stable coins

Story: Foreign Investors Shift Focus as Tether and Circle Hold Massive T-Bill Reserves

By Sydney TheCMO

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Tether and Circle: Massive T-Bill Reserves. Tether directly held $114.96 billion in Treasury bills at the end of the second quarter.

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The GENIUS Act Could Change the Game. This is where regulation gets interesting. The GENIUS Act requires stablecoin issuers to maintain…

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Foreign investors are pulling back from T-bills. In June, they sold $29 billion in short-term U.S. Treasury bills—a move that wasn't an isolated incident.

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Here's the curious part: those same foreign investors injected $181.4 billion into U.S. stocks in June. Net foreign capital flows into the U.S. that month totaled $133.5 billion.

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No immediate panic. But the signal is clear.

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Tether directly held $114.96 billion in Treasury bills at the end of the second quarter. Additionally, $25.62 billion in short-term repo operations. That's huge.

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The mechanism is simple to understand: when someone buys USDT or USDC, the issuer takes that money and invests it in T-bills.

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And it's growing. Tether reports 184.6 billion USDT in circulation at the end of the second quarter. Increase from the previous quarter? Just 446 million. Modest.

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So for now, stablecoins aren't filling the gap. Not yet.

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More context: Crypto Card Spending Surges Past $1 Billion, Driven by Stablecoins in 70% of Transactions

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If the supply of stablecoins increases significantly—and underlying trends in crypto adoption, especially in Asia and emerging markets, are moving in that direction—the resulting…

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It remains conditional. The supply of stablecoins must grow rapidly. Regulation must hold. And issuers must actually maintain their reserves in T-bills rather than other assets.

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But Washington's argument is there: if foreigners reduce their exposure to short-term U.S. debt, stablecoins—regulated, backed by T-bills—could partially take over.

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See also: Ray Dalio Urges Investors to Shift to Bitcoin and Gold Amid Looming U.S. Debt Crisis

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On the same topic: Arthur Hayes Advises Buying Bitcoin and Gold in Response to Treasury Debt Buybacks

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