Actively Responding to the Expansion of the U.S. Dollar Stablecoin: Seizing the Strategic High Ground of Digital Finance

Strategic Reflections Based on the New Game of Monetary Sovereignty and Historical Mirrors

Abstract

Stablecoins originated from digital cryptocurrencies, but they are not merely a financial technology innovation product; rather, they are a key vehicle for major powers to conduct new types of financial and infrastructure competition in the digital age. With the explosive growth in the global circulation scale of dollar-anchored stablecoins represented by USDT and USDC, a new dollar domain based on on-chain algorithms and cryptographic trust is taking shape in digital finance space. This trend is essentially an intergenerational upgrade and spatial expansion of U.S. dollar hegemony in the fields of Web3 and Decentralized Finance (DeFi). Historically, the British pound established hegemony through the gold standard and global trade networks, while the U.S. dollar completed its monopoly over global clearing rights and reserve currency status through the Bretton Woods system and the "petrodollar" agreement. Looking across the historical mirrors of three evolutions of monetary form and sovereign competition, monetary hegemony has never depended on the preservation or abolition of physical form, but rather on control over clearing channels, the breadth of value anchoring, and the stickiness of network effects. Facing the erosion by dollar stablecoins of "digital dollarization" in peripheral economies and the threat to reconstruct the cross-border payment and clearing system, China must adhere to the principle of "coordinating security and development, balancing domestic and offshore, and placing equal emphasis on hardcore technology and flexible ecology." It is recommended to adopt a strategic path of "dual-track parallel, three-dimensional defense, and breakthrough at both ends": domestically, build a hardcore compliance defense line with the digital renminbi (e-CNY); offshore, use Hong Kong as the strategic hub to issue compliant offshore renminbi stablecoins (CNHC) and promote Real World Asset (RWA) tokenization as empowerment, while deepening the construction of the multi-central bank digital currency bridge (mBridge), cutting into global on-chain liquidity and clearing networks, and effectively seizing the strategic high ground of future digital finance and global value networks.