One Year After GENIUS Act, Stablecoin Sales Accelerate

President Donald Trump signed the GENIUS Act on July 18, 2025. The law requires one-for-one liquid reserves, redemption rights and monthly reserve disclosures for regulated stablecoins. Firms report shorter enterprise sales cycles as the market reached about $310 billion on the law’s first anniversary.

Federal Reserve researchers estimated stablecoin capitalization at $317 billion on April 6, a gain of more than 50% since early 2025. Ethereum stablecoin transaction volume rose roughly 50% after the statute was enacted. Market composition remains concentrated, with about $184 billion in USDT and $73 billion in USDC.

Kyle Sonlin, president and co-founder of Global Settlement Network, described client conversations as starting from acceptance of stablecoins as part of financial infrastructure and reported his team spends “far less time explaining why stablecoins matter.” Eric Barbier, chief executive of payments firm Triple-A, reported more enterprise customers moving from evaluation to implementation and described a “marked reduction” in sales cycles.

Large payments firms and banks are building infrastructure that other firms can plug into. Visa’s stablecoin settlement pilot supported nine blockchains by April and reached a $7 billion annualized settlement run rate, up 50% from the previous quarter. On July 16, Visa introduced an enterprise platform that provides stablecoin storage, redemption, minting and burning through a single Visa-managed environment for banks and fintechs.

Operational and banking frictions persist. Each banking partner must complete independent compliance reviews of how tokens enter, leave and settle across accounts and jurisdictions. Diogo Cassinelli, sales and partnerships manager at Trace Finance, reported those reviews add “months to timelines that should take weeks,” and that the delay repeats when a firm adds a new banking relationship or enters a new country. Firms say faster customer sign-ups under the federal framework are often followed by longer integration into payment and custody systems.

Regulatory and charter actions have favored firms with capital, legal teams and banking relationships. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency issued conditional approvals in December 2025 for national trust bank applications or conversions involving Ripple, Fidelity Digital Assets, BitGo, Paxos and First National Digital Currency Bank. Tether launched USA₮ in January 2026, naming Anchorage Digital Bank as issuer and Cantor Fitzgerald as reserve custodian and preferred primary dealer.

Agencies have published implementation proposals while leaving key operational details open. The OCC opened a broad implementation proposal in February and federal agencies released an interagency customer-identification proposal in June. Public comments on some proposals remain open through Aug. 21. The statute becomes effective on the earlier of Jan. 18, 2027, or 120 days after regulators issue final implementing regulations.

Investors and founders described both opportunity and concentration risk. Alex Witt, general partner at Verda Ventures, said GENIUS drew institutional firms into the federal perimeter and warned that charter approvals and early product launches could give selected firms an advantage before operating rules are complete. Edwin Mata, CEO and co-founder of Brickken, noted regulated stablecoins can serve as the cash leg for tokenized securities, private credit, funds and asset servicing.

Companies report shorter sales cycles for regulated stablecoins, while bank-by-bank compliance reviews and unfinished agency rules continue to affect integration timelines. Public comment deadlines on Aug. 21 and the statute’s potential effective date of Jan. 18, 2027, remain key near-term dates for finalizing operational rules.