How dollar-backed stablecoins extend US monetary influence while keeping dollars at home

A Rabobank analysis argues dollar-backed stablecoins are spreading US dollar influence abroad without moving physical dollars overseas. When foreign firms demand dollar stablecoins from US issuers, those issuers can convert demand into purchases of US Treasury bills, returning real dollars to US government coffers while issuing digital dollars to the buyer. In cross-border trade, importers can pay exporters in stablecoins while underlying dollars remain parked in Treasuries — effectively exporting digital dollars (tokens) but retaining capital and fiscal benefits at home. Non-USD stablecoins are growing from a tiny base: supply of non-dollar stablecoins rose ~260% over the past year to a combined market cap near $1.55 billion. A practical channel accelerating this dynamic is crypto payment cards: the market is now about $18 billion in annualized volume, with monthly volumes rising from ~$100 million in early 2023 to over $1.5 billion today. These cards use stablecoins to fund transactions while leveraging Visa/Mastercard rails for acceptance, masking digital-dollar flows as ordinary card payments. For traders, the key takeaways are: (1) dollar-backed stablecoins can amplify dollar demand and Treasury demand, (2) growing non-USD stablecoins add diversification risk to dollar dominance, and (3) expanding on‑ramps like crypto cards increase real-world velocity of stablecoins — a structural trend that can affect liquidity and dollar-denominated crypto asset flows.