This page shows textual changes in the document between the two versions indicated in the dates above. Textual matter removed in the later version is indicated with red strikethrough and textual matter added in the later version is indicated with blue.
On July 1718, 2025, the House passed S. 1582, the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins Act of 2025, or GENIUS Act, without amendment(GENIUS Act) was signed into law as P.L. 119-27. An overview of key policy issues can be found here. The bill would establishact establishes a regime to regulate U.S. payment stablecoins, as described below.
S. 1582 would defineThe act defines payment stablecoin as a digital asset issued for payment or settlement and redeemable at a predetermined fixed amount (e.g., $1). Issuers would beU.S. payment stablecoin issuers (unless falling under the act's exceptions) must be approved by a state or federal regulator, as described below. Issuers are required to hold at least one dollar of permitted reserves for every one dollar of stablecoins issued. The bill would limitGENIUS Act limits permitted reserves to coins and currency, deposits held at insured banks and credit unions, short-dated Treasury bills, repurchase agreements ("repos") and reverse repos backed by Treasury bills, government money market funds, central bank reserves, and any other similar government-issued assetassets approved by regulators. Issuers would be restricted to usingmay use reserve assets only for certain activities, including to redeem stablecoins and serveoffer them as collateral in repos and reverse repos. The bill would requireact requires federal and state regulators to issue tailored capital, liquidity, diversification, and risk management rules for federal and state stablecoin issuers, but it exempts stablecoin issuers from the regulatory capital standards applied to traditional banks.
Issuers would beare required to establish and disclose stablecoin redemption procedures and to issue periodic reports of outstanding stablecoins and reserve composition, which wouldmust be certified by executives and "examined" by registered public accounting firms. Issuers with more than $50 billion in stablecoins outstanding would beare required to submit audited annual financial statements. Issuers would beare prohibited from paying interest to stablecoin holders, but holders are not defined, and there is no restriction against exchanges paying interest to customers. See CRS In Focus IF13174, The Stablecoin Yield Debate.
Issuers are.
Issuers would be subject to the Bank Secrecy Act, and the Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) would be required tomust write tailored anti-money-laundering (AML) rules. S. 1582 would requireThe act requires that FinCEN facilitate "novel methods … to detect illicit activity involving digital assets." S. 1582 would requireThe GENIUS Act requires issuers to certify that they have implemented AML and sanctions compliance programs. The bill would prohibitact prohibits anyone who has been convicted of certain financial crimes offrom being an issuer officer or director of an issuer.
Stablecoins could be issued by banks and credit unions (through subsidiaries) or nonbanks. Nonbanks would beare restricted to financial firms or nonpublic nonfinancial firms unless the Treasury Secretary and chairs of the Federal Reserve (Fed) and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC)—referred to as the Stablecoin Certification Review Committee (SCRC)—unanimously find they do not pose risks to the banking or financial system and will comply with certain requirements. Banks and nonbanks that opt for the federal regime would be required tomust apply with the relevant federal banking regulator. Applications wouldmust be evaluated on whether the stablecoin issuers can meet the baseline requirements (described above). An application not acted on within 120 days would beis deemed approved. Regulators would have tomust justify denials and permit applicants to appeal.
The bill would createact creates a state regulatory option for nonbank issuers with fewer than $10 billion in outstanding stablecoins—provided the state regulatory regime is "substantially similar" to its federal counterpart as determined by the SCRC.
Any insured bank or nonbank issuer that opts for the federal regime or has more than $10 billion in issuance would beis supervised by the same regulator as that of the bank or credit union—or by the Treasury Department's Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) in the case of nonbanks—which would evaluate issuers' financial conditionconditions, risks to firm and financial system safety and soundness, and risk management systems.
All stablecoin issuers under the federal regime would beare required to file reports with—and may be subject to exams by—their primary federal regulators.
A regulator would beRegulators are authorized to stop a permitted issuer from issuing stablecoins or to issue other enforcement actions if the regulator were to determine that the issuer violated the requirements of the billact or any written condition imposed by the regulator.
The bill would permit aact permits an uninsured bank or nonbank issuer with under $10 billion in outstanding stablecoins to opt in to a state regulatory regime and operate nationally. A nonbankstate issuer that grows above that threshold would need tomust transition to the federal regime, which is administered jointly by federal and state regulators unless granted a waiver by the federal regulator.
State regulators would "have supervisory, examination, and enforcement authority over all" state issuers. The bill would allow stateState regulators tomay cede these authorities to the Fed. The bill wouldact also allowallows the Fed or OCC to take enforcement actions against state issuers in "unusual and exigent circumstances."
The bill would establishGENIUS Act establishes requirements for the issuance of payment stablecoins by foreign issuers and the secondary trading of foreign payment stablecoins by digital asset service providers (DASPs; e.g., exchanges) in the United States, subject to certain exemptions and waivers.
Treasury would be permitted tomay establish "reciprocal arrangements" with jurisdictions with regulatory regimes "comparable" to those of the United States. DASPs couldmay offer only foreign stablecoins that compliedcomply with lawful orders and "any" reciprocal arrangement.
The bill would establishact establishes rules for stablecoin asset and reserve custodians, which couldmay be issuers or non-issuers, provided they are regulated by federal or state banking regulators, the Securities and Exchange Commission, or the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. It would prohibitprohibits custodians from comingling their own funds with customers' funds, with exceptions. The bill would permitGENIUS permits banks to hold stablecoins and reserves in custody, use blockchains, and issue tokenized deposits.
The bill would grantact grants stablecoin holders priority over all other claims against the issuer in bankruptcy and would allowallows a bankruptcy court to issue automatic stays on stablecoin redemptions.
The bill would clarify.
The GENIUS Act clarifies that payment stablecoins are not securities or commodities and are not federally insured.
S. 1582 wouldThe law prohibits making the issuance of stablecoins contingent on some other purchase and would preventbars an issuer from using names that create the perception that a stablecoin is issued or guaranteed by the U.S. government.
S. 1582 would requireThe GENIUS Act requires that the President, Vice President, Members of Congress, and other federaland other executive branch employees report stablecoin holdings larger than $5,000.