We Need to Fix the So-Called GENIUS Bill
0It takes a STABLE GENIUS to anoint 55 regulators for stablecoins, says James J. Angel, finance professor at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business.
A bipartisan majority in the Senate has just passed the GENIUS Act to provide a regulatory framework for stablecoins. A similar bill, the STABLE Act, is working its way through the House. President Trump wants to sign a stablecoin bill into law this year, so it looks like we are well on our way to a long overdue regulatory regime for stablecoins.
Or are we? We shouldn’t count our chickens before they hatch. The proposed legislation is flawed and can and should be fixed promptly to eliminate needless duplication that will impose excess costs on the industry and the taxpayer.
Fortunately, the legislation can easily be fixed. The House and Senate bills, although broadly similar, have some differences, and the two chambers will have to come to an agreement. Will the resulting bill be known as the STABLE GENIUS Act? There is still time to avoid problems like the choice of 55 different regulators, or keeping interest-bearing stablecoins out of the regulatory framework.
The problems in our obsolete regulatory framework have contributed to the sorry state of crypto regulation in the U.S. We have literally hundreds of different financial regulatory agencies at the state and federal levels, and they don’t play nicely together. The regulators engage in turf battles to extend their domains, while other important issues fall into the neglected cracks. FTX was regulated by state money transmitter regulators, of all people. Whose bright idea was that?
This fragmentation of our regulatory system was one of the contributing factors to the financial crisis of 2008. Congress’s response in the Dodd-Frank legislation was to add yet another layer of bureaucracy, the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC). The idea behind the FSOC is that the dukes and earls in charge of the regulatory fiefdoms would get together in a committee and cooperate more than they had before. Congress is about to repeat this mistake by requiring joint rulemaking from the alphabet soup agencies.
This byzantine bureaucracy has slowed a sound approach to digital assets. A case in point is the battle over whether a particular digital asset is a Security under the infamous Howey test, and thus subject to the whims of the SEC, or a Something Else, and thus subject to the different dictates of the Something Else Regulators (CFTC? CFPB? state banking or money transmitter regulator?).
We are all familiar with the contortions that issuers of digital assets have gone through to avoid the Kafka-esque SEC experience. Even TradFi issuers of securities do their best to take advantage of the many exceptions to SEC registration whenever they can. SEC oversight is an overly expensive and cumbersome process, especially for newer and smaller companies. The SEC has been spectacularly unsuccessful over the years in properly scaling registration requirements to the size of scope of newer and smaller enterprises.
The proposed bills would permit issuers to choose from 55 different regulators by establishing themselves in the right jurisdiction with the right kind of charter. In addition to the alphabet soup at the federal level (FDIC, OCC, Fed, NCUA, and, for security-stablecoins, the SEC), stablecoin issuers could also choose a state regulator. With a choice of 55 different regulators, what...
https://www.coindesk.com/opinion/2025/06/18/we-need-to-fix-the-so-called-genius-bill
#crypto #bitcoin #ethereum #cryptocurrency #news #blockchain #litecoin #cryptonews #cryptonewstoday #cryptoworld #cryptonewstoday ***NOT FINANCIAL, LEGAL, OR TAX ADVICE! JUST OPINION! I AM NOT AN EXPERT! I DO NOT GUARANTEE A PARTICULAR OUTCOME I HAVE NO INSIDE KNOWLEDGE! YOU NEED TO DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH AND MAKE YOUR OWN DECISIONS! THIS IS JUST ENTERTAINMENT!
This information is what was found publicly on the internet. This information could’ve been doctored or misrepresented by the internet. All information is meant for public awareness and is public domain. This information is not intended to slander harm or defame any of the actors involved but to show what was said through their social media accounts. Please take this information and do your own research.
bitcoin, blockchain, crypto, cryptocurrency, altcoin, investment, ethereum, bitcoin crash, xrp, cardano, ripple