What I Got Wrong About Stablecoins and How the GENIUS Act Changed My View

A little over a year ago, I didn’t care much about stablecoins. To me, USDC and USDT were just boring dollar-pegged tokens that we strictly used to bridge in and out of the cool tokens.

Then the GENIUS Act came along and I realized just how wrong I was about stablecoins. Since then I have devoted every day to learning how stablecoins work and understanding just how disruptive these “boring” digital dollars can be to our banking and financial systems.

Now that there is a law on the books that requires true dollar backing and fully audited reserve requirements, stablecoins transform into a fully pegged and consistently reliable instrument for moving value between users on blockchains.

No more fluctuations in value between sender and receiver, and no more fears about a lack of true reserve backing. For the first time in history, consumers have a cheaper, faster alternative to the banks for moving money—and all without the excessive fees that banks and other money remittance services charge for the convenience of moving your own money. That’s what inspired me to write the book, Make Your Wallet Your Bank

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This stablecoin journey also led me to the conclusion that fully regulated stablecoins under the GENIUS Act may well be America’s last stand at preserving dollar dominance and global demand for U.S. Treasuries.

For those who follow my newsletter, the Stablecoin Strategist on Substack, you know I have written extensively about what I call the Bessent Doctrine: my thesis that Scott Bessent is betting on fully regulated stablecoins under the GENIUS Act to enable the dollar’s Third Act—an era where massive global demand and easy access to digital dollars will create new and bigger markets for U.S. Treasuries, which in turn will keep the dollar the world’s reserve currency. That’s an ambitious goal, and given the massive deficits the United States is currently running, some fear the dollar is living on borrowed time. More to come on that later.

For now, I will continue to think and write about these “boring” blockchain dollars and the endless possibilities that come with them. That is literally why I launched StablecoinSolutions.io last year: to help businesses, consumers, and even AI agents come up with new and innovative ideas for using stablecoins, and to do so in a regulatorily compliant way. And, for those that get it wrong, to help navigate them through the enforcement actions that may likely follow.

So if you too want to learn more, then give this post a share and this account a follow. And to those of you who already have, thanks for trusting in me to continue to deliver these takes.