Speaking at a White House press briefing on May 29, 2026, Bessent repeated the administration's firm position against a US central bank digital currency (CBDC), a government-issued digital version of the dollar that would run on state-controlled infrastructure. He framed the idea as a surveillance risk and called on lawmakers to advance the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, known as the Clarity Act, through both chambers.

"This administration has been very clear there will be no central bank digital currency," Bessent said. "I think that would be the first step toward tracking." He described the current offshore crypto environment as lawless and argued that bringing digital asset activity under US regulatory oversight was a national priority. "All the nonsense that happens, all the things you read about, that's because it's the wild, wild west offshore. So, we've got to bring it onshore," he added.

The Legislative Picture

The administration's digital asset strategy rests on two pillars, but its roots go back to January 23, 2025, the third day of Trump's second term, when the White House signed an executive order titled "Strengthening American Leadership in Digital Financial Technology." That order formally prohibited all federal agencies from developing or issuing a CBDC and directed them to promote dollar-backed stablecoins globally, establishing the policy foundation that subsequent legislation has built upon. In July 2025, the House reinforced that prohibition by passing the Anti-CBDC Surveillance State Act, attached to the Foreign Intelligence Accountability Act, as an attempt to codify the executive ban permanently in statute.

The first legislative pillar is already enacted: the GENIUS Act (Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins Act) establishes which private entities can legally issue payment stablecoins, with implementing regulations due July 18, 2026. The second pillar is the Clarity Act, which would determine whether most digital tokens are classified as commodities regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission or as securities regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission. That distinction shapes the entire compliance architecture for exchanges, decentralized finance protocols, and token issuers.

The Senate Banking Committee cleared the Clarity Act 15 to 9 on May 14, 2026. The bill now faces a full Senate floor vote, after which it must be reconciled with a previously passed House version. Remaining sticking points include law enforcement objections to certain illicit finance provisions and a contested ethics clause that would bar government officials, including the president, from personally profiting off crypto assets.

Bessent indicated confidence that bipartisan support exists. "We've passed stablecoin legislation with bipartisan support, and the Clarity Act is now up on the Hill, and I think it has bipartisan support," he said.

The Stablecoin Bet

Rather than a state-issued digital dollar, the administration is betting on privately issued, dollar-backed stablecoins as the vehicle for extending US monetary influence. That bet is already showing results in the market: 99 percent of all stablecoins in circulation are denominated in US dollars, according to a May 2026 analysis by LSE Business Review. Tether (USDT) and USD Coin (USDC) together hold roughly 84 percent of total stablecoin market capitalization as of March 2026.

The contrast with the global CBDC trend is sharp. The Atlantic Council's tracker shows 146 countries and currency unions, representing over 98 percent of global GDP, are now exploring CBDCs, up from 87 in May 2022. Seventy-seven countries are in advanced development, pilot, or launch phases. Only three nations, the Bahamas, Jamaica, and Nigeria, have fully deployed retail CBDCs. Among the major emerging economies, all 11 BRICS nations are exploring CBDCs and 9 are currently in active pilot phases, a concentration of state-led digital currency development that adds significant geopolitical weight to US efforts to entrench dollar-backed stablecoins as the global standard.

What This Means Outside the United States

For countries across South Asia and Africa, Bessent's remarks carry concrete implications.

In Pakistan, workers' remittances reached $3.54 billion in April 2026, up 11 percent year-on-year. Gulf-based Pakistani workers are already routing transfers through USDT, where the token trades at a 4 to 5 percent premium over official dollar rates in some markets. A cleaner US regulatory framework under the GENIUS Act could legitimize and expand that corridor, but it also deepens reliance on dollar-denominated instruments at a time when Pakistani monetary authorities have limited room to respond.

Bangladesh faces similar pressures. The country receives approximately $22 billion annually in remittances, and informal stablecoin channels on platforms such as Remitano and Paxful are already being used to bypass depreciation of the Bangladeshi taka. Greater entrenchment of dollar-denominated stablecoins under US regulatory frameworks would further constrain the monetary policy options available to Dhaka.

Nigeria's experience illustrates the other edge of that dynamic. The country's state-issued eNaira has effectively collapsed as a consumer product; the mobile app was removed from Google Play and its USSD interface stopped functioning. A central bank-approved private alternative, the cNGN stablecoin, launched in 2025 through exchanges including Quidax, Roqqu, and Busha, but adoption remains limited. US legislation that further entrenches dollar stablecoins as the global standard creates additional headwinds for naira-denominated digital alternatives.

India faces a different set of pressures. The Reserve Bank of India is positioning the e-Rupee as the anchor for a BRICS CBDC interoperability network, a topic on the agenda for India's 2026 BRICS summit hosting. With roughly 10 million e-Rupee users and $3.6 billion in cumulative transactions since the December 2022 launch, the numbers remain far below UPI's $300 billion monthly volume. Bessent's framing of US regulation as the future global standard directly challenges India's ambition to offer non-Western nations an alternative digital settlement rail.

Kenya, meanwhile, remains in the research and public consultation phase of its own CBDC development. For Nairobi's policymakers, Washington's push to institutionalize dollar-backed stablecoins as the global norm raises pointed questions about the long-term viability of any future shilling-denominated digital instrument operating alongside deeply entrenched dollar infrastructure.

IMF estimates, as cited by LSE Business Review (May 2026), show stablecoin flows in Africa and the Middle East amount to roughly 7 to 8 percent of GDP in those regions, among the highest globally. Standard Chartered analysts, according to a summary reported by CoinMarketCap, have flagged elevated risk of deposit flight into stablecoins in Egypt, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka, countries where local currency depreciation is already a stress point.

What Comes Next

The Senate floor vote on the Clarity Act is expected before August 2026. For developers and exchanges operating outside the US but touching US liquidity or users, that vote has direct consequences: it will define the regulatory perimeter that determines whether a given token or protocol falls under SEC or CFTC jurisdiction. The GENIUS Act's implementing regulations, due approximately seven weeks from now and expected by mid-July, will separately set the compliance baseline for stablecoin issuers. Both deadlines are material for any market participant building cross-border infrastructure on dollar-denominated rails.