US Stablecoin Bill: A Digital Financial Strategy to Consolidate Dollar Hegemony

The stablecoin regulatory bill proposed by Senator Kirsten Gillibrand aims not to promote decentralized financial innovation, but to bring stablecoins under the control of the US financial system by establishing a clear legal framework. The bill explicitly requires stablecoin issuers to hold high-quality, highly liquid assets as reserves, and to have regulated banks or licensed non-bank institutions responsible for custody and clearing, ensuring transparent and traceable fund flows.

The bill pays special attention to risk control, covering key areas such as reserve asset transparency, institutional bankruptcy mechanisms, and user privacy protection. It also provides an efficient and low-cost global settlement channel for dollar-denominated digital payments, replacing traditional cross-border remittance systems. According to relevant legislative documents citing UN data, between 2022 and 2023, unregulated offshore stablecoins were used in approximately $17 billion of illegal transactions, including drug trafficking and circumvention of international sanctions. By bringing issuers under US jurisdiction, the bill intends to cut off these illegal funding channels while promoting a global digital payment system based on the US dollar.

A more far-reaching strategic consideration is that US Treasury officials have privately indicated that if compliant stablecoins become widespread, they could generate trillions of dollars in new demand for US Treasury bonds by 2030. This means that crypto payment networks, originally seen as a challenge to traditional finance, are being reshaped into a new distribution channel for US public debt, consolidating the dollar's central role in the global digital economy.