The promise of crypto is colliding with geopolitical reality. Stablecoins now serve as instruments of US statecraft (and "deep state" linked Big Tech), echoing the "dollar bomb" of the past, while reshaping the global financial order.
Wednesday, September 10, 2025
Uriel Araujo, Anthropology PhD, is a social scientist specializing in ethnic and religious conflicts, with extensive research on geopolitical dynamics and cultural interactions.
When Anton Kobyako, special advisor to Russian President Vladimir Putin, accused Washington of employing stablecoins and gold to wipe out its staggering $37 trillion debt "at the world's expense," (as he did this week) his statement might have sounded conspiratorial to the casual observer. Yet, upon closer inspection, it is far from irrational. In fact, Kobyako's blunt assessment sheds light on how the US is weaponizing not just the dollar but also the emerging world of crypto finance, thus reinforcing its global dominance in a novel fashion.
More specifically, Kobyako argued that the United States has devised a scheme whereby stablecoins - digital assets pegged to "stable" reserves like the dollar - can be manipulated to devalue America's debt obligations. By engineering market instability, Washington allegedly aims to shift financial burdens outward, leaving the rest of the world footing the bill. Stablecoins are often presented as safe harbors within the volatile crypto ecosystem, serving as digital equivalents of fiat. But as Kobyako suggests, their very design makes them tools of leverage in global financial warfare.
The weaponization of financial instruments is in fact nothing new. Back in 2022, I discussed Washington's "dollar bomb" as Brazilian experts Luís Eduardo Melin and Ernani Teixeira describe it. They argue that, unlike traditional warfare, the dollar bomb can devastate foreign economies without physical destruction, while still imposing costs on the aggressor itself. Politologist Cesar Benjamin goes further, calling attention to the "non-system" of floating fiat currencies that emerged after the US unilaterally severed the dollar from gold in 1971. By doing so, Washington secured for itself a peculiar form of global seigniorage, issuing the world's reserve currency without rules or backing.
The parallels with today's crypto maneuvers are striking: what was once the dollar bomb could be now evolving into a digital equivalent.
It is no wonder then that Moscow views US crypto schemes as a deliberate attempt to erase massive liabilities through manipulation of digital assets and even gold. Suffice to say, such claims fit neatly within a historical continuum of Washington using financial innovation as a weapon of global control.
In April, I argued that a trade war could weaken the dollar's dominance, pushing Trump toward viewing Bitcoin as a reserve asset to hedge volatility. This, I reasoned, would however risk triggering rival nations to accelerate their own digital currency projects, thereby diluting US financial influence. Thus far, that seems to be what we are witnessing: China's digital yuan; BRICS discussions of a joint currency, and of digital platforms such as " BRICS Pay"; and now Russia's rhetoric against Washington's crypto manipulation. It would not be far-fetched at all to frame the issue as part of a larger American strategy to control the future of finance.
And there is of course another key angle here: Big Tech. In a recent essay, I described how " deep state" linked tech companies have played a central role in shaping Trump's global policy, particularly in areas of surveillance, AI, and digital infrastructure. The overlap with crypto is only natural. Stablecoin ecosystems rely heavily on US-based tech firms, payment processors, and cloud infrastructure. Silicon Valley's proximity to Washington's policymaking apparatus ensures that the line between private innovation and state strategy remains deliberately blurred. As I've noted elsewhere, for one thing, a number of Silicon Valley tycoons have actually been appointed as lieutenant colonels in the US Army Reserve via the Executive Innovation Corps, a program aimed at embedding technology elites into military strategy.
Moreover, it is worth stressing that the implications of Kobyako's remarks extend beyond crypto speculation. They expose the structural reality that Washington, by dint of its financial hegemony (the so-called " exorbitant privilege"), can impose costs on others while postponing the reckoning of its own debt. This is blatantly visible in how crypto markets swing under US regulatory whispers or Federal Reserve signals. The volatility, far from being an accident, is a "feature", and serves to remind the world that digital finance - like traditional fiat - remains subject to the "invisible hand" of American strategy.
Critics may still argue that attributing such a "grand conspiracy" to Washington is exaggerated enough to border on paranoia. Yet, be as it may, the record speaks for itself: the unilateral breaches of Bretton Woods, the militarization of sanctions, the dollar bomb, and now the manipulation of digital assets. Each arguably represents a phase in the evolution of American financial statecraft. Kobyako's charge, in this sense, is no wild outburst but rather a logical enough extrapolation.
What remains underreported is the fact that crypto was initially celebrated as a decentralizing force, a blunt tool against centralized power. Today, however, it has been co-opted into the very machinery of US hegemony. Stablecoins, far from being neutral, are becoming mechanisms of control: they allow Washington to extend dollar liquidity globally without the transparency of traditional issuance, while also enabling selective disruptions to rival economies.
Thus, the so-called "crypto gamble" is less about innovation and more about continuity. Washington is repeating a familiar pattern: exploiting its technological edge to entrench dominance, shifting risks outward, and leaving the rest of the world to bear the consequences. The difference is merely the medium - digital tokens instead of green paper. The logic, in a way, is the same, and the intent is equally clear.
To sum it up, Anton Kobyako's statement should not be dismissed as rhetorical bluster. It is a warning about how the financial battlefield is evolving. The "dollar bomb" has gone digital, and stablecoins may well be the new front lines. The question now is not whether Washington is engaging in such practices - history suggests it is - but how long the rest of the world will tolerate footing the bill.