The statute
The GENIUS Act (Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins Act), Pub. L. 119-27, is the first comprehensive federal law governing payment stablecoins in the United States. Signed into law on July 18, 2025, and derived from Senate Bill S. 1582 (139 Stat. 419), it establishes a tiered licensing regime requiring all payment stablecoin issuers to obtain federal or state approval.
The Act prohibits any person other than a permitted payment stablecoin issuer from issuing a payment stablecoin in the United States, and mandates that issuers maintain reserves equal to 100% of outstanding stablecoins in high-quality liquid assets such as Treasury bills, overnight repos, and Federal Reserve deposits.
Key provisions
- § 3 — Prohibits unauthorized issuance of payment stablecoins; criminal penalties up to $1M per violation.
- § 4 — Sets reserve, disclosure, audit, and BSA compliance requirements for permitted issuers.
- § 5 — Approval of insured depository institution subsidiaries and Federal qualified issuers.
- § 6 — Supervision and enforcement.
- § 7 — State qualified payment stablecoin issuers.
- § 11 — Payment stablecoin holders have senior claims over reserve assets in insolvency.
- § 17 — Clarifies that payment stablecoins are not securities or commodities.
- § 18 — Establishes reciprocity and conditions for foreign payment stablecoin issuers.
Intersection with state law
The GENIUS Act creates a federal floor but preserves state authority over State qualified payment stablecoin issuers with outstanding issuance under $10 billion. States must have their regulatory regime certified as "substantially similar" to the federal framework by the Stablecoin Certification Review Committee chaired by the Secretary of the Treasury.
New Hampshire's HB 310 (NH Token Commission) and the stable token initiative bear directly on how the state may elect to participate in this regime. See The GENIUS Dilemma.
Related work
How to contribute
- Report errors in the statutory text via GitHub Issues.
- Propose features — annotations, cross-references, comparison tools.
- Fork and build — the display tool is a single HTML file + Markdown source. MIT licensed.
Pub. L. 119-27 — July 18, 2025
Maintained by Seth C. Oranburg, Professor of Law, UNH Franklin Pierce School of Law.