A Letter to Readers
Four months ago, we published “Empire by Code: The Rise of USD Stablecoins” and argued that stablecoins are not merely financial innovation. They are instruments of monetary power. Tools for projecting American hegemony into the digital economy without deploying armies or negotiating treaties.
The response was intense. Some found the thesis compelling. Others dismissed it as conspiratorial or overly deterministic. Many were simply unsure what to make of it.
But we stand by the thesis.
The United States dollar remains the world’s dominant reserve currency not because of superior economic management but because of network effects, institutional depth, and the absence of credible alternatives. Stablecoins do not reverse this dynamic. They accelerate it. By making dollar access frictionless and global, they extend American monetary power into populations and markets that were previously beyond reach.
But identifying a strategic weapon is only half the story.
The question that matters now is which factions will control it. Which American institutions will capture the infrastructure? Under what regulatory framework? With which international partners or adversaries? And at what cost to innovation, privacy, and competition?
This paper examines those questions by mapping the battles already underway.
Not theoretical debates about what might happen someday, but actual conflicts with trillion-dollar stakes being fought right now across multiple fronts. Private issuers versus traditional banks. Regulators waging civil wars over jurisdiction. Nations scrambling to resist dollarization while their citizens vote with their wallets. Technology platforms competing to become the settlement layer for the digital economy.
These battles will determine the shape of American financial power for the next century. They will determine which companies will become the new JPMorgan and which will become the next Blockbuster. They will determine which nations retain monetary sovereignty and which become hollow dependencies. But the outcomes are not predetermined, even if the broader trajectory favors dollar dominance.
To be clear, this paper is not an academic treatise. It is an analysis of power struggles in real time, written for investors, policymakers, and anyone trying to understand how digital money reshapes global finance. Some of what follows represents strongly held convictions backed by structural logic and historical patterns. Other parts are observations about emerging dynamics where the endgame remains uncertain.
We believe the United States will dominate the stablecoin economy for the same reasons it dominated the Eurodollar market and the SWIFT network. Structural advantages compound. Trust, once established, is self-reinforcing. Challengers face coordination problems that incumbents do not.
But we also recognize that this outcome depends on navigating the battles described in this paper successfully. And advantage is not necessarily destiny.
Also, we offer a few caveats before we begin. We own gold. We are not dollar bulls out of ideological commitment or blind patriotism. We assess the world as it is, not as we wish it to be. The dollar’s dominance is not a moral good. It is a structural reality rooted in network effects, legal frameworks, and geopolitical arrangements that other currencies simply do not have and cannot easily replicate.
Further, we do not believe stablecoins fix the problems with fiat money. They make fiat money more efficient at doing what fiat money does, which includes debasement, surveillance, and control.
Our role is not to advocate for this system but to describe it accurately and analyze where power is shifting. Some readers will find the conclusions uncomfortable. Others will disagree with the premises. That is fine. The goal is to provoke serious thinking about forces shaping the future of money, not to declare final answers.
One last point. This paper raises more questions than it answers in certain areas. The battles over yield, the tensions between currency and store of value, the jurisdiction fights between state and federal authorities, remain unresolved. We flag them as critical rather than pretend we know how they will play out.
Where we hold strong opinions, we state them plainly. Where the outcome remains contested, we present the forces in conflict and let readers draw their own conclusions.
The stablecoin wars have already begun.
What follows is a map of the battlefield.
Executive Summary
In “Empire by Code,” we established that USD stablecoins represent more than financial innovation. They are instruments of monetary power capable of extending American hegemony into every corner of the digital economy.
We showed WHY stablecoins matter: they combine the reach of the Eurodollar system with the precision of programmable code, creating a new architecture for projecting dollar dominance without deploying armies or negotiating treaties.
But identifying a strategic weapon is only the beginning.
The question now is WHO will control it, HOW it will be deployed, and WHAT battles will determine its ultimate form. The answers to these questions will determine the shape of global finance for the next century. And those answers are being written right now, in boardrooms and regulatory hearings, in lines of code and geopolitical confrontations, in decisions being made by people who may not fully grasp the magnitude of what they are building.
This paper examines the conflicts already underway. Battles between private issuers and banks, regulators and innovators, nations, and empires. These are not abstract policy debates. They are power struggles with trillion-dollar stakes, and their outcomes will shape the monetary order for decades to come.
Most people do not yet understand what is at stake. But the players in this arena do. And they are fighting accordingly.
The stablecoin arena is no longer theoretical. Over $200 billion in tokenized dollars now circulate globally, processed through networks that bypass traditional banking entirely.
Giants like Tether and Circle have built businesses generating billions in annual revenue by capturing the seigniorage from digital dollars. Banks are scrambling to respond, belatedly recognizing an existential threat. Regulators worldwide are drafting frameworks to control or co-opt this new infrastructure, each hoping to position their jurisdiction as the center of gravity for digital finance. And nation-states are watching nervously as their monetary sovereignty erodes with every citizen who chooses to hold dollars on their phone rather than local currency in a bank.
For some countries, this is an inconvenience.
For others, it is a death sentence.
These battles are not separate from the imperial project described in “Empire by Code.” They ARE the empire expanding in real time. Every fight over regulatory frameworks, every contest between issuers, every adoption curve in emerging markets represents the extension of American monetary power through voluntary adoption rather than coercion.
The genius of this system is that it does not require treaties or military force. It requires only that holding dollars becomes easier than holding anything else. The conflicts described in this paper determine the speed, scope, and ultimate architecture of that expansion.
Each battle described in this paper is a fight over the same fundamental questions: In a world where money becomes programmable and borderless, who writes the rules? Who enforces them? And what happens to those who lose?
The infrastructure being built today will determine who holds power tomorrow. The rails are being laid. The standards are being set. The winners and losers are being decided. What follows is a map of the battlefield and an analysis of the forces shaping the outcome.
It is no longer a question of “if” or “when.”
The question is whether you understand what is being fought over. Let’s get started.
