From Critical to Stable to Innovative: How Stablecoins Are Redefining Global Financial Power

Prof. Dr. Kai Andrejewski, Senior Partner

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A Shifting Geopolitical Order

The world economy is entering a new phase of structural volatility. The unipolar order of the post-Cold War era has fractured into a multipolar landscape marked by rival economic blocs, fiscal fragility, and rising policy divergence. Globalization, once a driver of growth and efficiency, is giving way to fragmentation and protectionism. The intersection of geopolitics, ESG, finance, and technology has become the defining arena of competition.

Europe exemplifies the challenge. The constant collapsing of governments in France in 2025 underscores how political instability can quickly translate into fiscal uncertainty. France’s national debt has climbed to €3.4 trillion—115.6% of GDP—by late 2025, with debt service expected to hit €66 billion by 2026, becoming the country’s single largest budget item. Meanwhile, investment levels have fallen for six consecutive years. These dynamics heighten fears that Europe’s second-largest economy could become the epicenter of a renewed Eurozone debt crisis, undermining confidence in the euro and complicating monetary coordination.

Across Europe, rising public deficits, populist politics, and monetary fatigue are converging into a dangerous feedback loop. Fiscal tightening risks political backlash; fiscal expansion risks market punishment. The region’s financial system, once a pillar of global stability, now appears vulnerable to shocks from both within and without.

America’s Strategic Recalibration

Across the Atlantic, the United States is pursuing a deliberate repositioning of its economic power. After decades of serving as the consumer and financier of last resort—absorbing global surpluses through its twin deficits—Washington is signaling fatigue with that role. The U.S. government argues it has borne disproportionate costs for maintaining the world’s liquidity and financial stability.

A framework known as the Mar-a-Lago Accord, outlined by Stephen Miran, Chair of the Council of Economic Advisors, reflects this shift. The plan emphasizes a weaker dollar, selective treatment of foreign Treasury holders based on duration and yield, and a willingness to use America’s fiscal and monetary reach as a strategic instrument rather than a public good. In effect, the U.S. aims to weaponize its balance sheet—using access to its currency, markets, and debt as levers of influence.

This represents a subtle but profound transformation: from a provider of global liquidity to an architect of global leverage. It reasserts financial dominance while distributing the costs of that dominance more selectively.

Stablecoins: Financial Innovation Meets Statecraft

Within this evolving strategy, stablecoins have emerged as one of the most consequential innovations in modern finance. These digital tokens pegged to real-world assets—primarily the U.S. dollar or gold—combine technological efficiency with monetary reliability, enabling near-instant, low-cost cross-border transactions.

The passage of the GENIUS Act in July 2025 marked a turning point. For the first time, the United States established a comprehensive federal framework for stablecoins, requiring full backing by dollars or U.S. Treasuries, monthly audits, and unified state-federal oversight. The implications extend well beyond the digital-asset industry. By tying stablecoin issuance directly to U.S. government debt, the Act effectively links digital finance to the strength of the U.S. fiscal system.

In doing so, it reinforces the dollar’s role as the world’s reserve currency. Today, roughly 99% of all stablecoins by market capitalization are pegged to the U.S. dollar. Under the new framework, each coin represents not only a claim on digital liquidity but also a micro-investment in U.S. sovereign debt. The geopolitical logic is straightforward: the more the world uses dollar-backed stablecoins, the greater the demand for U.S. Treasuries—and, by extension, for the dollar itself.

By mid-2025, stablecoin issuers held $182 billion in Treasuries, with Tether alone controlling over $105 billion directly and another $21 billion indirectly. These entities now rank among the top 20 foreign holders of U.S. government debt, sitting alongside Japan and China. The United States has, in effect, discovered a new, decentralized mechanism for financing its deficits—a digital extension of its global monetary hegemony.

The Dollar’s Digital Reinforcement

The geopolitical implications are immense. The GENIUS Act not only stabilizes the regulatory environment for digital finance; it 'locks in' U.S. dominance in the crypto-asset ecosystem, ensuring that most global digital transactions continue to orbit around the dollar. As White House 'Crypto Czar' David Sacks remarked, the Act will 'extend U.S. dollar dominance globally' by aligning innovation with state power.

Over time, this alignment could turn stablecoins into a strategic chokepoint. The U.S. might restrict access to its regulated stablecoins to allies or make participation conditional on compliance with its sanctions and trade regimes. In the energy sector, for example, Washington could encourage or pressure producers such as Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar to denominate exports in U.S.-backed stablecoins, digitizing the petrodollar system and extending American leverage into the blockchain era.

Risks Beneath the Surface

Yet the same forces that strengthen U.S. influence also introduce new vulnerabilities. If stablecoins become major holders of U.S. Treasuries, a sudden loss of confidence in bond markets could trigger forced liquidations, creating a self-reinforcing sell-off—a 'digital fire sale'. Moreover, as stablecoin issuers typically hold long-term assets against short-term redemption liabilities, the structure resembles the maturity mismatch that felled Lehman Brothers. There are also macroeconomic side effects. Expanding stablecoin issuance increases global demand for short-term U.S. debt, potentially altering yield-curve dynamics and reducing the Federal Reserve’s ability to manage liquidity through traditional channels. In extreme cases, this could amplify monetary volatility, blurring the boundary between regulated finance and decentralized markets.

Corporate Implications: Navigating the Digital Dollar Order

For global corporations, the rise of regulated stablecoins is not an abstract macro story—it is a strategic inflection point. The GENIUS Act provides long-sought regulatory clarity, opening opportunities for faster, cheaper, and more secure cross-border payments. Companies operating across multiple jurisdictions can expect lower settlement friction, improved transparency, and enhanced liquidity management.

However, these benefits come with new compliance and geopolitical challenges. The U.S. framework effectively sets the global standard. Firms dealing in stablecoins must therefore ensure full alignment with U.S. financial, data-protection, and sanctions laws—even if headquartered elsewhere. The line between financial regulation and foreign policy is increasingly blurred.

To adapt, companies should:

1. Audit their exposure to digital assets—review how stablecoins intersect with payment, treasury, and financing operations.

2. Integrate geopolitical risk analysis into financial planning, recognizing that access to certain digital currencies may depend on political alignment.

3. Diversify settlement systems to avoid over-reliance on a single currency or jurisdiction.

4. Invest in compliance and digital-finance capabilities, particularly in AML/CFT, data governance, and blockchain auditing.

5. Engage proactively with regulators and industry bodies to shape standards before they harden into global norms.

In this new era, financial agility becomes a form of geopolitical resilience. Corporations that can adapt to regulatory shifts, manage digital liquidity, and align innovation with compliance will be best positioned to thrive.

The Strategic Value of Stability

Stablecoins illustrate a broader truth about today’s global economy: stability itself has become a strategic asset. What began as a niche experiment in cryptocurrency now sits at the crossroads of monetary policy, technological innovation, and national strategy. The U.S. has seized the moment to reassert monetary leadership through innovation, while Europe grapples with structural debt and institutional inertia. China, meanwhile, continues to expand its digital yuan framework—offering an alternative model rooted in state control rather than market trust. The competition between these systems will define the next decade of global finance.

For the corporate sector, the message is clear. The boundaries between technology, ESG, finance, and geopolitics are dissolving. Companies must think not only about profitability but also about sovereignty, compliance, and systemic interdependence. As digital currencies become instruments of power, strategic foresight and adaptability will separate the resilient from the exposed.

In the emerging order, innovation without stability breeds fragility—but stability without innovation breeds irrelevance. The challenge, and the opportunity, lie in mastering both.