Because the world shifts from a U.S.-dominated unipolar order to a multipolar panorama led by BRICS nations, the U.S. greenback faces unprecedented stress from declining bond demand and rising debt prices. The Genius Act, handed in July 2025, indicators a daring U.S. technique to counter this by legalizing Treasury-backed stablecoins, unlocking billions in overseas demand for U.S. bonds.
The blockchain internet hosting these stablecoins will form the worldwide economic system for many years. Bitcoin, with its unmatched decentralization, Lightning Community privateness, and strong safety, emerges because the superior option to energy this digital greenback revolution, making certain low switching prices when fiat inevitably fades. This essay explores why the greenback should and can change into digitized through blockchains and why Bitcoin should change into its rails for the U.S. economic system to have a smooth touchdown from the highs of being a worldwide empire.
Finish of the Unipolar World
You may need heard that the world is transitioning from a unipolar world order — the place the US was the one superpower and will make or break markets and dominate conflicts throughout the globe — to a multipolar world, the place a union of Jap-allied international locations can arrange regardless of U.S. overseas coverage. This jap alliance is known as BRICS and is made up of main international locations like Brazil, Russia, China and India. The inevitable consequence of the rise of BRICS is the restructuring of geopolitics, posing a problem to the hegemony of the U.S. greenback system.
There are a lot of apparently remoted information factors that sign this restructuring of the world order. Take, for instance, the US’ army alliance with a rustic like Saudi Arabia. The U.S. is not defending the petrodollar settlement, which noticed Saudi oil offered just for {dollars} in trade for army protection of the area. The petrodollar technique was a significant supply of demand for the greenback and was thought-about pivotal to the power of the U.S. economic system for the reason that ’70s, however has successfully ended lately — not less than for the reason that begin of the Ukraine conflict, when Saudi Arabia started accepting currencies aside from the greenback for oil-related trades.
The Weakening of the U.S. Bond Market
One other crucial information level within the geopolitical change of the world order is the weakening of the U.S. bond market. Doubts in regards to the long-term creditworthiness of the U.S. authorities are rising. Some have considerations in regards to the nation’s inner political instability, whereas others are skeptical that the present authorities construction can adapt to the quickly altering, high-tech world and the rise of BRICS.
Elon Musk, reportedly the richest man on the planet and arguably the best CEO in historical past, able to working a number of seemingly unattainable corporations concurrently — resembling SpaceX, Tesla, The Boring Firm and X.com — is considered one of these skeptics. Musk lately spent months with the Trump administration determining tips on how to restructure the federal authorities and the nation’s monetary place through DOGE, the Division Of Authorities Effectivity, earlier than an abrupt exit from politics in Could.
Musk lately shocked the web in an All-In Summit look the place he commented on his expertise on the matter, saying, “I haven’t been to DC since Could. The federal government is mainly unfixable. I applaud David (Sacks’) noble efforts… however on the finish of the day, in case you take a look at our nationwide debt.. .if AI and robots don’t clear up our nationwide debt, we’re toast.”
If Elon Musk can’t get the U.S. authorities to pivot away from monetary doom, who can?
Doubts of this kind are mirrored within the low demand for long-term U.S. bonds, as evidenced by the necessity for increased rates of interest to draw buyers. Right this moment, the US30Y is at 4.75%, a 17-year excessive. Demand in long-dated auctions of U.S. bonds, just like the US30Y, has additionally trended downward with “disappointing” demand in 2025, in accordance with Reuters.
The weakening demand for long-dated U.S. bonds has important penalties for the U.S. economic system. The U.S. Treasury has to supply increased rates of interest to entice buyers, in flip growing the funds the U.S. authorities has to make on the curiosity of the nationwide debt. Right this moment, the U.S. curiosity funds are shut to at least one trillion {dollars} a 12 months, greater than the entire army funds of the nation.
If the US fails to search out sufficient consumers for its future debt, it might wrestle to pay its quick payments, having to rely as an alternative on the Fed to purchase that debt, which expands its steadiness sheet and the cash provide. The consequences, although complicated, would possible be inflationary on the greenback, additional harming the U.S. economic system.
How Sanctions Wounded the Bond Market
Additional weakening the U.S. bond market, in 2022, the US manipulated the U.S.-controlled bond market rails in opposition to Russia in response to its invasion of Ukraine. Because the Russians invaded, the U.S. froze Russian treasury reserves held abroad, which had been meant partly to pay its nationwide debt to Western buyers. In what seems to be like an try and pressure Russia right into a default, the U.S. additionally reportedly started blocking all makes an attempt made by Russia to repay its personal debt to overseas bondholders.
A U.S. Treasury spokeswoman confirmed on the time that sure funds had been not being allowed.
“Right this moment is the deadline for Russia to make one other debt fee,” the spokeswoman mentioned.
“Starting at this time, the U.S. Treasury won’t allow any greenback debt funds to be constructed from Russian authorities accounts at U.S. monetary establishments. Russia should select between draining remaining beneficial greenback reserves or new income coming in, or default.”
The U.S. successfully weaponized the bond market in opposition to Russia by a novel use of its overseas coverage sanctions regime. However sanctions are a double-edged sword: Since then, overseas demand for U.S. bonds has weakened as nations not aligned with U.S. overseas coverage appeared to diversify their danger. China has led this pattern away from U.S. bonds, its holdings peaked in 2013 at over 1.25 trillion {dollars} and has accelerated downward for the reason that starting of the Ukraine conflict, sitting at this time at near 750 billion.
Whereas this occasion demonstrated the devastating effectiveness of sanctions, it additionally deeply wounded confidence within the bond market. Not solely was Russia blocked from paying off its money owed below the Biden administration sanctions, additionally harming buyers as collateral harm, however the freezing of its overseas treasury reserves confirmed the world that in case you, as a sovereign nation, go in opposition to U.S. overseas coverage, all bets are off — and that features the bond market.
Following the debatable overreach of sanctions from the earlier administration, the Trump admin has backed off from sanctions as a technique, since they hurt the U.S. monetary sector, and pivoted to a tariff-based strategy to overseas coverage. These tariffs to date have had combined outcomes. Whereas the Trump administration boasts document income and infrastructure investments by the personal sector within the nation, Jap nations have accelerated their collaboration by the BRICS alliance.
The current SCO summit in Tianjin, China, introduced collectively world leaders, together with Chinese language President Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi, amongst others. Probably the most notable information to return out of the SCO summit was a joint pledge by India and China to be “companions not rivals,” an extra step towards the multipolar world order.
The Stablecoin Playbook
Whereas China has divested from U.S. bonds up to now decade, a brand new purchaser has emerged, rapidly coming into the highest echelons of energy. Tether, a monetary know-how firm born within the early days of Bitcoin and initially constructed on prime of its community by the Mastercoin layer-two protocol, at this time owns $171 billion value of U.S. bonds, near 1 / 4 of the quantity China owns and greater than most different international locations.
Tether is the issuer of the preferred stablecoin, USDT, with a market cap of 171 billion {dollars} in worth in circulation, equal to its reported bond holdings. The corporate reported $1 billion in earnings for Q1 of 2025, with a easy but good enterprise mannequin: purchase short-dated U.S. bonds, emit USDT tokens backed 1-for-1, and pocket the coupon curiosity funds from the U.S. authorities. With 100 workers in the beginning of the 12 months, Tether is alleged to be one of the vital worthwhile corporations per worker on the planet.
Circle, the issuer of USDC and the second-most common stablecoin out there, additionally holds near $50 billion in short-dated treasuries. Stablecoins are used all around the world, significantly in Latin America and creating nations, as an alternative choice to native fiat currencies, which endure far deeper inflation than the greenback and are sometimes hindered by capital controls.
The quantity processed by stablecoins at this time is past a distinct segment, nerd monetary toy; it’s within the trillions of {dollars}. A 2025 Chainalysis report states, “Between June 2024 and June 2025, USDT processed over $1 trillion per thirty days, peaking at $1.14T in January 2025. USDC, in the meantime, ranged from $1.24T to $3.29T month-to-month. These volumes spotlight the continued centrality of Tether and USDC in crypto market infrastructure, particularly for cross-border funds and institutional exercise.”
Latin America, for instance, accounted for 9.1% of whole crypto worth obtained between 2023 and 2024, with year-to-year utilization development charges of 40-100%, of which over 50% had been stablecoins, in accordance with a 2024 Latin America-focused report by Chainalysis, demonstrating the sturdy demand for various currencies within the creating world.
The U.S. wants new demand for its bonds, and that demand exists within the type of demand for the greenback, provided that most individuals all through the world are locked into fiat currencies which might be far inferior to these of the US. If the world transitions to a geopolitical construction that forces the greenback to compete on even phrases with all different fiat currencies, it however might proceed to be the perfect amongst them. The USA, for all its faults, stays a superpower, with unbelievable wealth, human capital and financial potential, significantly when in comparison with many smaller international locations and their questionable pesos.
Latin America has demonstrated a deep starvation for the greenback, however there’s a provide drawback as native nations resist legacy banking greenback rails. Having access to dollar-denominated accounts in lots of international locations outdoors of the US shouldn’t be straightforward. Native banks are sometimes tightly regulated and serve on the behest of native governments, who even have an curiosity in defending their peso. The U.S. shouldn’t be the one authorities that understands the worth of printing cash and defending its worth, in any case.
Stablecoins clear up each issues; they create demand for U.S. bonds and might ship dollar-denominated worth to everybody, anyplace on the planet, regardless of the pursuits of their native governments.
Stablecoins, leveraging the censorship-resistant qualities of their underlying blockchains, can present people believable deniability and privateness from their native state, a function that native banks can not present. Because of this, the U.S., by the promotion of stablecoins, can entry overseas markets it has but to succeed in, increasing its demand and person base, whereas additionally exporting greenback inflation to nations that wouldn’t have a direct affect on American politics — a protracted custom within the historical past of the USD. From a strategic perspective, this sounds superb for the US, and it’s a easy extension of how the USD has labored for many years, simply on prime of latest monetary know-how.
The U.S. authorities understands this chance. In accordance with Chainalysis, “The stablecoin regulatory panorama has advanced considerably over the previous 12 months. Whereas the GENIUS Act within the U.S. (which legalized U.S. bond-backed stablecoins) has not but taken impact, its passage has pushed sturdy institutional curiosity.”
Why Stablecoins Ought to Journey On High of Bitcoin
One of the simplest ways to verify Bitcoin advantages from the elevation of the creating world out of mediocre fiat currencies is to verify the greenback makes use of Bitcoin as its rails. Each greenback stablecoin pockets must be a Bitcoin pockets as properly.
Critics of the Bitcoin greenback technique will say that it goes in opposition to Bitcoin’s libertarian roots, that Bitcoin was supposed to exchange the greenback — not improve it or deliver it into the twenty first century. Nonetheless, this concern is essentially U.S.-centric. It’s straightforward to sentence the greenback whenever you receives a commission in {dollars} and your financial institution accounts are denominated in USD. It’s straightforward to critique a 2-8% greenback inflation charge (relying on the way you measure it) when that’s your native forex. In too many international locations outdoors of the U.S., 2-8% yearly inflation can be a blessing.
A big portion of the inhabitants of the world suffers from fiat currencies far worse than the greenback, with inflation charges within the low-to-high double digits and even triple digits, which is why stablecoins have already gained huge adoption all through the third world. The creating world must get off the sinking ship first. The hope is that when they’re on a steady boat, they could begin trying round for methods to improve to the Bitcoin yacht.
Sadly, most stablecoins aren’t on prime of Bitcoin at this time, regardless of having began on Bitcoin, a technical actuality that may be a huge supply of friction and danger for customers. Nearly all of the stablecoin quantity at this time runs on the Tron blockchain, which is a centralized community run on a handful of servers by Justin Solar, a Chinese language nationwide who will be simply focused by overseas states that detest the unfold of greenback stablecoins inside their borders.
Many of the blockchains on prime of which stablecoins transfer at this time are additionally completely clear. Public addresses, which function account numbers for his or her customers, are publicly trackable, usually linked by native exchanges to the person’s private information, and simply accessible by native governments. That’s a lever overseas nations can use to push again on the unfold of dollar-denominated stablecoins.
Bitcoin doesn’t have these infrastructure dangers. In contrast to Ethereum, Tron, Solana, and so on., Bitcoin is extremely decentralized, with tens of 1000’s of copies of itself all through the world and a strong peer-to-peer community used to transmit transactions in a means that may simply route round any bottlenecks or choke factors. Its proof-of-work layer offers a separation of powers that different proof-of-stake blockchains wouldn’t have. Michael Saylor, for instance, regardless of his huge stack of bitcoins, 3% of the entire provide, doesn’t have a direct vote on the consensus politics of the community. The identical can’t be mentioned for Vitalik, and the proof-of-stake consensus politics of Ethereum, or Justin Solar and Tron.
Moreover, the Lightning Community on prime of Bitcoin unlocks instantaneous transaction settlement, which advantages from Bitcoin’s underlying blockchain safety. Whereas additionally offering customers important privateness, as all Lightning Community transactions are off-chain by design, and don’t depart an everlasting footprint on its public blockchain. This elementary distinction in strategy to funds grants customers privateness from these they ship cash to, in addition to from third-party observers who don’t run Lightning wallets or high-liquidity Lightning nodes. This reduces the variety of menace actors that may invade person privateness from anybody who seems like trying on the blockchain, to a handful of extremely competent entrepreneurs and know-how corporations, at worst.
Customers can even run their very own Lightning nodes domestically and select how they connect with the community, and loads of individuals do, taking their privateness and safety into their very own fingers. None of those qualities will be seen within the blockchains that most individuals use for stablecoins at this time.
Compliance insurance policies and even sanctions may nonetheless be utilized to greenback stablecoins, their governance anchored to Washington, with the identical analytics and smart-contract-based approaches used at this time to cease prison use of stablecoins. There’s no elementary approach to decentralize one thing just like the greenback; in any case, it’s centralized by design. Nonetheless, if many of the stablecoin worth had been to be transferred over the Lightning Community as an alternative, person privateness is also maintained, defending customers in creating nations from organized crime and even their native governments.
Finally, what customers care about is transaction charges — the price of transferring their cash round — which is why Tron has dominated the market to date. Nonetheless, with USDT coming on-line on prime of the Lightning Community, that would quickly change. Within the Bitcoin greenback world order, the Bitcoin community would change into the medium of trade of the greenback, whereas the greenback would stay, for the foreseeable future, because the unit of account.
Can Bitcoin Survive This?
Critics of this technique are additionally involved in regards to the affect the Bitcoin greenback technique might have on Bitcoin itself. They surprise if placing the heavy incentives of the greenback on prime of Bitcoin can distort its underlying construction. The obvious means during which a superpower just like the U.S. authorities would possibly wish to manipulate Bitcoin is to bend it into compliance with sanctions regimes, one thing they may theoretically do on the proof-of-work layer.
Nonetheless, as mentioned earlier, the sanctions regime has arguably already peaked, giving approach to the period of tariffs, which search to manage the circulation of products reasonably than the circulation of funds. This post-Trump, post-Ukraine conflict shift in U.S. overseas coverage technique really relieves stress off Bitcoin.
Moreover, as main Western firms, resembling BlackRock, and even the U.S. authorities, proceed to undertake bitcoin as long-term investments, or, within the phrases of President Donald J. Trump, a “Strategic Bitcoin Reserve,” they too begin to align with the longer term success and survival of the Bitcoin community. Attacking Bitcoin’s censorship resistance qualities wouldn’t solely undermine their funding within the asset however would additionally weaken the community’s skill to ship stablecoins to the creating world.
The obvious compromise that Bitcoin must make within the Bitcoin greenback world order is to surrender the unit of account dimension of cash. That is dangerous information for a lot of Bitcoiners, and rightfully so. Unit of account is the mecca of hyperbitcoinization, and plenty of of its customers dwell in that world at this time, as they calculate their financial selections based mostly on the last word affect on the quantity of sats they maintain. Nonetheless, nothing can actually take that away from those that perceive Bitcoin as probably the most sound cash to have ever existed. In reality, the conviction of Bitcoin as a retailer of worth and a medium of trade might be bolstered with this Bitcoin greenback technique.
Sadly, after 16 years of makes an attempt to make bitcoin a unit of account as ubiquitous because the greenback, some are recognizing that within the medium time period, the greenback and stablecoins will possible fulfill that use case. Bitcoin funds won’t ever go away, and bitcoiner-led corporations will proceed to rise and may proceed to just accept bitcoin as fee to construct up their bitcoin treasuries — however stablecoins and dollar-denominated worth will possible dominate crypto commerce within the coming a long time.
Nothing Stops This Prepare
Because the world continues to adapt to the rising powers within the east and the emergence of the multipolar world order, the US will possible should make tough and pivotal selections to keep away from a long-lasting monetary disaster. The nation may, in concept, decrease its spending, pivot, and restructure in an effort to change into extra environment friendly and aggressive within the twenty first century. And the Trump administration is definitely making an attempt to do exactly that, as seen by the tariff regime and different associated efforts, which try and deliver again manufacturing of important industries into the US and bolster its native expertise. Nonetheless, within the now legendary phrases of Lyn Alden, nothing stops this practice.
Whereas there are just a few miracles that maybe may clear up the US’ monetary woes, such because the science-fiction-like automation of labor and intelligence, and even the Bitcoin greenback technique, in the end, even placing the greenback on the blockchain received’t change its destiny: to change into a collectible for historical past buffs, a rediscovered token of an historical empire match for a museum.
The greenback’s centralized design and dependence on American politics in the end doom the greenback as a forex, but when we’re reasonable, its demise may not be seen for one more 10, 50 and even 100 years. When the time does come, if historical past repeats, Bitcoin must be there because the rails, prepared to choose up the items and fulfill the prophecy of hyperbitcoinization.
BM Large Reads are weekly, in-depth articles on some present matter related to Bitcoin and Bitcoiners. Opinions expressed are these of the authors and don’t essentially mirror these of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Journal. In case you have a submission you assume matches the mannequin, be happy to succeed in out at editor[at]bitcoinmagazine.com.
