US GENIUS Act stablecoin regulation analysis and market impact

Background and Core Content of the GENIUS Act

On July 18, 2025, the President of the United States signed the GENIUS Act, officially titled the “Guiding and Establishing American Stablecoin National Innovation Act,” which establishes a comprehensive regulatory framework for the issuance and operation of stablecoins at the federal level for the first time. The Act explicitly requires that stablecoin issuers must be registered financial institutions in the United States, and the issued stablecoins must be backed by 100% reserves of US dollars or dollar-equivalent assets, which include cash, bank deposits, and high-liquid assets such as U.S. government bonds with maturities of 93 days or less.

Regulatory Requirements and Implementation Details

Issuers are required to publicly disclose the composition of reserve assets every month and are subject to supervision under the Bank Secrecy Act. The bill also emphasizes consumer protection and anti-money laundering measures, ensuring the safety of user assets and transaction transparency. In the event of the issuer’s bankruptcy, stablecoin holders will have priority repayment rights, ahead of other creditors.

Impact on the market and ecosystem

The implementation of this bill strengthens the regulatory compliance of stablecoins, significantly enhancing their acceptance among banks, payment institutions, funds, and sovereign entities. Stablecoins will play a more long-term core role in cross-border payments and on-chain settlements, promoting the robust development of the global digital financial ecosystem.

Enterprise and technology cooperation promotion

For example, Circle collaborates with global payment giant FIS to enable thousands of community banks in the U.S. to use USDC for dollar settlement instantly through APIs, greatly enhancing the application scenarios of USDC in both the Web2 and Web3 worlds by integrating programmable wallets and cross-chain transmission technology.

Future Outlook

As major economies such as the United States and Europe accelerate the layout of stablecoin regulations, the stablecoin market size is expected to grow from the current approximately $270 billion to $3 trillion by 2030. The influence and adoption rate of compliant stablecoins like USDC in the global financial system will continue to rise.