Why does the US embrace crypto? The answer might lie in the $37 trillion massive debt.

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Author | Andrei Jikh

Translator | Odaily Planet Daily (@OdailyChina)

Translator | Dingdang (@XiaMiPP)

At the recent Eastern Economic Forum held in Russia, one of Putin’s closest advisors made a widely discussed statement. He indicated that the United States is preparing to use cryptocurrencies and stablecoins in an almost imperceptible way to 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’s called a “cryptic 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 reserves and buy Bitcoin with the proceeds. Clearing out gold reserves entirely, with the same funds, could buy 5 million Bitcoins. This would de-assetize the entire gold category of assets. Meanwhile, our adversary countries hold large gold reserves. Their assets would approach zero, while ours would expand to $100 trillion, giving the US control over 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 the Putin advisor say? And how might the US devalue its $37 trillion debt through stablecoins and Bitcoin. Odaily Planet Daily has compiled and translated this video.

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. His main role is to communicate 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 “cryptic 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 all of that $100, so I owe the entire world’s wealth and must repay it.

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

So, I don’t return the original $100 bill, but instead 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 amount of goods, houses, and resources in the world remains unchanged.

The result is that everything’s prices start to rise: real estate, stocks, gold, and especially things people want—everything gets more expensive; what used to cost $1 now costs $2. Everything becomes more expensive, but the supply of goods remains 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 the purchasing power. I haven’t defaulted, but I’ve devalued the debt through currency dilution.

Stablecoins are copying this old script.

However, many people 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 repaid its debts.

Debt devaluation does not equal default, nor does it mean non-repayment. It’s just a way to reduce the real value of debt through inflation or currency manipulation.

And this method has repeatedly occurred throughout history—after WWII, during the 1970s stagflation, and after the pandemic with large-scale money printing.

So, 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 that 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. Instead, it involves using dollar-backed stablecoins, backed by US debt, to disperse America’s 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 underlying 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 productivity, goods will naturally become cheaper. Falling prices are the natural law. But reality doesn’t work that way. The reason is simple: governments can create unlimited money.

When new money floods into the system, these liquidity injections must find a “home,” or they will become worthless. So, they are invested in assets like real estate, stocks, gold, and 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 the assets rising, but the dollar 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 their reserves are usually stored in short-term US Treasuries, demand for USD and US debt can actually increase with the adoption of stablecoins, 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.

Therefore, 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 global stablecoin holders are forced to share, because their digital dollars also lose purchasing power. Technically, this is already happening today. US dollars are everywhere around the world, but stablecoins will create a larger market and will exist on people’s smartphones.

Another piece of the puzzle is that stablecoins can appear 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 the Treasury. According to the “Genius Act,” only approved issuers—such as banks, trust companies, or specially authorized non-bank entities—can issue regulated, dollar-backed stablecoins in the US.

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

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

The fatal flaw of stablecoins: trust can’t 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 around the world.

Stablecoins claim to be pegged 1:1 to 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, which are almost all within the US system. When trust involves trillions of dollars, this is an extremely high threshold for countries.

Even if blockchain technology someday enables real-time, transparent audits of stablecoin reserves, it won’t solve the deeper issue—America 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 severed that convertibility. From a global perspective, this was a complete “rule flip”: the promise remained, but the promise was broken with a simple “just kidding.”

Therefore, a digital token system built on “trust us” is unlikely to earn genuine global trust. Technologically, nothing can prevent the US from making a decision similar to the 1971 gold de-linking 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 really do this in the end?

In my view, this possibility not only exists but is even 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 push up Bitcoin prices, 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 was just that—a concept mentioned but never realized. The US government explicitly stated it would not use taxpayer funds to buy Bitcoin, and publicly, no such action has been seen. So, I don’t think it will 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” is in the private sector.

MicroStrategy has already become a “public Bitcoin 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 the government directly buying?

This approach wouldn’t be seen as a central bank operation, nor would it immediately trigger global market panic. When Bitcoin is truly established as a strategic asset, the US government can indirectly gain exposure through equity stakes or control—similar to how it once held stakes in companies like Intel. Such precedents already exist.

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

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

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