On July 18, 2025, in the Oval Office of the White House, U.S. President Trump officially signed the "Guiding and Establishing the United States Stablecoin National Innovation Act" (referred to as the GENIUS Act), establishing the first federal-level comprehensive regulatory framework for the global stablecoin market, which exceeds 260 billion dollars. The enactment of this historic act marks the official entry of the cryptocurrency industry into a new era of strong regulation and mainstreaming.
Core of the Bill: Strict Risk Control and Transparent Operations
The GENIUS bill passed in Congress with overwhelming bipartisan support (Senate 68:30, House 308:122), and its core provisions reshape the issuance basis for stablecoins:
- 1:1 Reserve Requirement: Mandates all stablecoins to be fully backed by high liquidity assets such as USD or US short-term Treasury bonds, prohibiting the disorderly expansion of algorithmic stablecoins and crypto-collateralized stablecoins.
- Comprehensive Audit Supervision: Issuers must submit monthly reserve proofs and annual audit reports, with stablecoins having a market value exceeding $50 billion facing stricter disclosure requirements.
- Dual-Track Issuance Mechanism: Allows federal banks and state-licensed fintech companies to legally issue stablecoins, but state-level institutions have a cap on issuance scale of $10 billion (exceeding this limit requires federal licensing).
- Yield Ban and Global Access: Clearly prohibits paying interest to holders while opening the US market to foreign issuers that meet standards.
Market Restructuring: Compliance Winners, Tether Faces Life-or-Death Transition
The bill directly impacts the existing stablecoin landscape, pushing the market towards polarization of "compliance and transparency" and "circulation efficiency":
- USDC Takes the Lead: Issuer Circle gains market recognition due to early compliance arrangements, and its strategic investor China Everbright Holdings sees its stock price soar over 6% in a single day after the bill passes.
- Tether (USDT)’s Three-Year Test: As an industry giant with a scale of $161 billion, Tether must complete a comprehensive compliance overhaul by July 18, 2028. Its reserve assets, including bitcoin and precious metals, need to be converted to USD or U.S. Treasury bonds, and an auditable reserve system must be established. CEO Paolo Ardoino urgently commits to "doing everything possible to meet compliance," but there are doubts in the market about whether it can complete the transition on time.
Traditional Financial Giants Fully Enter the Market
The clarification of regulations has removed the biggest obstacle for institutions to enter:
- Top banks such as Bank of America, Citibank, and JPMorgan Chase have publicly advanced stablecoin plans, with JPMorgan Chase about to launch an upgraded version of JPM Coin (JPMD).
- Payment giants like Visa, PayPal, and Shopify are accelerating the integration of stablecoin payments, targeting the trillion-dollar market for cross-border settlement and supply chain finance.
Industry forecasts predict that compliant stablecoins will drive the market size from the current $260 billion to $3.7 trillion by 2030, becoming a new fulcrum for the global dominance of the US dollar.
Global Regulatory Coordination Accelerates
US legislation triggers a chain reaction, with multiple countries speeding up their legislative alignment:
- Hong Kong’s "Stablecoin Regulatory Bill" will take effect on August 1, with a framework highly coordinated with the US.
- In Europe, Societe Generale’s SG-Forge has launched the dollar stablecoin CoinVertible (USDCV) under the MiCA regulations, bridging the personal and institutional markets.
With the GENIUS Act fully implemented in 18 months (or by November 2026 at the latest), stablecoins will officially transition from "crypto speculative tools" to "regulated payment infrastructure." In the next three years, a competitive battle over transparency, market share, and global standards has already begun—compliant players will carve up a trillion-dollar market, while those who hesitate will be left behind by the times.
