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 strain from declining bond demand and rising debt prices. The Genius Act, passed in July 2025, alerts a daring U.S. technique to counter this by legalizing Treasury-backed stablecoins, unlocking billions in international 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 Network privateness, and sturdy safety, emerges because the superior option to energy this digital greenback revolution, guaranteeing low switching prices when fiat inevitably fades. This essay explores why the greenback should and can develop into digitized by way of blockchains and why Bitcoin should develop into its rails for the U.S. economic system to have a gentle touchdown from the highs of being a worldwide empire.
Finish of the Unipolar World
You might need heard that the world is transitioning from a unipolar world order — the place america 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 Japanese-allied international locations can arrange regardless of U.S. international coverage. This jap alliance 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 lots of apparently remoted knowledge factors that sign this restructuring of the world order. Take, for instance, america’ navy alliance with a rustic like Saudi Arabia. The U.S. is now not defending the petrodollar agreement, which noticed Saudi oil offered just for {dollars} in alternate for navy protection of the area. The petrodollar technique was a significant supply of demand for the greenback and was thought of pivotal to the energy of the U.S. economic system because the ’70s, however has successfully ended in recent times — at the very least because the begin of the Ukraine struggle, when Saudi Arabia began accepting currencies other than the dollar for oil-related trades.
The Weakening of the U.S. Bond Market
One other vital knowledge 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 earth and arguably the best CEO in historical past, able to working a number of seemingly inconceivable corporations concurrently — equivalent to SpaceX, Tesla, The Boring Firm and X.com — is one in all these skeptics. Musk lately spent months with the Trump administration determining the best way to restructure the federal authorities and the nation’s monetary place by way of DOGE, the Division Of Authorities Effectivity, earlier than an abrupt exit from politics in Might.
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 Might. The federal government is mainly unfixable. I applaud David (Sacks’) noble efforts… however on the finish of the day, for those who have a look at our nationwide debt.. .if AI and robots don’t remedy 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 type are mirrored within the low demand for long-term U.S. bonds, as evidenced by the necessity for greater rates of interest to draw traders. 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, according to 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 greater rates of interest to entice traders, 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 near one trillion dollars a year, greater than the entire military budget of the nation.
If america fails to search out sufficient patrons for its future debt, it could battle to pay its fast payments, having to rely as a substitute on the Fed to purchase that debt, which expands its steadiness sheet and the cash provide. The results, although complicated, would doubtless 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, america manipulated the U.S.-controlled bond market rails towards 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 traders. In what seems like an try to 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 international bondholders.
A U.S. Treasury spokeswoman confirmed at the time that sure funds had been now not being allowed.
“Right this moment is the deadline for Russia to make one other debt fee,” the spokeswoman mentioned.
“Starting right now, the U.S. Treasury is not going to allow any greenback debt funds to be produced 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 towards Russia via a novel use of its international coverage sanctions regime. However sanctions are a double-edged sword: Since then, international demand for U.S. bonds has weakened as nations not aligned with U.S. international coverage appeared to diversify their threat. China has led this trend away from U.S. bonds, its holdings peaked in 2013 at over 1.25 trillion {dollars} and has accelerated downward because the starting of the Ukraine struggle, sitting right now 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 beneath the Biden administration sanctions, additionally harming traders as collateral harm, however the freezing of its international treasury reserves confirmed the world that for those who, as a sovereign nation, go towards U.S. international 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 method, since they hurt the U.S. monetary sector, and pivoted to a tariff-based strategy to international coverage. These tariffs thus far have had combined outcomes. Whereas the Trump administration boasts record revenue and infrastructure investments by the personal sector within the nation, Japanese nations have accelerated their collaboration through the BRICS alliance.
The latest 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. Essentially the most notable information to return out of the SCO summit was a joint pledge by India and China to be “partners not rivals,” an additional 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 expertise firm born within the early days of Bitcoin and initially constructed on high of its community via the Mastercoin layer-two protocol, right now owns $171 billion worth 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 profits 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 firstly of the yr, Tether is alleged to be some of the worthwhile corporations per worker on the earth.
Circle, the issuer of USDC and the second-most standard stablecoin available in the market, additionally holds near $50 billion in short-dated treasuries. Stablecoins are used everywhere in the world, significantly in Latin America and growing nations, as a substitute for native fiat currencies, which undergo far deeper inflation than the greenback and are sometimes hindered by capital controls.
The amount processed by stablecoins right now 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 monthly, 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 acquired 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 growing world.
The U.S. wants new demand for its bonds, and that demand exists within the type of demand for the greenback, on condition that most individuals all through the world are locked into fiat currencies which are far inferior to these of america. If the world transitions to a geopolitical construction that forces the greenback to compete on even phrases with all different fiat currencies, it however could proceed to be the very best amongst them. The US, for all its faults, stays a superpower, with unimaginable 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 exterior of america is just not simple. 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. is just not the one authorities that understands the worth of printing cash and defending its worth, in any case.
Stablecoins, leveraging the censorship-resistant qualities of their underlying blockchains, can present people believable deniability and privateness from their native state, a characteristic that native banks can not present. Consequently, the U.S., via the promotion of stablecoins, can entry international markets it has but to succeed in, increasing its demand and person base, whereas additionally exporting greenback inflation to nations that shouldn’t have a direct affect on American politics — a protracted custom within the historical past of the USD. From a strategic perspective, this sounds ideally suited for america, and it’s a easy extension of how the USD has labored for many years, simply on high of latest monetary expertise.
The U.S. authorities understands this chance. In accordance with Chainalysis, “The stablecoin regulatory landscape has developed considerably over the previous 12 months. Whereas the GENIUS Act in 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 Trip On Prime of Bitcoin
The easiest way to ensure Bitcoin advantages from the elevation of the growing world out of mediocre fiat currencies is to ensure the greenback makes use of Bitcoin as its rails. Each greenback stablecoin pockets ought to be a Bitcoin pockets as nicely.
Critics of the Bitcoin greenback technique will say that it goes towards Bitcoin’s libertarian roots, that Bitcoin was supposed to switch the greenback — not improve it or deliver it into the twenty first century. Nonetheless, this concern is basically U.S.-centric. It’s simple to sentence the greenback whenever you receives a commission in {dollars} and your financial institution accounts are denominated in USD. It’s simple to critique a 2-8% greenback inflation price (relying on the way you measure it) when that’s your native foreign money. In too many international locations exterior 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 growing world must get off the sinking ship first. The hope is that when they’re on a steady boat, they may begin wanting round for tactics to improve to the Bitcoin yacht.
Sadly, most stablecoins are not on top of Bitcoin today, regardless of having began on Bitcoin, a technical actuality that could be a large supply of friction and threat for customers. The vast majority of the stablecoin quantity right now runs on the Tron blockchain, which is a centralized community run on a handful of servers by Justin Solar, a Chinese language nationwide who could be simply focused by international states that detest the unfold of greenback stablecoins inside their borders.
A lot of the blockchains on high of which stablecoins transfer right now are additionally completely clear. Public addresses, which function account numbers for his or her customers, are publicly trackable, typically linked by native exchanges to the person’s private knowledge, and simply accessible by native governments. That’s a lever international 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 sturdy peer-to-peer community used to transmit transactions in a manner that may simply route round any bottlenecks or choke factors. Its proof-of-work layer supplies a separation of powers that different proof-of-stake blockchains shouldn’t have. Michael Saylor, for instance, regardless of his huge stack of bitcoins, 3% of the total supply, doesn’t have a direct vote on the consensus politics of the community. The identical cannot be mentioned for Vitalik, and the proof-of-stake consensus politics of Ethereum, or Justin Solar and Tron.
Moreover, the Lightning Community on high of Bitcoin unlocks immediate 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 looks like wanting on the blockchain, to a handful of extremely competent entrepreneurs and expertise companies, at worst.
Customers may also run their own Lightning nodes locally and select how they hook up with the community, and loads of individuals do, taking their privateness and safety into their very own arms. None of those qualities could be seen within the blockchains that most individuals use for stablecoins right now.
Compliance insurance policies and even sanctions might nonetheless be utilized to greenback stablecoins, their governance anchored to Washington, with the identical analytics and smart-contract-based approaches used right now to cease legal use of stablecoins. There’s no elementary strategy to decentralize one thing just like the greenback; in any case, it’s centralized by design. Nonetheless, if a lot of the stablecoin worth had been to be transferred over the Lightning Community as a substitute, person privateness is also maintained, defending customers in growing nations from organized crime and even their local governments.
Finally, what customers care about is transaction charges — the price of shifting their cash round — which is why Tron has dominated the market thus far. Nonetheless, with USDT coming on-line on high of the Lightning Community, that would quickly change. Within the Bitcoin dollar world order, the Bitcoin community would develop into the medium of alternate 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 impression the Bitcoin greenback technique could have on Bitcoin itself. They marvel if placing the heavy incentives of the greenback on high of Bitcoin can distort its underlying construction. The obvious manner 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 strategy to the period of tariffs, which search to manage the stream of products fairly than the stream of funds. This post-Trump, post-Ukraine struggle shift in U.S. international coverage technique really relieves strain off Bitcoin.
https://bitcoinmagazine.com/tradition/the-birth-of-the-bitcoin-dollar
Moreover, as main Western firms, equivalent to 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 long run 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 means to ship stablecoins to the growing 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 lots of of its customers reside in that world right now, as they calculate their financial choices based mostly on the final word impression on the quantity of sats they maintain. Nonetheless, nothing can actually take that away from those that perceive Bitcoin as essentially the most sound cash to have ever existed. In actual fact, the conviction of Bitcoin as a retailer of worth and a medium of alternate 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 doubtless fulfill that use case. Bitcoin funds won’t ever go away, and bitcoiner-led corporations will proceed to rise and may proceed to simply accept bitcoin as fee to construct up their bitcoin treasuries — however stablecoins and dollar-denominated worth will doubtless dominate crypto commerce within the coming a long time.
Nothing Stops This Practice
Because the world continues to adapt to the rising powers within the east and the emergence of the multipolar world order, america will doubtless should make tough and pivotal choices to keep away from a long-lasting monetary disaster. The nation might, in principle, decrease its spending, pivot, and restructure with a view to develop into extra environment friendly and aggressive within the twenty first century. And the Trump administration is actually making an attempt to just do that, as seen by the tariff regime and different associated efforts, which try to deliver again manufacturing of important industries into america and bolster its native expertise. Nonetheless, within the now legendary phrases of Lyn Alden, nothing stops this train.
Whereas there are just a few miracles that maybe might remedy america’ monetary woes, such because the science-fiction-like automation of labor and intelligence, and even the Bitcoin greenback technique, finally, even placing the greenback on the blockchain received’t change its destiny: to develop 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 finally doom the greenback as a foreign money, 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 ought to be there because the rails, prepared to select up the items and fulfill the prophecy of hyperbitcoinization.
BM Big Reads are weekly, in-depth articles on some present subject related to Bitcoin and Bitcoiners. Opinions expressed are these of the authors and don’t essentially replicate these of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Journal. When you’ve got a submission you assume suits the mannequin, be at liberty to succeed in out at editor[at]bitcoinmagazine.com.
