Treasury Proposes GENIUS Act Stablecoin Rules As Trump-Backed World Liberty Trust Secures OCC Approval

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Trend One: U.S. Stablecoin Regulation Moves From Statute to Rulebook

On August 17, the U.S. Treasury Department published a proposed rule implementing Section 3 of the GENIUS Act, the provision governing who may issue a payment stablecoin in the United States. The rule runs on two dates. From the law's expected effective date of January 18, 2027, issuing a payment stablecoin domestically is unlawful unless the issuer holds a federal or state license, or is a foreign issuer from a jurisdiction Treasury deems to have a comparable regime and that has registered with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. From July 18, 2028, digital asset service providers may not offer or sell such a token to a U.S. person unless a licensed U.S. issuer or a qualifying foreign issuer created it.

Treasury declined to model the rule on securities law, arguing traditional investment rules "may frustrate" what payment stablecoins are built to do. For offshore issuers it set a conduct test: an issuer is treated as not having issued in the U.S. if it reasonably believes its buyers are abroad, keeps controls "actually implemented" rather than adopted "on paper," and does not market to U.S. persons. The department posed 87 questions and set a 60-day comment window scheduled from Tuesday. Criminal exposure extends beyond the issuer itself — acting as a market maker for an unlawful new stablecoin, supplying a brand in a white-label deal, or coordinating minting or solicitation may each count as participation, carrying up to $1 million per knowing violation, five years in prison, or both. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the goal is to "cement the role of the U.S. dollar as the world's reserve currency."

The same day brought a concrete case of that political capital. The OCC granted preliminary conditional approval to World Liberty Trust Company, the national trust bank that the Trump-backed World Liberty Financial created to bring its stablecoin under federal supervision. The decision lets the entity organize but not yet open. The bank, based in Bay Harbor Islands, Florida, is wholly owned by WLTC Holdings LLC; its proposed activities are dollar-backed stablecoin issuance, redemption, and reserve maintenance in a nonfiduciary capacity, digital asset custody as a fiduciary, and conversion services. It plans to issue USD1 to institutional clients nationwide, taking over from BitGo Bank & Trust, currently USD1's exclusive issuer. USD1, the stablecoin World Liberty launched in March 2025, has a market capitalization around $4 billion. Zachary Witkoff, CEO of World Liberty and son of Trump Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, is listed as organizer, director, and president.

The approval expires if capital is not raised within 12 months or the bank does not open within 18 months. OCC has issued similar conditional approvals to Coinbase, Paxos, BitGo, Ripple, and Circle. After the decision, Senator Elizabeth Warren said she and other Democrats would introduce the Ending Presidential Corruption in Banking Act, barring senior officials from owning or controlling a bank; Senators Angela Alsobrooks and Ruben Gallego signed on.

Trend Two: EU MiCA Enters Enforcement Phase

On August 15, Austria's Financial Market Authority fined crypto platform Bitpanda €70,000 ($82,000) for violating MiCA — the watchdog's first published final penalty under the regulation. The FMA said Bitpanda failed to submit a crypto-asset white paper at least 20 working days before publication and distributed a marketing communication before the white paper was published. A second marketing communication omitted the mandatory disclosure that it had not been reviewed or approved by a competent authority, and lacked a required telephone number and email address. Bitpanda said the issues were limited to timing and formal requirements, that customer funds and platform security were unaffected, and that it opted for a swift, consensual conclusion.

On August 14, CoinDesk reported that MiCA's compliance deadline is breeding a new scam wave across the EU: fraudsters impersonating regulators and licensed exchanges lure users into migrating accounts and then steal funds. The two stories sit on the same timeline — as the grace period ends and enforcement begins, the boundary between compliance and exploitation is being tested on both sides.

Trend Three: Enterprise Payments Keep Broadening the Stablecoin Use Case

On August 17, HR platform Deel expanded its dollar-backed stablecoin DLUSD to more than 80 countries across Latin America, Africa, and the Middle East, extending its role in cross-border enterprise payroll and contractor payments. DLUSD is issued through Stripe's Bridge platform and settled via Tempo.

Also this week, COCA integrated Aurora Intents to enable cross-chain stablecoin deposits, removing the friction of chain-by-chain transfer requirements for assets such as USDC on Solana. In parallel, CoinDesk flagged Circle and Coinbase's USDC collaboration as a point of focus ahead of the FOMC minutes release.

Trend Four: Risk-Off Flows Pivot Away From Bitcoin

On the macro side, spot bitcoin ETFs posted a $389.7 million net outflow in the week of August 10, the largest single-week outflow since late June. The dollar index fell to a three-month low, gold rose 9.3%, and bitcoin gained only 0.7% over the same window. U.S. Treasury data showed foreign holdings fell $72.1 billion in June to $9.3 trillion, with China, the U.K., and Japan all trimming positions — the third decline in four months.