One year later, GENIUS Act just made stablecoins easier to sell

Here is the latest from the digital-asset markets: On the eve of the GENIUS Act’s first anniversary, the stablecoin market holds about $310 billion, including roughly $184 billion in USDT and $73 billion in USDC. President Donald Trump signed the law on July 18, 2025, creating a federal framework with one-for-one liquid reserves, redemption rights, and monthly reserve disclosures for a market that moved faster than the rulebook. Federal Reserve researchers measured stablecoin capitalization at $317 billion on Apr.

6, up more than 50% from early 2025, and recorded a 50% increase in Ethereum stablecoin transaction volume since enactment. As of July 17, core implementation measures are still in proposal form. Kyle Sonlin, president and co-founder of Global Settlement Network, said his conversations with governments and institutions now start from acceptance of stablecoins as financial infrastructure, and his team spends “far less time explaining why stablecoins matter.

Market Dynamics

” Total stablecoin market cap ~$310B Shows GENIUS is regulating a large, systemically relevant market Fed April 6 stablecoin market cap estimate $317B Confirms market crossed the $300B threshold during GENIUS’s first year Market-cap growth since early 2025 >50% Shows adoption accelerated before implementation finished USDT market cap ~$184B Highlights Tether’s continued dominance USDC market cap ~$73B Shows Circle remains the largest regulated-U. -aligned competitor Ethereum stablecoin transaction volume since enactment +50% Shows activity increased alongside capitalization Permission reached the sales desk Sonlin described GENIUS as a credible federal direction that let banks, payment companies, and infrastructure providers commit money to longer-term plans. He said that financial infrastructure rarely reorganizes within 12 months, and companies kept preparing for a regulated stablecoin market as agencies worked through implementation.

Triple-A CEO Eric Barbier sees the commercial result inside the enterprise sales funnel. His payment company has recorded more businesses moving from evaluation toward implementation, plus a “marked reduction” in sales cycles for enterprise customers that enable stablecoin payments through its platform. Barbier’s evidence covers Triple-A’s own pipeline, providing the legitimacy thesis with a concrete operational measure.

Visa’s expansion offers a larger institutional reference point, as its 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 financial institutions and fintech firms with access to stablecoin storage, redemption, minting, and burning through a single Visa-managed environment. The sales environment now has a recognized product, a federal direction, and payment incumbents building access layers.

Market Impact

Deployment depends on banks, custody arrangements, reserve operations, and compliance teams that interpret unfinished rules for each relationship. Banking friction survives Diogo Cassinelli, sales and partnerships manager at Trace Finance, said that clarity on issuance addressed half of the operating problem. Cross-border payment companies still need each banking partner to make an independent compliance judgment about how stablecoins enter accounts, leave accounts and settle across jurisdictions.

Cassinelli said those reviews add “months to timelines that should take weeks,” and the cost repeats whenever an operator enters a new country or adds another bank. Stablecoin providers can close a customer faster under GENIUS, then spend longer connecting that customer to the banks and payment providers that move the money. The GENIUS Act shortened customer sales cycles as bank-by-bank compliance, custody and settlement reviews continued to slow stablecoin integration.

Enterprise buyers now understand the use case and accept the federal direction. Banking partners still need a shared legal and supervisory standard that lets compliance teams approve the same activity consistently. Edwin Mata, CEO and co-founder of Brickken, placed that plumbing inside a larger capital-markets architecture.

Crypto markets are watching this development closely as investors weigh its potential impact on prices.