Stablecoin issuers already hold close to $200 billion of US government debt, and the Trump administration is now considering how to make that number much larger. Bloomberg reported on Wednesday that officials are weighing joint ventures with private companies to promote dollar-backed stablecoins outside the United States, with the Treasury, the State Department and the US International Development Finance Corporation all discussed as possible participants. The aim is to shore up the dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency and to create more buyers for Treasury bills.
The proposal is preliminary. No participating companies, target countries, funding amounts or timetable have been disclosed, and the administration has not formally announced anything. Tether’s USDT and Circle’s USDC together account for roughly 90 percent of a stablecoin market worth about $292 billion, so any overseas push would in practice lean heavily on one or both of them.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has argued that the GENIUS Act could reinforce the dollar’s reserve role and lift demand for US debt, and White House crypto adviser David Sacks has said stablecoins could extend the dollar’s dominance internationally. Stablecoin reserves are now large enough to rank among the top 20 holders of US government debt.
What the reports leave out is the view from the countries on the receiving end. The IMF and the Bank for International Settlements have both warned that widespread use of dollar stablecoins can speed capital flight from emerging economies and weaken their currencies. A government-backed campaign to spread them is something those central banks will have to answer, and a joint venture with a private issuer raises a question Washington has not addressed: who gets to pick the winner.
