We are pleased to present the 17th issue of John Lukacs Analyses on Global Affairs: 2025/17.Stablecoins vs. Digital Yuan: The Next Great Global Economic Competition?
Key insights from this analysis include:
- Privately issued dollar-linked Stablecoins in the West and China’s state-issued Digital Yuan represent two competing models of digital money whose global diffusion may shape the next turning point in international trade.
- Stablecoins propose a more decentralized, dynamic, and open platform, while the Digital Yuan has a model leaning towards centralization, stability, and predictability.
- The ecosystem differences between Stablecoins and the Digital Yuan will be the key drivers of adoption through the support of the state, market, and technological sociotechnical regimes.
- Geostrategic competition will trickle down to financial technology and will be greatly influenced by emerging markets.
- The geopolitical dimension of this rivalry is largely indirect: while the Digital Yuan is a state-driven instrument of Chinese financial statecraft, Stablecoins are market-driven products whose widespread use can nonetheless reinforce US dollar primacy and interact with China’s de-dollarization efforts.
You can read the full paper on the John Lukacs Institute website.