dividends and capital gains: how the product distributes income and how the value of a share changes.
- Share in the fund: what portion of the underlying fund the investment represents.
- Prospectus: how the strategy, fees, and possible restrictions are described.
In this sense, USAFi is closer to regulated investment instruments than to speculative unbacked tokens.
A separate question is how such products will relate to the approaches of major regulators, including the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. At the same time, the announced launch of USAFi is tied specifically to the VARA Dubai regime, not to U.S. jurisdiction.
What Atlas Calls the “Technodollar”
Atlas promotes USAFi as a “Technodollar” category product. The company’s head, Reza Bundy, explains the idea this way: if stablecoins mainly transfer dollars via blockchain rails, then tokenized investment instruments can become digital reserve assets with access to a diversified set of productive investments.
He compared this concept to a new stage of dollar finance after the era of the gold standard and petrodollar. According to him, the next step is a digital dollar reserve that relies not on a single commodity but on a broad share of the most productive sectors of the American economy, including areas being transformed by artificial intelligence.
“We call what comes next the Technodollar: a digital dollar reserve backed not by a single commodity but by a broad claim on America’s most productive companies in sectors now being transformed by artificial intelligence,” said Reza Bundy.
For Atlas, this is an attempt to offer digital finance a regulated capital preservation strategy tied to real assets. For Roubini, it is a notable shift from criticizing cryptocurrencies to supporting tokenization—but only where the token is backed by a clear fund, transparent value, and traditional investment logic.
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