U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said cryptocurrency could become a core tool for reinforcing the dollar’s global dominance and improving U.S. technological competitiveness during a conversation with Ripple Labs CEO Brad Garlinghouse at Ripple’s 10th annual Swell conference in New York on Oct. 27, 2026. Bessent described stablecoins as a potential source of demand for U.S. government debt, saying more than 90% are pegged to the dollar and most are backed by Treasuries. CoinGecko puts dollar-denominated stablecoins above 98% of the category, led by Tether’s USDT and Circle’s USDC. Tether had a market capitalization of $181.61 billion and USDC $71.01 billion on Oct. 28, while DeFiLlama measured the total stablecoin market at $300.359 billion on Oct. 25. Bessent has previously said stablecoin growth could create $2 trillion of short-term demand for Treasury securities and bills, depending on supply growth, reserve requirements and issuer investment choices. He placed digital assets alongside artificial intelligence and semiconductors in the technology competition with China, arguing that technological strength increasingly complements the United States’ military role in supporting the dollar. The Comptroller of the Currency issued final GENIUS Act rules on Oct. 21, 2026, with the framework taking effect Jan. 18, 2027; eligible reserves include cash, bank deposits and Treasury securities maturing within 93 days. Bessent said Treasury could coordinate the Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission to close regulatory gaps after the CLARITY Act failed a Senate procedural vote on Sept. 15 by 49 to 50, short of the 60 votes required. He also supported standards intended to prevent crypto firms from being debanked, without providing a formal plan or timeline. Ripple’s conference featured final OCC approval for Ripple National Trust Bank, a Robinhood partnership covering RLUSD settlement infrastructure on the XRP Ledger, prime brokerage and treasury operations, an expanded BNY relationship involving custody and tokenized trade finance, and Ripple Treasury’s product for deploying idle corporate cash through stablecoins. RLUSD is dollar-pegged, while XRP has a floating price, so stablecoin growth does not automatically increase demand for XRP. XRP traded at $1.31 on Oct. 28, while large wallets holding at least 10 million XRP controlled 46.87 billion tokens, or about 68.5% of supply, according to Santiment. Stablecoin reserves primarily support short-term Treasury borrowing: the one-month par yield was 4.1% on Oct. 27, compared with 4.99% for the 10-year yield and 5.34% for the 20-year yield. Investors are watching whether RLUSD settlement through Robinhood, BNY’s tokenized trade-finance rollout and regulatory coordination translate into actual usage and value capture for XRP and the XRP Ledger.