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One year after the GENIUS Act was signed into law, stablecoins have gained legitimacy as a business payment rail, but industry executives say the next phase will depend on whether regulators can turn issuance rules into workable <a href="https://yellow.com/research/genius-act-explained-us-legislation-on-stablecoins-and-its-impact-on-crypto" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">banking and settlement infrastructure.</a>
The law, signed on July 18, 2025, created the first federal regulatory framework for U.S. payment stablecoins. It requires 100% reserve backing with assets such as U.S. dollars or short-term Treasuries, monthly public reserve disclosures, and anti-money laundering and sanctions compliance.
<h2 id="stablecoin-growth-gives-businesses-more-confidence">Stablecoin Growth Gives Businesses More Confidence</h2>
The market has grown sharply since then.
The Digital Chamber said the global stablecoin market reached $315 billion in 2026, up from $206 billion at the beginning of 2025, while annual global transaction volume rose to nearly $35 trillion in 2025. It also said real-world stablecoin payments doubled in a year to $390 billion.
For payment companies, the main change has been confidence.
“With the one-year anniversary of the GENIUS Act being signed into law, it is now clear that it has ushered in a significant, positive shift in stablecoin adoption, especially amongst businesses,” Eric Barbier, CEO of Triple-A, told Yellow.com.
Before the law, he said, uncertainty around the legal and regulatory status of stablecoins in the United States created hesitation among businesses. That was especially true for larger enterprises, where payment adoption requires approval across finance, legal, compliance and banking teams.
“A year in, the Act has not just brought regulatory clarity, but also brought stablecoins into the mainstream,” Barbier said.
He said Triple-A, a global payment institution focused on stablecoin-based solutions, has seen growing demand from businesses that are either seriously considering stablecoins or are already in the process of adopting them as a form of payment.
The most visible change inside Triple-A’s own business, he said, has been a “marked reduction” in sales cycles with enterprise-level businesses enabling stablecoin payments through its platform.
“By having such a clear framework now in place, stablecoins are quickly establishing themselves as a trusted, additional payment rail, particularly for cross-border commerce,” Barbier said.
<h2 id="issuance-clarity-is-not-enough">Issuance Clarity Is Not Enough</h2>
The anniversary is also exposing the limits of what the GENIUS Act solved.
For companies operating in cross-border payments, the law clarified who can issue payment stablecoins and under what reserve standards. But it did not fully answer how those stablecoins should move through the banking system, or which party is responsible when regulated banks, payment providers and digital asset firms interact.
“This week marks one year since the GENIUS Act was signed into law, and the anniversary is a useful checkpoint to reflect on how far the industry has come, and where we still need to go,” Diogo Cassinelli, sales and partnerships manager at Trace Finance, said.
“Stablecoin issuance finally has a federal framework, which is an incredible milestone,” he added. “But for operators doing cross-border payments and settlement, issuance clarity was only ever half the problem.”
The Financial Stability Board has also warned that stablecoins remain a small part of global cross-border payments. It estimated global cross-border payments at about $200 trillion in 2024, while stablecoin-based cross-border payments were estimated by some measures at less than 0.2% of total cross-border payments in 2025.
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Cassinelli said the missing piece is a shared legal standard banks can rely on when working with stablecoin payment companies.
“In cross-border payments, every new banking relationship requires convincing that institution, independently, that what you're doing is compliant, because there's no shared legal standard they can point to,” he said.
That process adds months to timelines that should take weeks, he said, and the cost repeats every time a company enters a new market or adds a new banking partner.
For Cassinelli, that is where the CLARITY Act could become important.
“If CLARITY passes, the biggest unlock will be speed,” he said. “A definitive framework means banks and payment providers can say yes faster because the compliance question has already been answered at the federal level, rather than each institution making its own risk call.”
He added that CLARITY would give large institutions a path to move money with stablecoins while giving startups a clearer map to build for those institutions.
<h2 id="the-rulebook-is-still-not-finished">The Rulebook Is Still Not Finished</h2>
The first year has also revealed a gap between legislative momentum and regulatory execution.
“A year in, the GENIUS Act has clearly succeeded as a legitimization signal,” Alex Witt, general partner at Verda Ventures, said.
He pointed to stablecoin market capitalization rising past $300 billion, transaction volumes roughly quadrupling, institutional players such as Fidelity and Ripple (<a href="https://yellow.com/asset/xrp" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">XRP</a>) securing charters, and Tether (<a href="https://yellow.com/asset/usdt" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">USDT</a>) onshoring through its USA₮ launch with Anchorage.
But Witt said the law’s implementation has not kept pace with the market.
“Regulatory execution has badly lagged: six agencies were supposed to finalize rules by July 18, 2026, yet not one rule is final, leaving the market running on legacy disclosures while charter and Fed-access decisions quietly pick winners before the rulebook exists,” he said.
<h2 id="rulemaking-becomes-the-next-stablecoin-test">Rulemaking Becomes The Next Stablecoin Test</h2>
The rulemaking picture remains active. The OCC has issued a proposed rule covering reserve management, redemption, capital, custody and compliance requirements for permitted payment stablecoin issuers. Its proposal also referenced private-sector forecasts estimating aggregate stablecoin issuance of $500 billion in 2026.
The Federal Reserve was also still preparing stablecoin rules for public comment days before the anniversary deadline, according to Barron’s.
Witt said unresolved issues remain, including the yield ban and the January 2027 backstop effective date.
“The Act’s real test is still the next six months, not the year behind it,” he said.
The first year of the GENIUS Act gave stablecoins legal legitimacy and helped bring enterprises closer to adoption. The second year will show whether that legitimacy can become reliable payment infrastructure.
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Executives Warn Six Agencies Missed The GENIUS Act's Rule Deadline

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