GENIUS Act Passes Congress; Big Bipartisan Support for Digital Asset Regulation

The House passed the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act on July 17, 2025 by a large bipartisan margin of 307–122, with 102 Democrats joining nearly all Republicans in supporting the bill. Along with the big bipartisan vote from the Senate (68 votes in favor), the stablecoin bill stands as the most bipartisan piece of financial legislation in 15 years. The President signed the bill into law on July 18. It establishes a regulatory framework for payment stablecoins, which are digital assets pegged to a stable value, such as the U.S. Dollar. 

The GENIUS Act allows for the issuance of special-purpose banking charters for “Federal Qualified Nonbank Payment Stablecoin Issuers,” essentially enabling technology firms to become licensed stablecoin issuers. The stablecoins allowed by the charter are those that are reserved on a 1:1 basis with fiat currency. Therefore, speculative stablecoins would not be allowed to be issued by GENIUS-licensed entities. Non-pegged speculative coins would continue to be considered investment securities in our view and could only be issued in compliance with the federal and state securities laws.

GENIUS at a glance

1. 1:1 fiat reserves—held either at federal master accounts or Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC)‑insured custodians.
2. Three‑agency stack—the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency issues the charter, the Federal Reserve supervises the balance sheet and the FDIC handles bank failures.
3. Monthly attestations + quarterly GAAP audits—civil and criminal liability for cooking the numbers.
4. National passport—one federal charter should simplify and streamline the patchwork of 53 state money‑transmitter licenses.
5. Algorithmic stables barred—lose the peg, lose the charter.
6. No Yield—no yield bearing stablecoins under this regime (yet). 

D.C. Chatter

Bipartisan ballast matters more than the margin. GENIUS did not squeak through—it passed the House and Senate with significant bipartisan margins, which, in 2025, counts as rather unusual. This decision gives all teams and investors across the industry and in new areas license to plan on a ten‑year horizon instead of waiting for the next election to flip the rulebook.

Competitiveness is the new consumer protection. Supporters are selling the bill as a reshoring weapon that also promotes U.S. dollar dominance. Democrats are more cautious, but even their floor speeches revolve around keeping U.S. tech talent from decamping to Singapore, not banning the product outright. That tonal convergence is new, and it’s important.

Wall Street already updated its models. Analysts ran the math the minute the House rule passed—cheaper reserves, charter certainty and a national passport widen net yield and compress time‑to‑market. Call desks are labelling it “monetizing certainty.”

Why it Matters

• Cost of capital: on‑shore issuance and master‑account access results in payments competition that makes many types of payments cheaper and faster. 
• Bank partnerships: BSA/AML ambiguity is over; the charter satisfies onboarding committees.
• BigCo Stablecoin launches: Bank of America, Amazon, U.S. Bank and others are reportedly exploring stablecoin launches given the new regulatory certainty. 
• Stablecoin Integration: Stripe, Walmart, Visa, PayPal, Amazon and other large companies are building the infrastructure to support stablecoin integration in the U.S. and internationally. 
• Global copy‑paste: The Monetary Authority of Singapore is already drafting a reserve‑segregation rule that borrows GENIUS language verbatim—U.S. regulatory leadership is back. 
• Short putt: Many in the banking and securities bar viewed fiat-backed stablecoins as the most benign crypto tokens in the market; it makes sense that the industry would rally support around a “no brainer” structure with supervised licensing and wrapped in an America first narrative. What will be more difficult is the regulation of more risky crypto investments including non-pegged stablecoins, cryptocurrency tokens, memecoins and DeFi transactions where the risk of loss is more significant and the barriers to entry for issuers are lower. A supervised token where there is an immediate redemption for dollars is easy to back. The real question in our minds is will an alternative regulatory structure evolve to the existing securities and commodities systems that will be just as robust in protecting investors, and will allow enforcement authorities use their tools to robustly protect the public.

Unfinished Business

In addition, CLARITY, the broader market‑structure bill, passed the House today by a smaller but still significant bipartisan vote of 294–134 and heads to the Senate for debate and another vote. The Senate will release its own version of market structure legislation and may pass a substantially different version. Democratic votes are needed to clear the 60-vote filibuster threshold and there is much negotiation ahead. Stay tuned.

Annotated GENIUS Cheat Sheet

The text of the bill can be found .