Stablecoins going mainstream as Washington debates

Washington is debating the future of digital assets just as dollar-backed stablecoins are reaching escape velocity in global payments.

With Congress weighing the Clarity Act and regulators refining oversight frameworks introduced under last year’s Genius Act, the question is no longer whether stablecoins matter — but whether the US will shape the infrastructure now emerging around them.

Behind the policy discussion sits a hard commercial reality. After filtering out inorganic activity, stablecoins transferred more than $12 trillion in value last year, placing them within striking distance of the roughly $17 trillion processed annually by Visa. Those flows are not theoretical.

They represent cross-border business settlements, trading liquidity, remittances, treasury operations and an expanding share of online commerce.

The significance lies in how those transactions settle. Stablecoins operate on blockchain networks where transfer and finality occur almost simultaneously.

There’s no multi-day reconciliation across correspondent banks, and no layered clearing chain recalibrating ledgers after the fact. Settlement is embedded in the transaction itself.

Cost differentials follow naturally. Legacy cross-border payments frequently involve intermediary banks, foreign exchange spreads, card network fees and compliance overhead that compound across jurisdictions.

Stablecoin transfers can do business at a fraction of that cost, particularly for high-volume or international flows.

For now, much of the activity remains concentrated among crypto-native users and globally active enterprises.

Yet integration with established financial institutions is accelerating. Payment providers are experimenting with stablecoin rails. Fintech platforms are embedding blockchain settlement behind conventional interfaces.

But as that integration deepens, end users may not even register when they’re using tokenized dollars rather than traditional deposits.

From the consumer perspective, the functional distinction narrows. A properly structured stablecoin is backed one-for-one by dollars or equivalent high-quality liquid assets.

If mechanisms are credible and transparent, the token behaves economically like a digital bearer instrument denominated in dollars. The technical wrapper becomes secondary to speed, cost and reliability.

More importantly, blockchain infrastructure introduces programmability. Transfers can incorporate automated compliance checks, escrow conditions, or conditional release of funds triggered by predefined events.

Money begins to operate as code — composable within broader software systems rather than confined to bank-specific ledgers.

Policy will determine whether this architecture scales within the US regulatory perimeter or beyond it.

The Genius Act established clearer guardrails for reserve management and issuer supervision, reducing ambiguity that previously constrained institutional participation.

The Clarity Act now under consideration seeks to define the treatment of blockchain networks and digital asset markets more broadly, addressing jurisdictional overlaps between agencies.

Regulatory clarity is the catalyst for capital formation. Large financial institutions require predictable rules before committing balance sheet resources and client integration.

If US frameworks provide that certainty while preserving competitive neutrality, stablecoin infrastructure could consolidate around dollar-denominated networks under US oversight.

The transition will not occur overnight. Consumer trust, regulatory oversight, cybersecurity resilience and reserve transparency remain decisive variables.

Episodes of instability in parts of the broader crypto ecosystem have underscored the need for rigorous supervision. Stablecoins that aspire to mainstream adoption must meet standards comparable to systemically important financial institutions.

Yet the direction of travel is evident. Digital tokens pegged to sovereign currencies represent an emerging settlement layer that challenges assumptions about how value moves across borders.