, Columnist
US Stablecoin Dream Is a Nightmare for China
Beijing may use Hong Kong’s new stablecoin law to test the waters.
Photographer: Peter Parks/AFP/Getty Images
A decade ago, stablecoins were conceived as a bridge for speculators to travel between risky digital assets like Bitcoin and the less turbulent world of fiat money. That is changing fast. In the hands of a crypto-loving Trump administration, these dollar clones are shaping up as a highway that will carry America’s influence around the world. China’s President Xi Jinping is not taking this new front of geopolitical competition lightly.
It’s a fundamental rewiring of the post-World War II monetary architecture, in which the US is no longer keen to play its historical role of supplying safe assets to the rest of the world.