In the end, it wasn’t the metaverse, the NFT craze, or libertarian utopians in hoodies that brought crypto to Washington’s doorstep. It was the dollar. Not the theoretical native value of crypto whitepapers, but the hegemonic, meticulously engineered dollar that underwrites global power and American primacy.
And so, when the U.S. Senate approves a bipartisan bill to regulate stablecoins—those crypto-assets pegged to the U.S. dollar - it isn’t just about financial innovation. It is about sovereignty.
The GENIUS Act and the New Regulatory Perimeter
In June, the U.S. Senate passed the GENIUS Act (Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins Act) with a bipartisan vote of 68–30, signalling strong cross-party support for stablecoin regulation. The bill is now tabled for second reading before the House of Representatives, which is concurrently working on its own version, the STABLE Act (Stablecoin Transparency and Accountability for a Better Ledger Economy Act).
Though the two chambers differ in legislative language, they share broadly aligned goals. The House version is attracting even greater bipartisan backing, increasing expectations of a swift reconciliation process. Lawmakers are aiming to consolidate the two into a final compromise bill before year-end, a timeline seen as realistic due to the executive branch’s backing and the urgency placed on the issue. Observers expect the GENIUS Act to provide the structural basis for the unified legislation.
The legislation creates a regulatory framework that gives both federal and state authorities oversight over dollar-backed tokens, particularly those issued by nonbanks. The bill requires full reserve backing, prohibits algorithmic stablecoins, and authorizes state-chartered issuers under national standards. Critics will nitpick the usual turf war between state-chartered issuers and the Federal Reserve, but the strategic subtext is hard to miss: this is the first real move to anchor the digital dollar into the U.S. security architecture.
Re-centralisation in the Age of Tokens
This is not a Silicon Valley experiment in decentralisation anymore. It is a project of re-centralisation, only this time through code and compliance. A privately issued, regulated stablecoin, backed by U.S. Treasury bonds, offers something traditional crypto never could: a vector for the dollar’s reach in a world where SWIFT, sanctions, and even correspondent banking face rising geopolitical friction. If the eurodollar was the invisible engine of postwar hegemony, the stablecoin is the programmable chassis of what comes next.
For all the mainstream media’s criticism of President Trump, this is a stroke of genius: the White House needs a weaker dollar to boost exports without undermining global appetite for U.S. Treasuries. Stablecoins make that balancing act possible.
A New Vector of Dollarization
That is why the pending legislation is a turning point. It enshrines a model where dollar dominance can be transmitted not through bank balance sheets, but digital wallets. It invites a new kind of dollarization: faster, cheaper, unmediated by traditional institutions, and potentially unstoppable in frontier and fragile economies.
For Washington, this is not a bug; it’s the feature. From Argentina to Ghana to Turkey, crypto is already the informal lifeline of last resort. With regulatory blessing, stablecoins could become America’s unofficial export to collapsing monetary regimes, the soft touch of a hard power.
Italy Breaks from the Pack
Rome, of all places, has seen this clearly. Italian commentators are now openly calling for a “re-dollarization” strategy, one where adopting U.S.-regulated stablecoins is not a surrender, but a hedge against euro decay and European irrelevance. Commodity trading adviser Gianclaudio Torlizzi puts it bluntly: “Stablecoins are the perfect solution: anchored to the dollar, they float freely against local currencies, erode governments’ monetary sovereignty and become a financial Trojan horse.”
Torlizzi’s is not an ideological position; it’s a realist one.
When your central bank is boxed in by fiscal orthodoxy and political sclerosis, outsourcing trust to the dollar can look like prudence, not capitulation.
Countering China’s Digital Ambitions
The implications extend beyond finance. In an increasingly adversarial world, where China is racing to internationalize its e-CNY and build payment rails through BRICS partnerships, a sanctioned, supervised stablecoin ecosystem gives the U.S. a countermeasure that doesn’t require new troops or treaties.
It’s a monetary containment strategy without the Cold War theatre, one that installs Washington not as the jailer of global liquidity, but its indispensable architect.
Europe’s Regulatory Paralysis
European regulators, by contrast, remain trapped in a protectionist mindset.
The EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regime, hailed in Brussels as pioneering, is already obsolete. Its design, heavy on precaution and bureaucratic drag, reflects a broader pathology: mistaking legalism for leverage.
By treating stablecoins as a threat to monetary autonomy rather than an instrument of strategic alignment, Europe has ceded ground not just to American firms, but to American statecraft.
Monetary Annexation Through Innovation
The irony is sharp. Crypto was supposed to displace fiat power. Instead, it may entrench the most powerful fiat of all.
The stablecoin bill doesn’t just regulate tokens; it conscripts them.
And for the United States, that’s not financial accommodation—it’s monetary annexation.
