Chainalysis: Italy Leads Tokenized US Treasury Holdings at 29.9% in a USDC-Dominant Market

Italy Holds the Largest Share of Tokenized US Debt

Italy holds 29.9% of geolocated tokenized US Treasury value, the largest share of any country, according to Chainalysis’ 2026 North America report. Portugal follows at 18.8% and Singapore at 18.2%, while US holders rank fourth at 10.5%. That puts three markets outside the United States ahead of the country issuing the debt. Tokenized Treasuries are blockchain representations of US government bonds, and the market behind them expanded 125% over the 12 months to July 1, 2026, climbing from $6.86 billion to $15.42 billion. US government debt stands as the largest real-world asset on-chain, and it makes Treasuries the largest block of total value locked (TVL) among tokenized real-world assets, with BlackRock’s BUIDL fund moving back into first place among these products in late August. The report’s central claim is that foreign buyers of tokenized Treasuries and stablecoins add fresh demand for US debt. The country split is uneven. Japanese holders account for 16.4% of geolocated holders, more than any other country, yet only 0.4% of value. Chainalysis reads that gap as a market driven by a small group of large foreign holders, with a broader retail base building smaller positions around them. Tokenization itself explains the retail access: it cuts the minimum ticket size and drops the requirement for a US brokerage account, so an individual investor in Lisbon or Singapore can buy a wholesale instrument directly, the same access model that underpins tokenized stock products. Once bought, these holders tend to keep their tokens rather than post them as collateral. Lending against tokenized Treasuries fell 23% over the period, the sole shrinking category among real-world asset lending. The report’s conclusion on the flow is direct: when a holder outside the United States purchases a tokenized Treasury product, the debt that gains is Washington’s, not the buyer’s own government’s.

USDC Reaches $73.3B as Euro Tokens Trail

Stablecoins open a second channel for the same foreign demand. A stablecoin is a token pegged to a fiat currency, here the US dollar, and tokens from American issuers are backed mostly by short-dated US government debt. Dollar stablecoins bought abroad therefore feed demand for that debt as well, the report notes. Dollar dominance in the sector is near total: dollar tokens carry 99.1% of all stablecoin order book volume, against 0.45% for euro tokens, which trail even after the EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regime has improved the footing for euro issuers. The same dollar tokens also underpin payment settlement, the domain known as PayFi. Circle’s own disclosure shows the scale on the dollar side: the issuer reported $73.3 billion of USDC in circulation at quarter end, 19% higher than a year earlier. Circle, the token’s US-based issuer, sits at the center of that flow. Canada shows what the preference does to a local currency market. By June 2026, stablecoins accounted for 44% of trading in the Canadian dollar order book, versus 30% twelve months earlier, and USDC led that share while Canadian dollar tokens drew little volume. Morva Rohani, executive director at the Canadian Web3 Council, frames the shift as a loss for Canada: dollar stablecoin purchases, she argues, build demand for US government debt that Canadian debt could otherwise capture, and she says policy-makers are following the trend closely. Ottawa has prepared the ground for alternatives. Canada’s Stablecoin Act was granted Royal Assent on March 26, 2026, opening the door to Canadian dollar tokens, though the complete framework still waits on supporting regulations. For now Canadian dollar tokens remain tiny next to their US rivals, and the report’s assessment is that homegrown options need actual market uptake, not only new legislation, to close the gap.

Read together, the report’s two halves describe one flow. Foreign savings reach US government debt through two on-chain doors: tokenized Treasury funds such as BlackRock’s BUIDL and dollar stablecoins such as USDC, whose issuer’s own circulation figure of $73.3 billion confirms the scale of the second channel. The euro’s 0.45% order book share indicates MiCA has not yet changed what the market actually buys, and Canada’s Stablecoin Act, passed in March, shows that legal permission alone does not create demand. Until euro and Canadian dollar tokens win real uptake, the marginal unit of on-chain demand for sovereign debt, whether it comes from a retail account in Lisbon or a treasury desk in Singapore, keeps pointing at Washington.