Something important is happening beneath the noise of crypto headlines — and it has little to do with memecoins or market speculation. Stripe recently reintroduced stablecoin payments after a multi-year hiatus. Meta, once burned by its own stablecoin ambitions, is quietly testing integration of U.S. dollar stablecoins from other issuers in WhatsApp. These are not fringe tech experiments. They’re signs that dollar-backed digital assets are beginning to reenter the mainstream. And while the policy debate often focuses on consumer protection or regulatory jurisdiction, there’s another angle that deserves urgent attention: national security.

At their core, stablecoins are digital representations of U.S. dollars (or similarly safe assets, like gold or other stable fiat currencies) issued on blockchains. As of Q2 2025, the total supply of dollar-pegged stablecoins exceeds $200 billion. According to a recent report by the World Economic Forum, stablecoins facilitated over $27.6 trillion in transactions in 2024, surpassing the combined volumes of Visa and Mastercard. Two issuers — Tether and Circle — dominate the space, with combined reserves consisting heavily of U.S. Treasury bills. Tether alone reportedly held over $93 billion in U.S. Treasuries earlier this year, placing it among the world’s top........

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