Will the United States use encryption technology to resolve the $37 trillion debt crisis?

Author: Andrei Jikh

Translator: Dingdang

Original Title: Why Does the US Embrace Crypto? The Answer Might Be in $37 Trillion in Debt

At the recent Eastern Economic Forum held in Russia, one of Putin’s closest advisors made a statement that drew widespread attention. He indicated that the US is preparing to use cryptocurrencies and stablecoins in an almost imperceptible way to collectively devalue its staggering $37 trillion national debt.

His claim is: the US is secretly planning to “migrate” this debt into a crypto system, using what he calls a “crypto cloud” to perform a systemic reset, ultimately making other countries pay the price.

At first glance, this might sound like a crazy theory. But similar viewpoints are not new. MicroStrategy founder and billionaire Michael Saylor has previously publicly proposed a highly controversial idea to Trump: sell all of America’s gold and buy Bitcoin with it. Clearing out gold reserves entirely, with the same funds, could buy 5 million Bitcoins. This would de-asset the entire gold category as a currency. Meanwhile, adversarial countries hold large gold reserves. Their assets would approach zero, while ours would inflate to $100 trillion, allowing the US to control the global reserve capital network and reserve currency system.

But the question is: is this realistic? Is it feasible?

YouTube influencer Andrei Jikh, with 2.93 million followers, breaks down in a video: what exactly did Putin’s advisor say? And how might the US devalue its $37 trillion debt through stablecoins and Bitcoin. Odaily Planet Daily has compiled and translated this episode.

The first question is: who said this?

The speaker is Anton Kobyakov, a senior advisor to Russian President Putin, who has held the position for over ten years, mainly responsible for conveying Russia’s strategic narrative at important events like the Eastern Economic Forum.

In his speech, he explicitly states: the US is attempting to rewrite the rules of the gold and crypto markets, with the ultimate goal of pushing the global economic system into what he calls a “crypto cloud.” Once the global financial system completes this migration, the US can embed its enormous national debt into digital assets like stablecoins, and then devalue it to effectively “zero out” the debt.

The second question: what does “devaluing debt” really mean? How does it work?

Let’s understand with an extreme simplified example. Suppose the entire world’s wealth is worth just a $100 bill. I borrow that $100, and now I owe the entire world’s wealth—meaning I must repay it.

The problem is: if I honestly repay the debt, I must return the same $100 bill intact. But luckily, I have a special “superpower”—I control the issuance of the world’s reserve currency.

So, instead of returning the original $100, I print a new $100 out of thin air.

What’s the result? The total money supply in the world increases from $100 to $200, but the quantity of goods, houses, and resources remains unchanged.

The result is that prices of everything start rising: real estate, stocks, gold, especially things people want—everything becomes more expensive; what used to cost $1 now costs $2. Everything gets pricier, but the supply of goods stays the same. This is inflation.

Now, when I return that “$100,” on the surface I’ve fully repaid the debt, but in reality, the money you hold has only half its original purchasing power. I haven’t defaulted, but I have devalued the debt through currency dilution.

Stablecoins are copying this old script

However, many don’t realize that this is one of the oldest and most common debt repayment methods in human history. It’s also how the US has historically managed debt.

Debt devaluation does not equal default, nor does it mean not paying. It simply reduces the real value of debt through inflation or currency manipulation.

This method has repeatedly occurred throughout history. Post-World War II, the 1970s hyperinflation, and the large-scale money printing after the pandemic—all examples.

Therefore, when the Russian advisor says “the US might devalue its debt using cryptocurrencies,” he’s not revealing a new mechanism but describing an old method the US has long mastered.

The real change is that stablecoins can spread this mechanism globally.

It’s important to clarify: this isn’t about directly converting $37 trillion into stablecoins, but about using dollar-backed stablecoins, backed by US Treasuries, to disperse the US debt structure among global holders. When the dollar is devalued through inflation, the losses are shared by all holders of these stablecoins.

I want to highlight an extremely important and often overlooked economic fact, also shared by Jeff Booth: the natural state of the economy is actually deflation. That is, if the entire world only has a fixed amount of money, over time, with technological progress and increased production efficiency, goods will naturally become cheaper. Falling prices are the natural law. But reality is different; our world doesn’t operate this way. The reason is simple: governments can create money infinitely.

When new money floods into the system, these liquidity flows need a “destination” to avoid becoming worthless. They are invested in real estate, stocks, gold, Bitcoin. That’s why, in the long run, these assets seem to always rise. But in fact, they only maintain their purchasing power, while the underlying currency—the dollar—becomes weaker and weaker. It’s not that assets are rising; it’s that the dollar is devaluing.

The true value of stablecoins: distribution + control

The question is: what if you could extend this superpower? What if you could scale this trick outside the US? That’s where stablecoins come into play.

If the US can already devalue its debt through regular inflation, what more can stablecoins do? The answer is two words: distribution + control.

Because when inflation occurs domestically, the pain is immediate: higher grocery bills, more expensive housing and energy costs, possibly higher interest rates cooling the economy, rising CPI and consumer price index reports, and public dissatisfaction.

But stablecoins are different. Since they typically hold reserves in short-term US Treasuries, demand for USD and US debt can actually increase with stablecoin adoption, creating a self-reinforcing cycle. When USDT, USDC, and other stablecoins are widely used globally, they essentially represent digital IOUs backed by US Treasuries. This means US debt financing is “invisibly outsourced” to global users.

So, if the US devalues its debt through inflation, the burden not only falls on American citizens but is also “exported” globally via the stablecoin system. Inflation then becomes a kind of tax that all stablecoin holders are forced to share, as their digital dollars lose purchasing power. Technically, today’s system already works this way. US dollars are everywhere, but stablecoins will create a larger market and exist on people’s smartphones.

Another part of the puzzle is that stablecoins may seem neutral because they can be created by private companies, not just governments. This means they are not burdened with the political baggage of the Federal Reserve or Treasury. Under the “Genius Act,” only approved issuers—such as banks, trust companies, or specially authorized non-bank firms—can issue regulated, dollar-backed stablecoins in the US.

If Apple or Meta are willing, they could theoretically issue their own currencies, like the so-called “Metacoin.” What’s really needed isn’t a technological breakthrough but political permission. To put it bluntly: as long as they curry favor with the power centers and invest enough capital, they can get a pass.

This is why stablecoins play such an important role in the US debt devaluation process. They essentially offer a “near-CBDC level of control” without bearing the highly sensitive label of central bank digital currency (CBDC).

The fatal flaw of stablecoins: trust cannot be fully verified

But the problem is, other countries don’t buy this. We’ve seen this from the ongoing large-scale gold purchases by central banks worldwide.

Stablecoins claim to be pegged 1:1 with the dollar or US Treasuries. In theory, each circulating stablecoin should correspond to $1 in cash or equivalent assets. But the reality is: neither individuals nor foreign governments can independently verify these reserves with 100% certainty.

Tether, Circle, and others publish reserve reports, but you must trust the issuers themselves and the auditing firms—most of which are within the US system. When trust involves trillions of dollars, this becomes an extremely high barrier between nations.

Even if blockchain technology someday enables real-time, transparent audits of stablecoin reserves, it cannot solve a deeper issue—the US always retains the power to change the rules.

History has already issued a clear warning. The US government once promised that the dollar could be exchanged for gold at any time, but in 1971, Nixon unilaterally cut off that convertibility. From a global perspective, this was a complete “rule reversal”: the promise remained, but the fulfillment was ended with a simple “just kidding.”

Therefore, a digital token system built on “trust us” is unlikely to truly earn the world’s trust. Technologically, nothing can prevent the US from making a similar decision to de-anchor the dollar from gold in the future. This is the fundamental reason why the world remains highly cautious about the new generation of digital currencies.

So, the next question: will the US actually do this in the end?

In my view, this possibility not only exists but is almost inevitable. The US is already experimenting with this idea, just not in the way we’ve heard.

For example, Michael Saylor publicly advised Trump and his family to establish a Bitcoin strategic reserve. His idea was: if the US sells gold and instead buys large amounts of Bitcoin, it could suppress gold prices, weaken competitors like China and Russia, and simultaneously boost Bitcoin’s price, reshaping America’s balance sheet.

But in the end, this didn’t happen. Instead, during Trump’s term, the idea of the US holding a Bitcoin reserve remained just that—a concept mentioned but never realized. Officially, the US has stated it will not use taxpayer funds to buy Bitcoin, and publicly, no such actions have been observed. So I believe it won’t happen in the way Michael Saylor publicly suggested.

However, that doesn’t mean the story is over. Because the government doesn’t necessarily have to act directly to participate. The real “backdoor” lies in the private sector.

MicroStrategy has effectively become a “Bitcoin-listed company,” continuously accumulating Bitcoin under Michael Saylor’s leadership, now holding hundreds of thousands of coins. The question is: if a publicly traded company completes a large-scale Bitcoin accumulation first, is that safer and more discreet than direct government action?

This approach wouldn’t be seen as central bank intervention, nor would it immediately trigger global market panic. When Bitcoin is truly established as a strategic asset, the US government could indirectly gain exposure through equity stakes or holdings—similar to its past holdings in companies like Intel—such precedents already exist.

Rather than openly selling gold, gambling on trillions of dollars in Bitcoin trades, or pushing the stablecoin system, the smarter and more consistent US approach is to let private enterprises do the testing first. When a model proves effective and becomes too important to ignore, the government can then absorb and institutionalize it.

This method is more covert, gradual, and more “deniable,” until one day, everything is officially revealed.

Therefore, my core message is: there are many ways for this to happen, and it’s very likely to happen. The Russian advisor’s judgment is not baseless—if the US truly aims to fundamentally address its national debt, some form of digital asset strategy is almost unavoidable.