Scott Bessent says stablecoin firms could buy $1T in US debt

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has a plan to find new buyers for America’s ever-growing pile of government debt, and it runs through your crypto wallet. Bessent suggested this week that stablecoin companies could become trillion-dollar purchasers of US Treasury bills, a projection that would redefine who actually funds the American government’s borrowing habit. The math, at least on paper, is straightforward. Standard Chartered analysts estimate that if the stablecoin market doubles to $2 trillion by the end of 2028, it could generate between $800 billion and $1 trillion in additional demand for T-bills. That’s roughly equivalent to adding an entirely new category of sovereign-scale buyer to the Treasury market. Why the GENIUS Act changes everything The legislative foundation for this vision is the GENIUS Act, signed into law on July 18, 2025. The law requires US-regulated stablecoin issuers to back their tokens 100% with highly liquid assets, specifically short-term Treasuries with maturities of 93 days or less. This matters enormously for the Treasury’s debt management strategy. The department has been quietly shifting its borrowing mix toward shorter-duration securities while ...