Congress’ “Crypto Week” has lived up to its name: This week marks a historic turning point for digital asset policy in the United States.
On July 18, 2025, President Trump signed into law the GENIUS Act (Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins), making it the United States’ first major federal digital asset-focused law. Only one day before that, on July 17, 2025 – ahead of Trump’s previously voiced August 2025 goal – the U.S. House of Representatives passed the GENIUS Act in the form advanced by the Senate. President Trump had encouraged the House to pass the GENIUS Act without amendment to the Senate version, despite the House having previously developed its own proposed stablecoin legislation, which was known as the STABLE Act.
On the same day that the House passed the GENIUS Act, the House also voted to advance the Digital Asset Market Structure CLARITY Act of 2025 (the “CLARITY Act”), which now moves to the Senate for consideration.
That same day, House also focused its attention on central bank digital currencies (“CBDCs”), passing the Anti-CBDC Surveillance State Act.
Together, these developments set the stage for the beginnings of a potential new U.S. regulatory framework for digital assets designed to achieve President Trump’s promise to make the U.S. the “crypto capital of the planet.”
GENIUS Act: Establishing a Modern Framework for Payment Stablecoins
The GENIUS Act introduces the first U.S. federal regime for payment stablecoins:
- Legal clarity for payment stablecoins: The GENIUS Act provides that permitted payment stablecoins—fully fiat backed and issued by “permitted payment stablecoin issuers”1—are neither “securities” nor “commodities” under existing law. This long-awaited clarification removes such stablecoins from direct Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) oversight for most purposes, streamlining compliance and operational certainty.
- Banking supervision as the standard: Payment stablecoins, when issued by permitted payment stablecoin issuers, will be supervised as banking products. The law lays out rigorous requirements for licensing, reserves, capital, disclosures, and audits. It also provides for dual paths—U.S. federal and state—for licensing and supervision by banking regulators.
- Balancing innovation and safety: By creating a framework for stablecoin innovation anchored by traditional compliance processes and certain consumer protections, the GENIUS Act seeks to promote trusted alternatives for payments and financial inclusion. Among other things, the GENIUS Act sets forth requirements relating to custody and safekeeping of payment stablecoin reserves, requires public disclosure of the permitted payment stablecoin issuer’s redemption policy and limits the use of consumer non-public personal information.
- A critical first step: The GENIUS Act expressly requires substantive follow-on rulemaking by a variety of U.S. federal and state governmental agencies, including the Secretary of the Treasury, FinCEN and others. Among other things, the GENIUS Act directs primary Federal payment stablecoin regulators, and permits primary State payment stablecoin regulators, to issue regulations relating to permitted payment stablecoin issuers and, as a result, establish a payment stablecoin regulatory framework.
CLARITY Act: Defining Market Structure for Digital Assets
The CLARITY Act, if passed by the Senate in its current form, would go beyond the GENIUS Act and introduce a legal architecture for digital asset markets:
- Defining regulatory boundaries: The CLARITY Act would draw clearer lines between digital commodities (subject to CFTC oversight) and digital asset securities (regulated by the SEC), resolving years of regulatory ambiguity and overlapping—and sometimes conflicting—regulatory approaches. Similar to the GENIUS Act, however, substantive follow-on rulemaking by Federal agencies will be necessary in order to implement the CLARITY Act’s contemplated digital asset market structure framework. As such, if the House’s proposed version of the CLARITY Act were to be passed by the Senate and, ultimately, signed into law by President Trump, it would represent an important first step, yet the first of many additional steps that are still to come.
- Concrete asset definitions: “Digital asset” would become a codified statutory term, along with “digital commodities” and “investment contract assets”—determined by their unique features and use cases.
- Modern market requirements: The CLARITY Act sets standards for digital commodity exchanges, brokers, dealers, and custodians; mandates registration and operational transparency; and creates frameworks for SEC–CFTC collaboration, including the potential for dual registration.
- Alignment with GENIUS Act: The CLARITY Act specifically incorporates key stablecoin definitions and requirements from the GENIUS Act, ensuring consistency and integration across the evolving digital assets regulatory environment.
- Potential for future changes to the GENIUS Act: While GENIUS Act proponents were successful in achieving House passage in the form previously passed by the Senate, objections to certain GENIUS Act provisions were not necessarily fully abandoned by some Congressional lawmakers. In its current form, the comprehensive CLARITY Act also addresses topics concerning permitted payment stablecoins. As such, it remains possible that, in the event the CLARITY Act becomes U.S. law one day, the version of the CLARITY Act that is passed by the full Congress could contain amendments to the GENIUS Act. In effect, the CLARITY Act may operate in parallel with, and in certain respects amend or supplement, the GENIUS Act framework.
Anti-CBDC Surveillance State Act: Drawing a Line on a Digital Dollar
Also on July 17, 2025, the House passed the Anti-CBDC Surveillance State Act (H.R. 1919), barring a Federal Reserve bank from issuing a CBDC or related product or service directly to individuals without specific congressional authorization, or to use a CBDC to implement monetary policy. This is consistent with President Trump’s January 23, 2025, Executive Order, prohibiting CBDC development, establishment, issuance or promotion. The bill, which now moves to the Senate for consideration:
- Would amend the Federal Reserve Act, restricting the central bank’s ability to implement a retail CBDC absent express Congressional approval.
- Reflects bipartisan concern about privacy, government overreach and preserving the integrity of the U.S. banking system.
Why This Matters
Importantly, the GENIUS Act is the only digital asset-related legislation that has been passed by both houses of Congress. It may take materially longer to achieve Senate passage of the ambitious, market structure-focused CLARITY Act. Indeed, some have expressed concerns that, following the historic Crypto Week achievements, some in Congress could take their “foot off of the gas pedal” with respect to passing additional digital asset-related legislation, having just achieved a significant win by passing the GENIUS Act.
Nevertheless, when viewed together, the GENIUS Act’s passage, and the advancement to the Senate of the CLARITY Act and the Anti-CBDC Surveillance State Act, appear to aim to:
- Provide digital asset market participants with long-sought clarity about key questions, such as whether a given digital asset is a security, a commodity or a permitted payment stablecoin and which regulator has appropriate jurisdiction.
- Send a clear message that the U.S. welcomes responsible digital asset-related innovation.
- Stop U.S. retail CBDCs: While permitted payment stablecoins may drive digital payments innovation, a Federal Reserve–issued retail CBDC would remain off-limits—unless and until Congress says otherwise.
Looking Ahead
With the GENIUS Act now signed into U.S. law, and the CLARITY Act and Anti-CBDC Surveillance State Act awaiting Senate consideration, the digital asset policy landscape has developed significantly in many respects this week, and the U.S. has taken a giant leap forward in demonstrating progress in the digital asset sector. Congressional actions during Crypto Week have signaled to crypto and fintech innovators that, in the U.S., greater legal certainty is on the horizon, and important first steps have been taken to further open the U.S. marketplace to digital assets.
For those in the digital asset space looking to build in the United States or access the U.S. market, understanding these emerging frameworks will be key. We are here to help.
We will continue to monitor these exciting developments and welcome any questions that you may have.
1 As defined in the GENIUS Act, the term “permitted payment stablecoin issuer” means a person formed in the United States that is—
(A) a subsidiary of an insured depository institution that has been approved to issue payment stablecoins under section 5 of the GENIUS Act;
(B) a Federal qualified payment stablecoin issuer; or
(C) a State qualified payment stablecoin issuer.
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