Whitney Webb and Mark Goodwin on Stablecoins and Dollar Hegemony

Recorded the week after the 2024 election, Whitney Webb and Mark Goodwin warn that the result didn't change the plan: stablecoins are being built into a programmable, surveillable dollar designed to extend US reach over anyone who touches it, and to fund the debt rather than escape it.

Marty Bent

November 11, 2024Updated June 7, 20269 min read

Whitney Webb and Mark Goodwin on the TFTC podcast discussing stablecoins, the election, and dollar hegemony

↓ Jump to the video and timestamps

This conversation was recorded the week after the 2024 election, with Bitcoin euphoric and Washington suddenly friendly. Whitney Webb and Mark Goodwin came on to make the unfashionable argument: the election didn't change the plan. The same financial machinery is being built no matter who won, and the friendly posture toward Bitcoin is the most important part to be suspicious of.

Webb stated the core of it in a single line, and it's the sentence the whole episode orbits.

"Stablecoins have the potential to be just as programmable and surveillable as a CBDC could be, and the Fed and the national security community, meaning the CIA among other agencies, have been very open that stablecoins will ensure dollar hegemony."

That is the thesis of the piece on how the digital dollar arrived without a CBDC, stated by the journalists who called it early. That piece documents the policy. This episode is the political read on why both parties wanted it, and why a Bitcoin crowd cheering the new administration may be cheering its own enclosure.

Key takeaways

The election didn't change the plan. Webb and Goodwin's frame is the uniparty: both parties serve the same financial interests, and the danger after a "lesser of two evils" win is complacency, sitting back and trusting the plan instead of holding power accountable.
"Going Direct" is the precedent. The COVID-era fiscal response, which Webb says BlackRock designed and began implementing before a pandemic was declared, produced one of the largest wealth transfers in US history. Their warning is that a coming debt crisis invites a repeat.
Stablecoins are pitched as dollar hegemony, not competition. Trump told the Bitcoin conference that Bitcoin would strengthen the dollar, and Tether has called itself a partner of US dollar hegemony. That's the tell, not the reassurance.
The legislation king-makes. Goodwin reads the Lummis-Gillibrand stablecoin bill as engineered to favor incumbents like Circle's USDC, with thresholds written for the players already at scale.
The real play is regulatory reach. A regulated dollar stablecoin extends US jurisdiction over anyone who touches a dollar, in a world the US spent decades dollarizing, with the power to freeze and seize at OFAC's say-so.
Don't dollarize Bitcoin. Their warning is against putting dollar instruments on Bitcoin's rails. The exit is Bitcoin-native and Treasury-free: ecash and stable channels that don't touch US debt.

The uniparty and the complacency trap

Webb's opening move is to defuse the euphoria without arguing anyone into a corner. She says she understands the lesser-of-two-evils logic, but the precedent from Trump's first term, campaign rhetoric diverging sharply from policy action, is the reason to stay skeptical rather than relax. Her specific worry is targeted: the people most opposed to the surveillance state, COVID-era dissidents and gun owners on the right, are exactly the cohort most likely to go complacent if they trust the person now in power. Goodwin puts it more bluntly, calling the two-party contest a "purple party" and asking why the country re-discovers its faith in elections every four years. Their shared prescription is the one Webb has repeated on the show for years: change comes bottom-up, from local resilience and from building alternatives, not from getting the right person into the White House.

"Going Direct," the precedent that matters

The load-bearing historical claim is about the last crisis response, and it's the most checkable. Webb's account is that the 2020 fiscal response was effectively designed by BlackRock, drawing on a paper its executives co-authored in 2019 advocating a "going direct" approach, and that elements began rolling out before a pandemic was formally declared. The result, in their telling, was the largest wealth transfer in modern US history and more money printed than at any prior point. The reason it matters now is forward-looking: the next administration faces a debt crisis born of that fiscal irresponsibility, and the same playbook, manufacture the emergency, route the rescue through the people who caused it, is the most predictable thing in Washington. The detail that lands hardest is that the deflationary system these players now favor is one they prefer precisely because, as Goodwin puts it, they've already acquired the assets.

Stablecoins as the engine of dollar hegemony

This is where it becomes a Bitcoin story. The properties people fear in a central bank digital currency, programmable, surveillable, freezable, don't require a central bank, and Webb's point is that the national-security establishment has said the quiet part out loud: stablecoins ensure dollar hegemony. The signals stack up. Trump told the 2024 Bitcoin conference that Bitcoin and the dollar aren't competitors and that Bitcoin would strengthen the dollar. Senator Lummis frames her crypto advocacy as necessary to preserve dollar dominance. Tether describes itself as a partner of US dollar hegemony. For a movement that spent a decade calling fiat broken money, Webb argues, those should be alarms, not endorsements.

Goodwin adds the legislative mechanics, and they rhyme with everything else in this series. He reads the Lummis-Gillibrand stablecoin bill as a king-making exercise, with carve-outs and thresholds that favor whoever is already at scale, which is why Lummis herself acknowledged the framework advantages Circle's USDC over Tether. Neither, in their view, is the good guy. USDC is about as deeply tied to BlackRock as a stablecoin can be.

The real play: regulatory reach over anyone who touches a dollar

The sharpest argument in the episode is Goodwin's, and it reframes the whole stablecoin debate.

"What I really think is happening with the stablecoin play is extending the regulatory reach of the US government by saying anyone that touches a dollar is under our jurisdiction, while they just spent the last 30 years spreading the dollar all across the world."

The globe is already dollarized, so a regime that regulates every dollar stablecoin hands Washington jurisdiction over an enormous share of global financial activity, with the freeze-and-seize switch attached. Webb's concrete fear is the holder in Argentina whose Tether can be frozen at OFAC's behest with no accountability, the same way the US military treats the IMF and sanctions as instruments of power. Goodwin extends it to Bitcoin itself: as Lightning Labs and similar projects put dollar instruments onto Bitcoin via Taproot Assets, the question becomes whether everyone transacting on those rails gets pulled under that regulatory umbrella. The Tornado Cash and Samourai prosecutions are the warning shot, cases where, as Goodwin notes, the law effectively got written after the fact to criminalize writing code.

The Treasury picks tell you the plan

Webb's read on the cabinet is that you learn more from the Treasury shortlist than from any speech. The most-floated name on the campaign trail was a hedge-fund manager famous for the 2008 trade that shorted subprime mortgages sold to state pension funds, a trade celebrated as one of the greatest ever and, in her framing, a robbery of ordinary Americans with no accountability. The eventual pick, Scott Bessent, is a former Soros money manager. Her point isn't that any one of them is uniquely villainous. It's that the bench is drawn entirely from the same Goldman-to-Treasury-and-back rotation that produced every prior crisis, which is why expecting a fundamentally different outcome is the naive position.

Don't dollarize Bitcoin

The constructive close is aimed at bitcoiners, and it's the same warning that runs through all of it: orange-washing. Goodwin is blunt that scaling Bitcoin through dollar-denominated tokens is a centralization force and a strategic error, and he singles out the "don't be a martyr, stablecoins on Lightning are a multi-trillion-dollar industry" pitch as consent-manufacturing for exactly the wrong future. His deeper point is that decentralization doesn't mean unstoppable, that control reasserts itself at the granular choke points, ISPs, energy markets, chip makers, and through lawfare and financial sanctions rather than brute force. The exit is to build dollar-like instruments that don't touch Treasuries at all, Chaumian ecash through Cashu and Fedimint and Lightning-based stable channels, so that scaling happens in Bitcoin rather than in someone else's debt. That privacy-preserving cash layer is the subject of our later conversation with Calle.

More on the surveillance dollar

The post-election read this conversation offers is the political half of the full account of how the digital dollar arrived without a CBDC. That piece shows how the GENIUS Act folded private stablecoins into the Bank Secrecy Act and required issuers to freeze and block transactions. Webb and Goodwin explain why both parties wanted it, and why the friendliest moment for Bitcoin is the one to watch most closely.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why would the national security community openly support stablecoins if they're supposed to be a threat to government control?

Because they're not a threat to government control. Webb's point is that the CIA and the Fed have been open about this: stablecoins ensure dollar hegemony, they don't undermine it. The programmability and surveillability that everyone feared in a CBDC are already baked into a regulated dollar stablecoin, without the political liability of the government issuing it directly.

How does the Lummis-Gillibrand stablecoin bill favor existing players over newcomers?

Goodwin reads the bill as a king-making exercise, with thresholds and carve-outs written for whoever is already at scale. Lummis herself acknowledged the framework advantages Circle's USDC over Tether, which tells you everything you need to know about who the legislation was engineered to serve.

What does dollarizing Bitcoin's rails actually mean in practice, and why is it a problem?

It means putting dollar-denominated tokens, things like Taproot Assets on Lightning, onto Bitcoin's infrastructure. Goodwin's argument is that once those instruments are on the rails, everyone transacting through them gets pulled under the regulatory umbrella of the US government, the same freeze-and-seize jurisdiction that already covers every dollar stablecoin holder in Argentina or anywhere else the dollar was spread over the last 30 years.

What was the "Going Direct" approach and why does it matter for the next debt crisis?

"Going Direct" was a framework BlackRock executives co-authored in 2019, and Webb's account is that it became the blueprint for the 2020 fiscal response, rolling out before a pandemic was formally declared and producing one of the largest wealth transfers in US history. The reason it matters now is that the next administration inherits a debt crisis born from that fiscal irresponsibility, and the same playbook, manufacture the emergency and route the rescue through the people who caused it, is the most predictable move in Washington.

Why should bitcoiners be more suspicious of a friendly administration than a hostile one?

Because complacency is the trap. Webb's specific concern is that the cohort most opposed to surveillance and government overreach, the people who have the most to lose, are exactly the ones most likely to relax when someone they voted for is in power. The episode was recorded right after the election, with Bitcoin euphoric, and their entire frame is that the friendly posture is the moment to watch most closely, not the moment to sit back and trust the plan.

What makes Chaumian ecash through Cashu and Fedimint a better path than stablecoins on Lightning?

The whole point is that it lets you build dollar-like instruments without touching US Treasuries or the regulatory infrastructure attached to them. Goodwin's argument is that scaling through dollar-denominated tokens is a centralization force, and the ecash path, stable channels and Chaumian mints, keeps the scaling happening inside Bitcoin rather than inside someone else's debt.

How do the Tornado Cash and Samourai cases connect to the broader stablecoin argument?

Goodwin points to those prosecutions as the warning shot, cases where the law was effectively written after the fact to criminalize writing code. They're the proof of concept for how lawfare and financial sanctions, not brute force, are how control reasserts itself at the choke points, and they establish the precedent that anyone building privacy tools on Bitcoin's rails is operating with a target on their back.

About Whitney Webb and Mark Goodwin

Whitney Webb is an investigative journalist and the author of One Nation Under Blackmail. Mark Goodwin is her co-author at Unlimited Hangout and the author of The Bitcoin Dollar. Together they report on the public-private financial system, stablecoins, and the synthetic-CBDC thesis.

Sources mentioned

"Going Direct": the BlackRock-authored framing behind the 2020 fiscal response
Lummis-Gillibrand stablecoin legislation: the bill Goodwin reads as king-making
The Tornado Cash and Samourai cases: the developer prosecutions referenced
The digital dollar, explained: how the synthetic CBDC was built
Calle on the ecash defense: the privacy-preserving alternative

Watch the conversation

Timestamps

0:00 - Intro
1:43 - Trump savior narrative
10:59 - Bitkey & Coinkite
12:57 - Trump coalition
22:02 - Epstein blackmail on both sides
31:36 - Salt of the Earth
32:09 - A new form of intelligence agency
50:51 - Stablecoin CBDCs
1:03:36 - Trump's policies and cabinet appointments
1:13:16 - Politicians learning from Bitcoin
1:18:46 - Big pharma and the problems with deregulation
1:25:53 - Back to stablecoins
1:46:37 - Justifying crackdowns: Ross and Samourai
1:52:32 - Lightspark tease