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Jurisdiction · Awaiting implementation

United States

A federal licensing regime for payment stablecoin issuers is law, but every implementing rule was still at the proposed stage when the statute's own rulemaking deadline passed, and the companion market-structure bill has yet to reach a Senate floor vote.

Regime
GENIUS Act (S.1582, 119th Congress) + CLARITY Act (H.R.3633, pending)
Status
Enacted (July 18, 2025); implementing rulemaking at proposed-rule stage, no final rules as of July 25, 2026
Scope
Payment stablecoins (GENIUS); broader digital asset market structure incl. tokenized assets (CLARITY, pending)

The state of play

The GENIUS Act creates a federal licensing regime for payment stablecoin issuers, with 1:1 high-quality liquid reserves, monthly reserve attestations, redemption rights and parallel federal and state approval pathways. Every implementing rulemaking remained at the proposed stage as the statute's July 18, 2026 rulemaking deadline passed: Treasury has issued an advance notice (September 18, 2025) and proposals on certification of state regimes (April 1, 2026) and illicit finance (April 8, 2026); the OCC proposed its issuer framework on February 25, 2026; the FDIC proposed licensing rules on December 16, 2025 and capital and liquidity rules on April 7, 2026; the NCUA proposed rules on February 11 and May 18, 2026; and FinCEN proposed customer identification requirements on June 18, 2026. The companion CLARITY Act market-structure bill passed the House in 2025 and cleared the Senate Banking Committee 15-9 on May 14, 2026, but a floor vote was still unscheduled in late July 2026. Separately, the OCC conditionally approved five national trust bank charters for digital-asset firms on December 12, 2025, and SEC staff issued a joint statement on tokenized securities on January 28, 2026 confirming that tokenization does not change the securities-law character of an instrument.

Frameworks

FrameworkStatusDateNote
Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins Act (GENIUS Act, Public Law 119-27)Enacted 18 July 2025Federal regime for payment stablecoin issuers: 1:1 reserves in cash, short-dated Treasuries and repo, monthly attestations, par redemption, no interest payments to holders, dual federal/state pathways with a $10bn state-regime threshold.
Treasury advance notice of proposed rulemaking on GENIUS Act implementationProposed 18 September 2025Sought comment on the scope of the payment stablecoin definition, foreign issuer comparability and reserve composition ahead of formal proposals.
FDIC notice of proposed rulemaking on stablecoin issuer applicationsProposed 16 December 2025Application and approval procedures for FDIC-supervised subsidiaries seeking to issue payment stablecoins.
NCUA notices of proposed rulemaking on credit union stablecoin issuanceProposed 11 February 2026First proposal February 11, 2026; a second NCUA proposal followed on May 18, 2026. Neither was finalised as of July 2026.
OCC notice of proposed rulemaking for federally qualified payment stablecoin issuersProposed 25 February 2026Application, supervision and capital expectations for national banks and federal branches issuing payment stablecoins.
Treasury notice of proposed rulemaking on certification of state stablecoin regimesProposed 1 April 2026Process by which state regimes are certified as substantially similar to the federal framework.
Treasury notice of proposed rulemaking on illicit finance and AML for stablecoin issuersProposed 8 April 2026Sanctions compliance, blocking and lawful-order capability requirements for permitted payment stablecoin issuers.
FDIC notice of proposed rulemaking on capital, liquidity and risk management for stablecoin issuersProposed 7 April 2026Prudential standards for FDIC-supervised issuing subsidiaries.
FinCEN notice of proposed rulemaking on customer identification programs for stablecoin issuersProposed 18 June 2026Would extend CIP obligations to permitted payment stablecoin issuers.
Digital Asset Market Clarity Act (CLARITY Act, H.R.3633)Pending 14 May 2026Passed the House in 2025; approved by the Senate Banking Committee 15-9 on May 14, 2026 and placed on the Senate Legislative Calendar (No. 423). Revised committee text circulated June 1, 2026; floor consideration unscheduled as of late July 2026.
SEC Division of Corporation Finance and Division of Trading and Markets staff statement on tokenized securitiesGuidance 28 January 2026Confirms that a tokenized security remains a security and that distribution, custody and settlement obligations follow the underlying instrument.
OCC conditional approvals of national trust bank charters for digital-asset firmsIn force 12 December 2025Five conditional approvals: First National Digital Currency Bank (Circle), Ripple National Trust Bank, BitGo Bank and Trust, Fidelity Digital Assets and Paxos Trust Company. Circle received final OCC approval on July 10, 2026.
NYDFS virtual currency regime (BitLicense, 23 NYCRR Part 200) and stablecoin guidanceIn force 8 June 2022State-level licensing and reserve/attestation guidance for USD-backed stablecoins issued from New York.

Products issued under this regime

  • USDC (Circle)
  • USDT (Tether)
  • PYUSD (Paxos for PayPal)
  • RLUSD (Ripple)
  • USAT (Tether US-regulated token issued by Anchorage Digital Bank, launched January 27, 2026, with Cantor Fitzgerald as reserve custodian)
  • BUIDL (BlackRock USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund, on Securitize)
  • BENJI (Franklin Templeton OnChain U.S. Government Money Fund)
  • JPMD (JPMorgan deposit token)

Market participants

On the record

Every development we have evidenced under United States, newest first.

Full record →

BNY completes a triparty repo with Citadel Securities using a tokenized Treasury note

BNY said Citadel Securities bought a two-year Treasury note through it on Tradeweb, a tokenized representation was recorded on BNY's private ledger and settled within minutes, and the note was pledged in an overnight triparty repo with BNY providing the cash. No ledger, value, rate or loan amount was named.

CFTC proposes defining event contracts as swaps and adopts an interim rule excluding sportsbook and casino wagers

The CFTC proposed adding sports, political, cultural and weather event contracts to the swap definition, with 30 days of comment after publication. An interim final rule, effective on publication, excludes wagers regulated as gambling under state or tribal law and not traded on an exchange. Both documents say the SEC joins them.

Securitize launches tokens of 12 US stocks on Solana, each backed by a share held for the investor

Securitize began offering tokens of 12 US stocks, including Apple, Nvidia and Tesla, each a security entitlement backed one for one by a share, with dividends and votes and no share lending. They trade on its broker-dealer platform on Solana and settle in USDC. Listings on the planned NYSE and OKXICE venues are expected; neither has launched.

Samsung Wallet to offer USDC transfers abroad to US Galaxy users, with Bastion running the accounts

Samsung Electronics America said Samsung Wallet will support USDC transfers from the last week of October on 82 million compatible US Galaxy devices. Sends to crypto wallets carry no Samsung fee; bank payouts in more than 60 countries carry fees. Bastion runs the accounts, Coinbase is sub-custodian, and Solana and Sui supply the networks.

FinCEN withdraws its 2020 unhosted wallet proposal and its 2023 section 311 proposal on crypto mixing

FinCEN withdrew the December 2020 proposal requiring reports on transfers above $10,000 involving unhosted wallets and the October 2023 finding that international crypto mixing is of primary money laundering concern. It will take no further action on the first and may act on mixers in future.

ICBA sues the OCC to vacate its national trust bank chartering rule, Interpretive Letter 1176 and Protego's conditional charter

The community bank trade group's complaint in the District of Columbia federal court says the National Bank Act does not let the OCC charter trust banks that neither take deposits nor act as fiduciaries, and seeks an injunction against further approvals under the rule.

SEC proposes crypto custody rules letting advisers and funds use state trust companies and, where no custodian is available, self-custody

Release IA-7023 would apply the adviser rule to crypto assets that are funds or securities, names GENIUS Act payment stablecoins and tokenized deposits as funds, and opens a 60 day comment period from Federal Register publication.

Citi and Coinbase launch stablecoin acceptance through Spring by Citi and fiat-to-stablecoin virtual accounts

Citi's institutional clients can accept stablecoins at checkout through Coinbase Payments, converted to fiat and settled by Citi as bank of record, and Coinbase Virtual Accounts on Citi's Virtual Account Wallet convert incoming fiat into stablecoins. No stablecoin is named.

Goldman Sachs' FTIXX Treasury fund offered untokenized to qualified US firms on the Lynq settlement network

tZERO Securities handles trades in the Institutional class of the $105.27bn Financial Square Treasury Instruments Fund for firms on Lynq, which runs on a private Avalanche chain. It is the first outside fund on the network. The fund's Token Shares class held $10,424.54 at 31 August.

Bybit accepts Franklin Templeton's Benji-issued money fund shares as off-exchange collateral

Eligible clients pledge the shares through ByCustody and receive USDT or USDC trading credit lines on Bybit while the shares stay in custody and keep earning yield. The release names no fund, amount or haircut; the $686m in reports is the whole Franklin OnChain U.S. Government Money Fund at 31 August.

CFTC registers Coinbase Clearing LLC as a derivatives clearing organisation for fully collateralized contracts

The Commission order permits Coinbase Clearing to clear fully collateralized futures, options on futures and swaps as defined in Regulation 39.2, completing Coinbase's exchange, broker and clearing registrations. Coinbase says the clearing house will take USDC as collateral and settle around the clock; the order and the filed rulebook do not name USDC.

Senate PSI minority staff report finds 84% of 846 Iran-linked sanctioned wallets transacted almost wholly in USDT

Tethered to Terrorism, from ranking member Richard Blumenthal and the minority staff, analyses wallets designated by OFAC and Israel's counter-terror financing bureau from 2021 to 2026, faults Tether's freezes as late, and goes to the Attorney General and the Treasury Secretary with questions due by 9 October. Tether replied that about $550m of Iran-linked USDT was frozen in 2026.

California signs AB 2409, barring state and local officials from issuing memecoins

The bill bars state and local public officers, and employees with authority over bids and contracts, from issuing a memecoin, and bars digital asset service providers from listing for Californians a memecoin issued from 1 January 2027 that is offered by or with any public official. Enforcement is civil. It passed the Senate 40 to 0 and the Assembly 78 to 0.

The Sixth Circuit holds Kalshi's sports contracts are not swaps and that Ohio and Tennessee gambling law is not preempted

In KalshiEX LLC v. Schuler and v. Orgel, Nos. 26-3196/5235, a Sixth Circuit panel affirmed the denial of Kalshi's injunction against Ohio and vacated the one it held against Tennessee. Gibbons wrote, joined by Clay and Bloomekatz. Sports results lack a financial consequence under the swap definition, and the Act does not preempt state law in any case. Two circuits now side with the states, one with Kalshi.

New York sues Polymarket US as an unlicensed gambling operation, and Polymarket sues New York in federal court

The Attorney General's verified petition against QCX LLC, trading as Polymarket US, alleges unlicensed gambling under state law and the Wire Act and seeks three times its gains and $100,000 per unauthorised offer. The same day Polymarket US sued the Attorney General and the Gaming Commission in the Southern District of New York, arguing that the CFTC's exclusive jurisdiction preempts state gambling law.

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