One year ago, on July 18, 2025, President Trump signed the GENIUS Act into law, transforming how stablecoins (digital assets pegged to the U.S. dollar) are regulated in the U.S.  The law established a clear federal framework for stablecoins and became part of history as the first major piece of crypto legislation ever signed into law in the U.S.  

The GENIUS Act requires stablecoin issuers to maintain 1:1 reserves in safe assets such as U.S. dollars and short-term Treasuries, publish monthly reports, and comply with anti-money laundering rules. The trust that comes with knowing there is strong federal oversight for stablecoins has been a key unlock to the growth of the asset class. 

The Results 

When the rules became clear, people began building. Major companies took notice almost immediately; Visa, Mastercard, J.P. Morgan, and more integrated or announced stablecoin payment products following the law’s passage. 

  • The global stablecoin market has reached $315 billion in market capitalization in 2026, more than 50% growth from the $206 billion market cap at the beginning of 2025.  
  • Annual global transaction volume surged to nearly $35 trillion in 2025, a figure that rivals major credit card networks.  
  • Real-world stablecoin payments, including businesses paying suppliers, families sending money home, people buying goods, and more, have doubled in a single year to $390 billion. 

Beyond our Borders 

The ripple effect from Washington went global; regulators everywhere watched the U.S. draw clear lines and started drawing their own. 

Stablecoin adoption has been particularly transformative in Latin America. As detailed in Latin America’s Surge in the Global Race to Adopt Stablecoins, the region has become a global leader in stablecoin usage, driven by people seeking to protect their savings from inflation, send remittances cheaply, and access dollar-denominated accounts without a U.S. bank. This effectively turns the citizens in those countries into buyers of U.S. Treasuries and depositors into U.S. bank accounts. The GENIUS Act’s clear framework accelerated this by giving international users and issuers confidence that dollar-backed stablecoins were built on solid ground. 

  • Australia introduced stablecoin legislation in late 2025 and adopted it in April 2026, treating stablecoins as regulated payment products and requiring compliance with standard Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) regulations. 
  • The EU’s MiCA regulation paved the way for licensed euro-backed stablecoins; Decta’s 2025 report noting that monthly transaction volume rose 899% after MiCA’s rollout. 
  • The Asia-Pacific region is racing to be a hub for regulated digital finance, with frameworks such as Hong Kong’s Project Ensemble, South Korea’s Capital Markets and Electronic Securities Acts, Singapore’s Project Guardian, and more. 
  • Stablecoins now account for roughly 43% of all crypto transaction volume in Sub-Saharan Africa, where people use dollar-pegged digital assets to protect their savings from local-currency inflation. 
  • The Bank of England in the UK revised its pound sterling stablecoin proposal, eliminating a £200,000 limit on individual holders and raising the issuance cap to £40 billion.  

The Takeaway 

Clear rules don’t slow innovation down. They speed it up. Before the GENIUS Act, banks and institutions often wouldn’t touch stablecoins for fear that investments would be lost to shifting regulatory winds. And developers couldn’t build products if they didn’t know whether those products were legal. 

When the U.S. defined the rules of the road, the market responded, and that’s exactly why finishing the job with a market structure bill like the Clarity Act matters now. The GENIUS Act addressed the questions surrounding stablecoins, but the U.S. has yet to clearly define where Bitcoin, Ethereum, and thousands of other digital assets fit within our regulatory system.  

We are closer than ever to market structure rules of the road. The House passed a version of a market structure bill last year. The Senate Banking Committee advanced its portion of the bill in May 2026, just months after the Senate Agriculture Committee passed its portion of the bill. Negotiations are actively blending those bills, so the full Senate can continue pushing the bill towards the President’s desk. 

One year in, the lesson of the GENIUS Act is clear: America leads when it sets standards. The world follows when we do. Now is the time to build on that momentum and set the standard for market structure.  and asset control. Done right, the rule can support effective enforcement while giving responsible PPSIs the clarity they need to build in the United States.