According to new research from Standard Chartered, the companies behind stablecoins are on track to become some of the biggest buyers of U.S. Treasury bills. Standard Chartered suggests that the U.S. government might start selling more short-term debt to keep up with this new demand. To make room for all those extra T-bills, the Treasury could even hit the “pause” button on its 30-year bond auctions for a few years.
Stablecoin Market Cap Could Hit $2 Trillion By 2028
Standard Chartered analysts Geoffrey Kendrick and John Davies expect the stablecoin market to explode to $2 trillion by the end of 2028. As this market grows, companies like Tether and Circle will need to buy massive amounts of “safe” assets to back them up.
This surge is turning stablecoin issuers into some of the biggest customers for U.S. government debt. The analysts predict that these companies will likely buy between $800 billion to $1 trillion in short-term Treasury bills (T-bills) to use as reserves.
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If the government keeps selling debt the way it does now, there won’t be enough T-bills to go around. As a result, demand could outpace supply by about $900 billion over the next three years.
As of now, the stablecoin market has grown to an estimated $300–$320 billion in total value. Companies like Tether and Circle (CRCL) have become significant investors in short-term U.S. government debt. To back tokens like USDT and USDC, they hold large reserves, much of which is invested in Treasury bills.
Tether has reported Treasury bill holdings comparable to those of some mid-sized countries, highlighting the scale of its reserves. Circle likewise maintains a substantial portion of its backing assets in short-term Treasuries, often through money market funds designed to hold highly liquid government securities.
Potential Impact on 30-Year Treasury Auctions
According to the report, shifting that amount of demand away from longer-term bonds could effectively pause 30-year Treasury auctions for as long as three years. By reducing the supply pressure on long-dated debt, such a move could also help relieve upward pressure on long-term yields.
Although it is not the bank’s main forecast, analysts see the 10-year Treasury yield climbing to about 4.6% by the end of 2026. They cautioned that growing demand for short-term government debt could create supply tightness at the front end of the yield curve.
Stablecoin expansion has slowed in recent months, hovering just above $300 billion in total market value. That is still higher than the roughly $238 billion recorded in April 2025, but momentum has cooled as cryptocurrency prices declined in recent weeks. Bitcoin, for example, has dropped more than 50% from its October 2025 high of $126,000, reducing trading activity and the associated demand for stablecoins.
Despite these pressures, Standard Chartered considers the slowdown temporary. The bank argues that stablecoins could generate nearly $1 trillion in additional demand for Treasury bills by 2028.
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