Stablecoins Got a US Law a Year Ago — The Fine Print Still Isn’t Written
The GENIUS Act turned one, but agencies are still drafting stablecoin rules while a bigger crypto bill stalls over an ethics fight.
If you hold USDC, USDT or any other dollar-pegged token, there’s now a federal law in the United States built specifically for coins like yours — but a year after it passed, regulators still haven’t finished writing the actual rulebook. The GENIUS Act, the first major piece of US federal legislation dedicated to crypto, marked its one-year anniversary this week, and the details that will actually govern how your stablecoin issuer operates are still being hashed out behind closed doors in Washington.
President Donald Trump signed the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins Act into law in July 2025, giving federal agencies the job of deciding how stablecoin issuers should manage their reserves, governance and day-to-day operations. Twelve months later, according to CoinDesk, those agencies are still mid-process rather than finished.
Why the rules aren’t done yet
Two agencies are doing the heavy lifting. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation put out 144 questions for public comment on how it should supervise stablecoin issuers, covering things like custody of reserves and how much capital and liquidity a company needs to keep on hand. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency released its own proposal back in February laying out how it reads the law.
None of that is finalized. For everyday holders, that means the specific consumer protections — how quickly you could redeem a stablecoin for cash in a crisis, or what backs it exactly — are still a work in progress, even though the law itself is on the books.
Ji Hun Kim, CEO of the industry group Crypto Council for Innovation, called the law’s passage “a landmark moment,” adding that “a year in, agencies, institutions, and innovators are building on a clearer foundation, and stablecoins are moving rapidly toward mainstream adoption.”
The bigger bill stuck on ethics
While the stablecoin rulebook gets filled in, Congress is also trying to pass a much broader law: the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, which would set rules for the rest of the crypto industry beyond just stablecoins. As of Friday night, the combined text of that bill still hadn’t been made public, even though insiders had expected a release the week before.
The sticking point is politically awkward: lawmakers can’t agree on an ethics provision that would stop senior government officials from profiting off their own crypto holdings. Senator Elizabeth Warren pressed Trump this week to voluntarily disclose his financial holdings for the first half of 2026, pointing out that his 2025 disclosure showed he made over $1.4 billion from various crypto ventures. “It does not account for any changes that have taken place in recent months,” Warren wrote, noting Trump isn’t legally required to file his 2026 annual report until May 2027.
Meanwhile, supporters of the bill are pushing hard for movement. Representative Bryan Steil, who chairs the House digital assets subcommittee, told a hearing this week that “our goal is clear: replace regulation by enforcement with clear rules of the road for digital assets,” arguing that after a decade of Congressional work and one year of stablecoin law, it’s time to finish the job.
What it means for your wallet
For anyone holding stablecoins, the practical takeaway is patience: the legal foundation exists, but the guardrails that will actually protect you if an issuer runs into trouble are still being built. And for the rest of the crypto market waiting on the broader Clarity Act, a political standoff over officials profiting from crypto — not the technical details — is what’s holding things up. That fight over ethics, more than any technical dispute, could decide how soon clearer rules arrive for the whole industry.
Read more: Ripple Just Got a Europe-Wide Crypto License — Here’s What MiCA Means for You
