June 17 The US Senate passed a bill known as the GENIUS Act, to create a regulatory framework for cryptocurrency tokens pegged to the US dollar. For the GENIUS Act to take effect, it must be passed by the House of Representatives, after which the document will be on President Donald Trump’s desk for approval. This is expected to happen by August.
However, even this was enough to boost activity. Shares of Circle, which issues the USDC stablecoin, rose by 33%. Shares of Coinbase, the company behind USDC, jumped 16%. And the total capitalization of the stablecoin market reached a new historical high of $250 billion.
However, this news was not received positively by everyone, as there are many pitfalls.
Stablecoins — a type of cryptocurrency that maintains a constant value, usually pegged to the dollar (or other fiat currency) in a 1:1 ratio. Such coins are usually used by crypto traders to move value between different tokens. In recent years, their use has grown rapidly, as stablecoins can be used for instant payments with very low fees.
If the stablecoin bill is signed into law, it will require that tokens issued by US companies be backed by liquid assets such as US dollars and short-term treasury bills. It will also require that issuers report their reserves publicly on a monthly basis.
In the last year’s elections, crypto companies spent more than $119 million to support pro-cryptocurrency candidates for Congress. They also spent a lot of money to promote Donald Trump.
The crypto industry has long insisted that the rules for stablecoins should be approved by law. It seems to be a good thing. But the Trump family’s various cryptocurrency projects threaten to destroy confidence in the digital asset sector. Although the White House has stated that Donald Trump has no conflict of interest because the assets of World Liberty Financial are held in a trust fund managed by the children of the US president. However, the loss of investors’ funds on price manipulation MELANIA and TRUMP memecoins make you think (but not everyone). Trump earned $57.35 million from the sale of tokens in World Liberty Financial in 2024, and the sale of TRUMP brought in approximately $320 million (the profit was distributed among several investors).
«By moving forward with these bills, lawmakers have missed an opportunity to confront Trump’s cryptocurrency scam — the most egregious corruption in the history of the presidency», — said Bartlett Naylor, a financial policy attorney at Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy group.
Trump’s crypto empire now includes not only memecoins, the World Liberty Financial platform and the USD1 stablecoin it issued, but also American Bitcoin mining farm.
The Trump Media & Technology Group has filed an application with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to launch a Bitcoin and Ethereum-based exchange-traded fund called the Truth Social Bitcoin & Ethereum ETF. Also in September Trump’s company plans to release T1 smartphone. Trump Media and Technology Group, which is behind Truth Social, also will spend $2.5 billion to create a bitcoin treasury.
The GENIUS Act will also give broad powers to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who has already saidthat the US stablecoin market could grow almost eightfold (to more than $2 trillion) over the next few years.
Democrats have expressed concern that the bill will not prevent large tech companies from issuing their own private stablecoins. They also demanded that the legislation provide stronger anti-money laundering protections and ban foreign issuers.
Oregon Democratic Senator Jeff Merkley accused Republicans in «approving Trump’s cryptocurrency corruption» and allowing the president to sell «access to government for personal profit».
Merkley demanded an amendment that would have prohibited elected officials from making personal profits from digital assets, but Republican lawmakers blocked all attempts to hold a vote.
The GENIUS bill was sent to the House of Representatives, which has its version called STABLE. Both prohibit revenue-generating consumer stablecoins, but differ on who regulates what. The Senate version centralizes oversight in the Treasury Department, while the House divides authority among the Federal Reserve, the Comptroller of the Currency, and other agencies.
Last year, the volume of transactions with stablecoins reached $28 trillion, which exceeded the volume of transactions of Mastercard and Visa combined.
Despite the critical perception of these tokens by many companies, even more are interested in them. Shopify has already launched USDC-based payments via Coinbase and Stripe. The CEO of Bank of America is exploring the possibility of issuing stablecoins, Uber is also considering integrating. French banking giant Societe Generale to issue USD CoinVertible, a dollar stablecoin (USDCV).
However, there are certain restrictions. The GENIUS Act prohibits non-financial large tech companies from directly issuing stablecoins unless they establish or cooperate with regulated financial institutions. Although, according to rumors, Amazon and Walmart want their own stablecoins which will allow you to avoid paying Visa and Mastercard fees.
Meanwhile, JPMorgan Chase has been cunning and launched the JPMD deposit token on the Base blockchain, which functions as a stablecoin but is tightly integrated with the traditional banking system. JPMD is available only to institutional clients and offers round-the-clock payments and interest payments.
Offshore stablecoins, i.e. those issued by companies registered in countries with low or zero taxation, dominate this niche. But the US is actively increasing its capacity. Over the past year, the supply of American stablecoins, such as USDC (from Circle) and PYUSD (from PayPal), doubled: by 104% or $67.5 billion.
Non-U.S. stablecoins, the largest by capitalization, including USDT (from Tether), USDE (from Ethena), DAI (from MakerDAO), and USDS (from Sky protocol), showed an increase of 41%. But they still make up the majority of the global stablecoin market.
The growth in the supply of US stablecoins reflects demand from institutional investors, which is supported by government regulation and renewed confidence in US issuers.
For example, the USD1 stablecoin, launched by Trump’s crypto platform World Liberty Financial in April, is already among the top 5 coins by market capitalization of $2.19 billion.
The total capitalization of the stablecoin market has reached a historic $250 billion.