GENIUS Act
The GENIUS Act is the first US federal framework for payment stablecoins, signed by President Trump in July 2025, requiring 1:1 dollar backing, monthly reserve attestations, reserves held in cash or short-term US Treasuries, and OCC supervision for federally chartered issuers.
The GENIUS Act, signed in July 2025, established the first federal framework for payment stablecoins in the United States. It set the rules for how dollar-pegged tokens may be issued and backed. Issuance must be backed 1:1 by dollars, reserves must be held in cash or short-term US Treasuries, issuers must publish monthly attestations, and federally chartered issuers fall under Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) supervision.
The Act contains a size-based supervision split. Stablecoins under $10 billion in issuance can operate under state oversight. Above that threshold, federal regulation takes over. This is the structure that places the largest issuers under federal supervision while leaving room for smaller, state-regulated issuance.
GENIUS regulates the issuance of dollar substitutes. It is one half of a two-bill framework: the CLARITY Act, advanced by the Senate Banking Committee on a 15-9 vote on May 14, 2026, regulates the classification of every other digital asset. Read together, the two bills create the institutional infrastructure for a two-layer digital monetary system, with stablecoins as the velocity layer and Bitcoin as the savings or base layer.
GENIUS deliberately did not address one question that became the central political fight: what exchanges and affiliated platforms may pay users for holding stablecoins. The Act banned issuers from paying interest directly, but the loophole around platform rewards was left for later legislation to resolve. That gap is what the CLARITY Act compromise of May 2026 was negotiated to close.
A second structural consequence of GENIUS is what the report calls the Hidden Treasury Buyer. Because every dollar of stablecoin issuance must be backed by short-duration US government debt, the mandate locks in structural Treasury demand. The requirement is federal statute, not a recommendation. Tether alone holds approximately $150 billion in US Treasuries, and combined stablecoin reserves currently approach $250 billion, a figure Standard Chartered projects could reach $2 trillion by 2028 under base-case adoption assumptions.
The report frames GENIUS not as a constraint on stablecoins but as a deployment mechanism for them: "GENIUS does not regulate stablecoins. It deploys them." The Act is the legal foundation for extending US dollar reach and US enforcement reach into every jurisdiction stablecoins can travel.
Related Reading
Onramp's Stablecoin Stack uses this term this way: The GENIUS Act is the first US federal framework for payment stablecoins, signed by President Trump in July 2025. It requires 1:1 dollar backing, monthly reserve attestations, reserves held in cash or short-term US Treasuries, and OCC supervision for federally chartered issuers. Stablecoins under $10 billion in issuance can operate under state oversight; above that threshold, federal regulation takes over.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is GENIUS Act?
Onramp's Stablecoin Stack uses this term this way: The GENIUS Act is the first US federal framework for payment stablecoins, signed by President Trump in July 2025. It requires 1:1 dollar backing, monthly reserve attestations, reserves held in cash or short-term US Treasuries, and OCC supervision for federally chartered issuers. Stablecoins under $10 billion in issuance can operate under state oversight; above that threshold, federal regulation takes over.
Why does GENIUS Act matter?
It matters because the Stablecoin Stack separates regulated digital-dollar velocity from Bitcoin's base-layer monetary role. Onramp uses that distinction to explain where custody, issuer control, and regulatory classification affect institutional capital.
How does GENIUS Act relate to Bitcoin custody?
It relates to custody because Bitcoin's digital-commodity role only helps allocators if the asset is held without a single-party control point. Onramp's Multi-Institution Custody distributes control across Onramp, BitGo Trust, and CoinCover.