By Nilmini Rubin, Chief Policy Officer, Hedera
In the postwar era, the United States made a deliberate bet on financial infrastructure. It established the dollar as reserve currency, built the deepest and most liquid capital markets in the world, and created the institutions that set the rules for global trade. Those systems have shaped economic growth for decades. Now the architecture is being rebuilt, and the U.S. is not the only one with a blueprint.
The global financial system is changing faster than the policy frameworks meant to govern it. Digital assets and tokenization are not theoretical anymore. They are being deployed today, reshaping how payments clear, how assets are issued, how capital is formed and moves across borders, and how people can access new products and services. The countries investing early are not simply modernizing. They are positioning themselves to set the standards, attract the talent, and anchor the markets that will define the next era of global finance.
The Upgrade Is Already Underway.
The United States private sector is not waiting. JP Morgan’s Kinexys platform has processed trillions in institutional transactions. BlackRock and Franklin Templeton have brought tokenized funds onto public networks. These are not crypto-native experiments, but now strategic bets by firms that move markets, and are examples of a much broader shift underway across traditional finance. What is lagging is the public framework to match them. Regulatory clarity is not a prerequisite for innovation. It is a prerequisite for keeping that innovation anchored in the U.S.
Internationally, the ambition is greater. Australia’s Project Acacia is exploring hybrid models that link wholesale central bank infrastructure with public blockchain settlement, enabling interoperability with tokenized assets and atomic delivery versus payment. The BIS Innovation Hub’s Project Agora is testing whether tokenization and unified ledgers can reduce the friction built into correspondent banking networks and enable settlement in central bank money. These are not pilots running in the margins. They are a preview of what global finance looks like when infrastructure catches up to ambition.
Policy is not neutral.
The United States enters this transition with real advantages. The dollar remains the world’s reserve currency. Its capital markets are unmatched in depth and liquidity. And the institutional trust the U.S. has built over generations has yet to be rivaled. But we cannot simply rest on past achievements. Nothing is permanent. In financial infrastructure, as in broadband and semiconductors, early policy clarity determines where innovation concentrates and scales. Ambiguous frameworks are not a neutral stance. They are an active choice to push activity elsewhere.
That is not a hypothetical. Firms building the next generation of financial infrastructure are making location decisions right now, based on where they can operate with predictability. When frameworks are clear, firms build at home. When they are not, innovation migrates and takes jobs, investment, and standard-setting influence with it.
Congress has begun to act. The GENIUS Act provides a federal framework for stablecoins that could position dollar-denominated digital assets as the default unit of account in tokenized markets. That is the right instinct, but one leg of a stool. The U.S. has never won by doing just enough. The question is whether Congress treats this as the foundation of a broader strategy or the extent of American ambition.
Other governments are not waiting for the U.S. to act. The U.K. has explicitly tied its financial services strategy to digital innovation and national competitiveness. Across the Asia-Pacific region, governments are using sandboxes and pilot programs to accelerate deployment while managing risk. The U.S. is not behind, but a stablecoin framework alone will not hold the field.
What strategic leadership requires.
The countries that built the last generation of financial infrastructure did three things well. They established clear rules that gave innovators confidence to build at home. They engaged early in international standard-setting so the financial architecture that emerged reflected their values and interests. And they recognized that financial infrastructure was not just an economic issue but a strategic one, carrying the same weight as energy security or supply chain resilience. These are not abstract observations. They are the lessons of every major infrastructure debate the U.S. has had, from energy to internet governance.
All three are required again now. Regulatory fragmentation is not caution. It is a competitive liability. International standard-setting is not a technocratic exercise. It is how the rules get written. And financial infrastructure is national infrastructure, whether Washington chooses to treat it that way or not.
The countries that define how money moves in the digital economy will shape growth, influence, and opportunity for a generation. The U.S. has played that role before. The choices made in the next few years (and months) will determine whether it plays that role again, or spends the decades that follow adapting to a financial architecture built by others.
