According to Woofun AI, the United States reestablished itself as a net importer of BTC in 2026, marking the first reversal of this trend since 2022; at the same time, the rest of the world has been pouring into dollar-pegged stablecoins on a massive scale.
Chainalysis released its "2026 Cryptocurrency Geography Report" (covering a 12-month statistical period ending July 1), which revealed this structural divergence: US users prefer BTC because they already hold fiat currency, while overseas users lacking US bank accounts urgently need "digital dollars" as a payment medium.
Data compiled by Woofun AI shows that this gap in asset preferences is widening sharply. In the Bitcoin index constructed for the report, the US scored 0.96 in 2026, far exceeding the 0.52 recorded for the rest of the world, with the gap widening to 0.44, compared with only 0.09 in 2024.
Stablecoin-related indicators present a completely opposite picture: the rest of the world scored 1.00, while the US scored 0.56, with the gap standing at only 0.05 in 2024. This data comparison clearly outlines the polarization between the pursuit of scarce assets within the United States and the global reliance on dollar liquidity.
Looking deeper into the US market, Will Su, head of digital asset research at BlackRock (BLK.US), pointed out that given continuously record-breaking global government debt and spending, investor interest in BTC as a monetary alternative remains strong.
Chainalysis Flow data confirms this pattern of institutional accumulation and retail outflow: in each statistical period, the majority of BTC transactions flowing out of the United States were under $10,000; however, transfers exceeding $10 million each brought a net inflow of 53,200 BTC. This indicates that the retail side is exporting assets outward, while the institutional side is concentrating allocations domestically, with decisions dynamically adjusted according to market sentiment.
Within the global stablecoin ecosystem, the dominance of the US dollar is unshakable. In exchange order books, dollar-pegged tokens account for 99.1% of stablecoin trading volume, while despite the European Union's introduction of the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA), euro-backed tokens account for only 0.45%.
Since stablecoin reserves are mostly held in short-term US Treasury bonds, overseas demand for "digital dollars" translates directly into demand for US Treasury debt. Notably, in terms of tokenized holdings of US Treasury bonds, Italy, Portugal, and Singapore even surpass the United States.
Although Singapore and Hong Kong have introduced stablecoin regulatory frameworks, the pace of rulemaking still outpaces the growth of user demand, highlighting a misalignment between regulation and the market.
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