US agencies miss GENIUS Act stablecoin rule deadline
US regulators have failed to finalize stablecoin rules under the GENIUS Act, leaving digital asset issuers without clear compliance guidance as the industry pushes for broader market structure legislation.
Saturday marked one year since President Donald Trump signed the GENIUS Act into law, establishing the first comprehensive federal framework for stablecoins. Despite the statutory deadline, US regulators have not issued a single final rule. Instead, agencies including the Federal Reserve, the Treasury Department and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency have only published 10 notices of proposed rulemaking, according to trackers from law firm Chapman and crypto investment firm Paradigm.
The missed deadline does not invalidate the underlying legislation. However, it leaves stablecoin issuers navigating ongoing regulatory uncertainty. Without finalized guidelines, firms lack the clarity needed to fully structure their compliance operations.
The 10 proposals span a wide range of operational demands. The Treasury Department alone issued four, addressing foreign issuer registration, anti-money laundering compliance and how state regimes compare to federal standards. Other agencies focused on supervision, with the FDIC and OCC tackling reserve management and approval requirements for nationally chartered issuers, while an interagency proposal sought to harmonize oversight across the banking system.
Next legislative frontier
While agencies grind through stablecoin rulemaking, industry players are looking ahead. Federally chartered crypto bank Anchorage Digital is using the anniversary to lobby for the CLARITY Act, which would establish a federal framework for the wider digital asset market. “On GENIUS’ one-year anniversary, we’re renewing our call for Congress to pass the CLARITY Act and extend the clear market-structure rules that worked for stablecoins to the broader digital asset economy,” the firm wrote in a Friday report.
That broader bill faces its own political hurdles. Traditional banking groups are pushing back, with the American Bankers Association and the Independent Community Bankers of America writing to Senate leaders on July 13 to demand more detail on the CLARITY Act’s stablecoin yield provisions. The groups argued that new amendments must prevent payment stablecoins from acting as deposit substitutes rather than pure transaction tools.
Those fractures, combined with procedural delays, are dampening market expectations. Galaxy Digital lowered its probability of the CLARITY Act becoming law in 2026 to 50 percent in late June. The firm cited a lack of unified text between the Senate Banking and Agriculture committees, an absent floor schedule and a rapidly closing legislative window before lawmakers leave Washington.
