Congress Passes GENIUS Act Regulating Stablecoins 300-102

The U.S. Congress has passed the GENIUS Act, a significant milestone in crypto regulation, which was promptly signed by Donald Trump. This federal legislation regulates stablecoins for the first time without classifying them as securities, marking a clear shift toward the institutionalization of digital assets. The GENIUS Act, passed during Crypto Week, was voted by more than 300 members of the House of Representatives, including 102 Democrats, and establishes the first federal framework for stablecoins in the United States. It explicitly recognizes that not all cryptos are securities, breaking away from the previously dominant SEC approach. This regulatory clarification is praised by many sector players as a decisive turning point.

Leo Fan, co-founder of Cysic, states that regulatory clarity is only a starting point, not an end goal. He sees it as a “green light for developers, investors, and institutions” to build securely. The practical implications of this law are numerous, both regulatory and strategic. It introduces a major distinction between decentralized assets and traditional securities, provides a legal foundation for the issuance and use of stablecoins, promoting their institutional legitimacy, and gives investors regulatory safeguards, paving the way for broader adoption. According to Ryan Chow, CEO of Solv Protocol, the law ends years of ambiguity that hindered entry by major institutional players. Altan Tutar, CEO of MoreMarkets, believes this advancement brings the U.S. closer to Asian standards in digital finance. By giving stablecoins a legal status and clarifying their nature, the GENIUS Act thus establishes a strong legal foundation. According to its proponents, this is a necessary condition to attract institutional capital and develop applications more rooted in the real economy.

However, this regulatory progress alone will not be enough to make crypto use widespread in everyday life. Despite this praised legal framework, many voices in the industry remind us that regulation alone does not guarantee large-scale adoption. For Will K, CEO of VOOI and co-founder of Symbiosis.Finance, “regulation is not enough”. He emphasizes the need to build mature technical infrastructure but especially accessible user experiences and tools based on artificial intelligence to democratize decentralized finance. His warning is clear: “The industry must stop building for crypto natives and start building for everyone else”, lest it remain a niche ecosystem. This concern is shared by Altan Tutar, who warns of the imbalance between institutional interest and accessibility for retail investors. According to him, the GENIUS Act mainly benefits large financial entities, while ordinary users risk being left out without a clear offering in payments, applications, or yield opportunities. In the same vein, Ryan Chow calls for the creation of new instruments such as bitcoin-backed loans, tokenized Treasury bonds, or yield products linked to real assets, all integrated from the start with compliance and transparency mechanisms.

In short, while the legal framework is now established, the mass adoption of Web3 will depend on the ecosystem’s ability to offer concrete, intuitive, and regulated products capable of attracting a much wider audience than just insiders. The challenge goes beyond legal clarity: it is now about building a credible, inclusive, and resilient decentralized finance capable of competing with the standards of the traditional financial system.