Stablecoins, volatility, and the future of power

Brought to you by yours truly, with assists from Rob Larity and ChatGPT.

We live in a moment defined by volatility (a word in danger of becoming cliche but no less true for it). From financial markets to political institutions, from wars overseas to AI at home, the ground is shifting beneath our feet. But that doesn’t mean we’re headed toward chaos—it means we’re transitioning. And if you want to thrive in this moment rather than fear it, you need better frameworks, not louder headlines.

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In a recent podcast episode, I opened with a simple challenge: how do we talk about the world’s volatility without falling into negativity? The feedback I’ve gotten lately is that things have sounded a little dark. Fair enough. But volatility and negativity are not the same thing. I don’t think volatility is inherently negative. It’s often a necessary precursor to something new.

This edition of the newsletter focuses on one of those new things: stablecoins.

On the surface, stablecoins might sound like a niche topic in crypto. But dig deeper, and they start to tell a much bigger story—one about power, trust, and the future of state sovereignty.

The Story Stablecoins Are Trying to Tell

The bulk of my most recent episode focused on a topic that sounds niche—stablecoins—but is actually a signal to where the world is going.

A stablecoin is a digital currency designed to maintain a fixed value, usually pegged to a fiat currency like the U.S. dollar. Think of it as a crypto-adjacent token that’s supposed to be, well, stable. But when central banks start launching their own digital currencies—or when a stablecoin becomes more trusted than a local currency—or when, as in the U.S., the White House comes out in full-throated support of stablecoins¹—that’s not just a financial story. That’s a story about state power.

What’s happening behind the scenes is that governments, private companies, and decentralized actors are all converging on the question of who gets to issue money in the 21st century. That’s not theoretical. It’s happening right now in places like Nigeria, Brazil, China, and even within U.S. financial institutions.

And the geopolitical implications are enormous.

Beyond Bitcoin: Currency as Geopolitical Infrastructure

It’s easy to tune out cryptocurrency debates as tech-bro noise. (I used to do just that, but in recent months, I’ve begun to change my tune.) Peel back the ideology, and you see something else entirely: a contest for monetary sovereignty and digital control.

Stablecoins, and central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) by extension, are not just financial tools—they're geopolitical infrastructure. They represent a new architecture for value transfer that could circumvent traditional gatekeepers like SWIFT, sideline the U.S. dollar, or reinforce surveillance-oriented models of governance.

What happens if an Argentine citizen trusts a U.S.-issued stablecoin more than the Argentine peso? What if China’s digital yuan becomes the default medium of exchange for trade in the Global South? These aren’t sci-fi questions. They're unfolding in real time.

This is why it matters to talk about these things at the highest level—outside of the tech jargon and inside the geopolitical logic. These innovations will shape not just investment and risk, but alliances, trade blocs, and sovereign stability.

A Paradigm Shift in Real Time

What’s changing right now is not just the currency we use. It’s the relationship between the state, the individual, and the idea of value.

The traditional model—where a central bank prints money, regulates supply, and uses monetary policy to influence inflation and employment—is being challenged on two fronts. On one side, you have decentralized technologies offering alternatives. On the other, you have governments realizing that issuing digital money gives them new levers of control.

That convergence is creating new alliances and new tensions: between regulators and innovators, between transparency and privacy, between inclusion and surveillance.

I don’t claim to have all the answers. But I do know the right questions to ask. It is impossible to make predictions and unproductive to pick sides when so much is uncertain. Instead, we should spend our energy building frameworks—so we can think more clearly, act more strategically, and stay grounded in a time when everything feels up for grabs.

Volatility is real. So is transformation. The question is how we navigate the space between them.

1. https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/strengthening-american-leadership-in-digital-financial-technology/