The Fed Wants to Use Stablecoins to Extend the Dollar’s Global Influence

A senior official at the U.S. Federal Reserve has just crossed an important rhetorical threshold: stablecoins are no longer viewed as a threat, but as a strategic tool for monetary projection.

Christopher Waller, Fed Governor, took the stage in Croatia to champion an unprecedented vision: that of a private digital dollar, backed by stablecoins, capable of transmitting U.S. monetary policy far beyond its traditional borders.

These remarks come at the precise moment the U.S. Congress is debating the CLARITY Act, a piece of legislation that could fundamentally reshape the regulatory framework for crypto assets in the United States.

Waller: Stablecoins as a Transmission Belt for U.S. Monetary Policy

During his address in Croatia, Christopher Waller compared the adoption of dollar-denominated stablecoins to a mechanism of informal dollarization on a global scale. In countries where populations are massively adopting dollar-backed stablecoins — such as USDT or USDC — the Fed‘s monetary policy is transmitted de facto to those economies, even without any bilateral agreement in place.

This reasoning carries significant weight. It means that every digital dollar circulating abroad mechanically reinforces demand for U.S. Treasury bills, since stablecoin issuers are required to hold reserves in dollar-denominated assets. Tether alone held over $90 billion in U.S. T-bills at the end of 2024, according to its own reserve attestations — which would make it one of the largest holders of short-term U.S. debt in the world.

For Waller, this mechanism represents a major geopolitical opportunity: extending the dollar’s footprint without going through the traditional channels of financial diplomacy, and without resorting to a CBDC (central bank digital currency) that the Fed has always approached with caution.

The CLARITY Act: The Legislative Framework That Could Change Everything

Waller’s statements come against a backdrop of intense legislative activity. The CLARITY Act, currently under discussion in Congress, aims to clarify the boundary between digital assets falling under the jurisdiction of the SEC (securities) and those falling under the CFTC (commodities). This legal ambiguity has been paralyzing the U.S. crypto industry for years.

If passed, the bill could provide stablecoin issuers with a stable and predictable regulatory framework — a prerequisite for institutional players to commit meaningfully to this segment. Projects such as PayPal’s stablecoin (PYUSD) and the stated ambitions of major U.S. banks in this space could then accelerate significantly.

The convergence between Waller’s strategic vision and Congress’s legislative agenda paints a coherent picture: the United States is betting on private stablecoins as a vector of digital monetary hegemony, in direct opposition to the digital yuan promoted by Beijing and the de-dollarization initiatives championed by the BRICS nations.

What This Concretely Means for the Crypto Market

For market participants, a signal of this kind from a Fed Governor is far from trivial. Institutional validation at this level reinforces the legitimacy of dollar-backed stablecoins — and could accelerate their adoption across emerging markets in Southeast Asia, Latin America, and Sub-Saharan Africa, where local currency volatility is already pushing millions of users toward USDT.

On the regulatory front, Waller’s stance also reduces the likelihood of a ban or severe restriction on stablecoins in the United States in the near term. It instead positions these instruments as allies of U.S. foreign policy, granting them an implicit layer of political protection.

One question remains open: to what extent can this strategy succeed without a robust supervisory framework? The risks of depegging, issuer insolvency, or reserve manipulation — as demonstrated by the UST collapse in 2022 — serve as a reminder that the dollar’s digital projection power ultimately depends on trust in the private issuers that underpin it.