GDP numbers can be deceptive. When you look at China's purchasing power parity figures versus the US, it appears to have pulled ahead. But here's the catch—raw PPP metrics don't tell the whole story about actual economic strength. Nominal GDP, capital efficiency, currency stability, and market depth all paint a different picture. The gap between statistical measures and real-world economic power matters for crypto markets too. When major economies shift, reserve demand changes, and that ripples through everything from stablecoin adoption to cross-border settlement demand. Worth digging deeper into what these numbers actually mean for global finance.