GENIUS Act

The Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins Act, known as the GENIUS Act, was signed into law on July 18, 2025. It limits issuance of payment stablecoins to US persons to permitted issuers, including insured bank subsidiaries, federally qualified nonbank issuers overseen by the OCC, and state-qualified issuers below a size threshold under comparable state regimes.

The law requires one to one reserves in cash, deposits, short-term Treasuries and similar assets, monthly reserve disclosures, redemption policies, anti-money-laundering compliance, and a ban on paying interest to holders. It gives stablecoin holders priority claims on reserves in an issuer insolvency and sets conditions for foreign issuers to access the US market. Implementation depends on rulemaking by federal and state regulators, with effective dates tied to final rules.

For allocators, the act provides legal clarity that supports bank and fintech entry into stablecoins and links stablecoin growth to Treasury bill demand. Example: a payments company applies to the OCC as a federally qualified issuer to launch its own dollar token.