Tedd Huff, CEO of fintech advisory firm Voalyre and host of Fintech Confidential, sits down with Fintech Confidential CI, Robert Musiala, Partner at Baker Hostetler and co-leader of their Web3 and Digital Assets team, to break down what made 2025 the most consequential year in crypto regulation. The SEC reversed course, the Genius Act passed at lightning speed, and stablecoins exploded from $205 billion to $308 billion in market cap. This is the month-by-month breakdown of how regulatory clarity supercharged the entire industry.

The SEC declared most crypto assets are not securities, dismantling years of legal uncertainty. Banks got the green light to offer crypto custody and exchange services. Circle's IPO validated stablecoins as core financial infrastructure. The Genius Act created the first federal stablecoin framework while banning yield payments and imposing strict reserve requirements. NFTs gained legal clarity, DeFi got legitimized, and crypto-native firms started filing for bank charters. If you're building in crypto, investing in blockchain, or trying to understand where regulation is headed in 2026, this breaks down the exact moves that matter.

TAKEAWAYS:

1️⃣ Genius Act created federal stablecoin operating rules

2️⃣ Stables finally legal under federal framework

3️⃣ IRS solves crypto tax confusion overnight

4️⃣ Stablecoin yield payments now completely banned

5️⃣ SEC stops lawsuits, issues guidance instead

LINKS:

Guest: Robert Musiala

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robert-musiala/

Baker Hostetler: https://www.bakerlaw.com/people/robert-musiala

Blockchain Monitor: https://www.blockchainmonitor.com/

Company: Baker Hostetler

Website: https://www.bakerlaw.com/

Web3 & Digital Assets: https://www.bakerlaw.com/practices/web3-digital-assets

Fintech Confidential

Podcast: https://fintechconfidential.com/listen

Notifications: https://fintechconfidential.com/access

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/fintechconfidential

X: https://x.com/FTconfidential

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ABOUT:

Robert Musiala is Partner and co-leader of Baker Hostetler's Web3 and Digital Assets team, providing weekly analysis on the Blockchain Monitor blog. Baker Hostetler is a leading U.S. law firm with over 900 attorneys serving blockchain clients from startups to Fortune 500 companies.

Tedd Huff is the Founder of Voalyre and Diamond D3, professional services consulting firms focused on global payments and marketing. He is also video podcast host and executive producer on the Fintech Confidential network. Over the past 25+ years, he has contributed to FinTech startups as an Advisory Board Member, Co-Founder, and Chief Experience Officer, providing strategic and tactical direction for global companies, focusing on growth while delivering process improvements and user experience-driven value to simplify the complexity of payments.

CHAPTERS:

00:00 Episode Highlights

02:08 Dfns: Wallets as a Service (sponsor)

04:01 2025 Regulatory Changes and Market Impact

04:43 January: SEC's Tone Shift and Market Reactions

06:11 February: The Genius Act Gains Momentum

07:02 March: OCC and SEC Updates

08:27 April: Stablecoins Get the Green Light

09:18 May: OCC and SEC Further Clarifications

10:53 June: Circle's IPO and Market Growth

12:33 July: The Genius Act Becomes Law

14:39 August: SEC's Groundbreaking Statement

16:35 September: Stablecoins and Staking Products

18:55 October: NFT Rulings and Market Reactions

20:50 November: OCC Trust Bank Charters

22:47 December: CFTC and Stablecoin Developments

31:01 Sky Flow: Building Fast and Secure (sponsor)

32:28 Stablecoin Reserve Regulations

34:20 Impact of the Genius Act on DeFi

35:14 Issuer Interest Prohibition and Revenue

38:09 OCC Charters and Crypto Native Firms

39:58 Stablecoin Issuer Strategies

45:14 SEC's 180 Degree Pivot

51:23 OCC Interpretive Letters and Bank Charters

54:24 Key Takeaways for 2025

57:13 Looking Ahead to 2026

01:00:53 Closing Remarks and Fraud Prevention

01:01:25 Hawk AI (sponsor)

01:02:11 Disclaimer

We're really looking at a recap of what happened in 2025

and a little bit of insights to what we think might actually happen in

26 and some things to look out for

the most impactful statement of the

year by the SEC Chair projects.

Crypto quote.

Most crypto assets are not securities, and this is a groundbreaking statement.

The stable coins market was primed for explosive growth.

Now circle's market cap surged from $6.8 billion to $40 billion post Genius

Act, and while USDC circulation and in the month of June hit $60 billion,

then we see circle completing its initial

public offering before the Genius Act is even passed into law.

What a gamble.

Talk about putting your bets down,

essentially saying banks, you can compete with the crypto

exchanges and the crypto native companies.

Why the Genius Act?

Why did it move way faster than anybody expected?

The Europeans have beat us to the punch in stable hood

and regulation, and we of course did not like that one bit here in the us.

So here are the top 10 things that you need to know about the Genius Act.

And so these are some of the key guardrails.

And if you wanna learn more, check out our eight page paper that explains the

entire genius act in plain English.

Bitcoin's share of $2 trillion range.

I can't believe I'm using the word trillion when we're talking about this

stuff now, this year, like you said, it's just, it's been a whirlwind.

There's been so much stuff that's going on.

It's really, there's this.

The snowball effect that started to happen at the beginning of the year,

turning to the month of October.

We have some really interesting news on NFT front non fungible token.

And then in December we have that could be groundbreaking.

And this is from the CFTC.

I mean, that's been a huge change and I think we're gonna see a

lot of that happen in 2026 as as well.

What's interesting is that it's actually also.

Legitimizing the defi space.

One of the things that I feel was one of the major changes in this

area were the banks, the regulators.

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If you're asking how blockchain and crypto fit into your business

strategy, this is built for you.

So let's go ahead and get started.

I'm your host, Ted Huff, the CEO of FinTech advisory firm, Voler, and I'm

here with my confidential informant, rah ciaa, a partner at Baker Hostetler, and

he co-leads their Web3 practice, along with the blog, the blockchain monitor.

So this.

Time we are sitting down.

We're really looking at a recap of what happened in 2025 and a

little bit of insights to what we think might actually happen in 26

and some things to look out for.

One of the things that, that we noticed that are two really big things that,

that really got things rolling, and one was the Genius act, the other

one was the SEC Project Crypto.

And really this is, this really kicked off a bunch of things, so I

do want to kick this episode off.

Really diving in and kind of doing a rollback and hitting on what

happened in each month of the year.

And Rob, I know you spent a lot of time looking at this stuff.

What did January look like for us?

Well, this was a real pivotal year in digital assets, and

it starts in the month of January.

And in January we saw SEC enforcement beginning to pull back and really

signaling a real tone shift from the SEC that started with a groundbreaking

executive order on digital assets that was published, which really

signaled what I would call as the beginning of a new crypto friendly

regulatory environment here in the US That was soon followed by the SEC

beginning to drop enforcement actions.

And over the course of the year, dropped every major crypto

enforcement action, including dozens of cases and investigations

against brand name crypto companies.

And this signaled by and large, the end of the era of what many people call.

SEC Regulation by enforcement, and that was really over as of

January, even beginning in January.

The SEC also published SAB 1 22, which enabled more favorable accounting

treatment for crypto custodians, which resulted in a ripe environment for the

crypto IPOs and private capital raise events that occurred later in the year,

well in January.

Also, I, I think it was really interesting to look at the crypto's total market cap,

really at the beginning of the year, held near about 1.8 to two $2 trillion range

Bitcoin ETFs, stable coin volumes really continued to grow, but at the same time.

Bitcoin's dominance really set as the primary institutional

vehicle for digital assets

in February.

That's really when momentum behind the Genius Act first became real.

The Genius Act was introduced into the Senate and House in the month of February.

The House had its own version of a stable coin bill.

At the same time in that month, the SEC published a staff statement on meme coins.

Stating its position that meme coins that meet certain criteria are not securities.

Well, it's, it's interesting because they identified that most

meme coins meet the criteria.

They're not really securities.

That regulatory clarity really reshaped the meme coin landscape

throughout the entire year of 2025.

It was at a time where memecoin sector value hovered near the a

hundred billion dollar mark, and the leaders like Dogecoin traded in the

tens of billions of market cap with multi-billion dollar daily volumes.

And then in March, we had more updates shifting away

into new ground with the office of the comp control of the currency, the

OCC publishing interpretive letter 1183, which rescinded the requirement

for OCC supervised institutions to receive a quote, non objection letter

before engaging in crypto activities.

In playing English.

What does this mean?

It means a bank doesn't need OCC permission to engage in

crypto activities anymore.

Additionally, in the same month, the SCC published a staff statement on proof of

work mining stating the CC'S view that proof of work mining activities do not

involve the offer and sale of securities.

So that's provided more comfort to the market around securities

law, right, and regulation.

Well, during that same time, I mean the markets really treated March

as this institutional green light month.

They listed the Bitcoin or miners outperformed BTC roughly by 10 to

15 percentage points on the month while the total crypto market.

Briefly reclaimed the $2 trillion mark.

Again, BTC Bitcoin, I mean, the share of that value was actually pushed back

above the 55 to 58% range as investors really rotated more towards the

institutional grade types of exposures.

I'm wondering, Rob, how did that.

Lead into what was going on in April.

Well, in April we saw the Genius Act suddenly accelerating a lot

faster than folks had initially expected part in part due to another SEC statement.

The SEC published a statement on stable coins stating the SEC's view that certain

dollar backed stable coins that meet certain criteria are not securities.

Not only that, but if, if you look at it, April really was

the green light month for stable coins, and we really saw stable

coin supply push towards the mid 260 to $270 billion range on chain.

Stable coin volumes ran nearly at $1 trillion for the month and at least half

a dozen US public companies highlighted new digital asset treasury positions.

Or ETF products on earnings and in their S one filings of all places.

Right?

And then in the month of May, we have more activity from the OCC.

The OCC in May, published interpretive letter 1184, which confirmed that

national banks and Federal Savings associations quote may provide an

outsource cryptocurrency custody and execution services, including buying.

And selling digital assets held in custody on a customer's behalf

at the direction of the customer.

In plain English, you can engage in crypto exchange activities just

like any other crypto exchange.

Additionally, in that same month, the SEC published a staff statement

on protocol state staking.

Uh, this is following on its proof of work statement and in the protocol staking

proof of stake network guidance, it confirmed that certain network activities,

uh, related to proof of stake networks do not involve the offer in sale securities.

Again, giving further confidence to proof of stake network participants

that they're not going to be in violation of the securities laws.

Like I mentioned, April got everything going with Stablecoin, but

in May that activity shifted really from all the experimentation to true scale.

The aggregate stablecoin market climbed to roughly $280 billion, up 37% from the $205

billion that it started at in January.

The SEC's s stake in guidance really opened the door for Ethereum and

Solana staking ETFs that really gave institutions a clean way to hold proof

of stake assets and still earn three to 8% yields through regulated wrappers.

I mean that that is just craziness, but June, it really saw some really

interesting items happen as well.

Circle had their IPO in June.

They raised $1.1 billion price at about $31 a share.

Then it surged 167% on the very first day of trading to $82 and 84

cents, which really set to validate that the stable coins market

was primed for explosive growth.

Now, circles market cap surge to a valuation from $6.8 billion

to $40 billion post Genius Act.

And while USDC circulation continued to grow and in the

month of June hit $60 billion

and, and it fascinates, note that all this is occurring

before Genius is even passed into law.

Additionally, in the month of June, other stablecoin issuers announced new

initiatives including from the issuers of USD one, R-L-U-S-D-U-S-D-G-P-Y-U-S-D,

well, as a new state launched stablecoin by the state of Wyoming,

WYST, and an addition to that, a new stablecoin launched by a, a major US

traditional payments company, fi, USD.

You've got these more and more stable coins being launched

in the US market again before geniuses even passed into law.

Additionally, in that same month of June, the largest bank in France launched a

US dollar backed stable coin in Europe, and the largest US bank launched,

uh, calls a deposit token, which is effectively a stable coin alternative,

all again in the month of June before the Gen Act is even passed into law.

Man, that's crazy.

Rob.

Like with all that going on.

In the first six months of the year.

How did the second half of the year start off in July?

Well, it starts off with a bang because in July, the Genius Act,

it passes both houses of Congress well before most people thought it would.

And it's immediately signed into law and now becomes the law of

the land set to take effect.

Uh, 18 months after it, it's signed into law.

And so we get us stablecoin issuers all of a sudden filing

for OCC National Bank charters.

In large part, because of some of the provisions in the Stablecoin Act,

US Bank regulators published joint guidance for banks to engage in crypto

asset safekeeping for their customers.

And also in July, the SEC published guidance for crypto EETP

applications, exchange trader product applications to streamline the

approval process for crypto ETFs.

And at that point in time, apparently there were dozens and dozens of

these applications in the pipeline waiting for the SEC's approval.

When we.

Ran that episode for, for July.

You know, I, I think there were 70 total applications somewhere around that number

that were sitting there in the backlog, but that didn't stop anything, right?

So in July, SOLANA'S new staking ETF decided to take off running and sprinted

right past $300 million in assets on the back of additional five to 8% yields.

And really what this did for me is it made me see that it was signaling

that institutions have really started to get comfortable taking

regulated risk on proof of staking.

And across the board we saw crypto ETF assets just continue

to grow and grow month over month.

And in July they pushed well into the triple digit billion dollars.

And that isn't the only thing that grew.

The, the supply crept towards the $300 billion mark in stable coins showing

that banks and fintechs, well at the time, were quietly leaning into the

genius framework rather than waiting on the sidelines to see what would happen.

That really starts to show in some of the actions that started to happen after that.

And Rob, what was, what was the big things that you saw in the regulatory

and legal side of the house for August?

In August, we have arguably the most impactful statement

of the year by the SEC Chair, SEC chair.

Paul Atkins in August gave a speech announcing the SEC's project crypto,

and in that speech he stated that quote, most crypto assets are not securities.

End quote.

And this is a groundbreaking statement.

He also indicated that more favorable guidance for the crypto

industry is forthcoming from the SEC, and also in that month, the SEC

published another staff statement.

This one on liquid staking, probably the most specific SEC statement of the

year in the crypto space, where they confirm that certain activities related

to the liquid staking market do not involve the offer and sale of securities.

Again, giving an air of legitimacy, some comfort to the liquid staking

industry that they're not going to be subject to an SEC enforcement action.

Well, I look at August as really being the.

The release and the clearance of XRP that month.

I mean, the Ripple case ended.

A settlement conferred.

XRP is not a security, which you just talked about, that letter coming out.

And then a media after that XRP jumped about 11% to $3 and 27 cents a coin.

And the institutional volumes, they spiked nearly 208% to $12.4 billion.

And really what this did was it briefly pushed it into the number

three spot of market value.

At the same time, Bitcoin's share of total crypto value a hundred

right around the 60% line and the total market capitalization stayed

in the low $2 trillion range.

I can't believe I'm using the word trillion when we're

talking about this stuff now.

But that shows that blockbuster legal wins like this are now moving to specific

assets more and more in the entire market.

And really that set up September for some really interesting announcements.

Rob, what did you see for the regulatory side of the house?

Well, in September from the stablecoin standpoint, we saw

multiple businesses, not just from the crypto native side, but also from the

traditional payments side launch stable coins and stablecoin related products

and services, and then a securities law standpoint in the month of September,

the SEC published two no action letters.

These are the first no action letters addressing the crypto

markets that the SEC has published.

In quite a while, one of those no action letters addressed the token on a specific

DIN decentralized public infrastructure network and stated that that token would

not be considered to be a security.

And so again, this provides a measure of comfort for those working in the

D pin space that they will not be subject to an SEC enforcement action.

Another SEC, no Action letter in the month of September addressed state

trust companies and essentially gave assurance that if they meet certain

criteria, state trust companies can custody crypto assets for customers

in accordance with SEC regulations.

I mean, we keep coming back to the stables.

I think this year was a huge place for stables, and in September, um,

started to feel and look like, at least from my conversations as well

as what was going on in the news.

But stablecoin and staking products really started to look like

core payment and finance tools, especially pegged to dollars.

I mean, if you look at it, it was about.

$1.25 trillion in a single month, which roughly, if we look at the previous year,

I mean, that's 87% year on year growth.

And really the throughput of this is way more than what we were expecting.

And it really starts to put it in perspective of some of the largest,

and this is like several times larger than the largest card networks

and payment wallet providers.

And the thing that's important also to know is that there were some streamlining

listing standards that really started to get that backlog we were talking about

with the staking ETFs on the assembly line and cutting approval times from

about 240 days down to 60 to 75 days.

And that just set off a rapid wave of ETF launches that followed.

Yeah, and this was in definitely the year that the

public markets embraced crypto ETFs.

That's for sure.

Turning to the month of October.

We have some really interesting news on NFT front non fungible tokens,

which we haven't talked about yet.

And in the month of October, a US Federal District Court found that the

board ape NFTs were not securities.

This is a groundbreaking moment for the NFT industry and again,

provides more comfort that companies operating in the NFT space can launch

products and launch NFTs without securities law violation concerns.

Additionally, in the month of October, multiple crypto native firms all of

a sudden filed for National Trust Bank charters with the office of

the comp controller of the currency, and those applications became the

subject of a little bit of a debate.

Well, and it's funny because after the board apes ruling, the NFT

training volumes just climbed again.

Again.

It's so interesting to see how these rulings change the way people.

Feel the risk level because it, it climbed 30% month over month.

From September to October, it grew by 30%.

Now I give you an idea that's $546 million and $10.1 million in sales.

So even at the same time, Ethereum sat roughly at about 25% to give you a, a

perspective from their 2025 all time highs and still Bitcoin finished down.

Quite a bit, roughly 20 to 35% below their 2025 highs and still finished

month down another four to 10%.

Now with Bitcoin, the dominance started to grind back a little bit towards

about 60% on more than $3 billion of net inflows into spot exchange traded funds.

But the one thing that I thought was really interesting also is the fact that

the OCC, national Bank Trust charters had started to roll out and Rob November.

What happened to that announcement when we rolled into November?

As we mentioned on a prior podcast, the bank industry put up

some resistance to these OCC letters.

We'll dig more into that.

But in November, just a couple weeks after the banks had mounted this resistance.

The OCC finalized conditional national Trust bank charters for all

of the companies, all of the crypto native firms that had filed for

those charters, including companies like Ripple Circle, Paxos, and bco.

Even though the industry groups had urged the the OCC to block those charters,

the OCC on one single day approved all those charters and issued a press

release related to those approvals.

And this really signaled to the crypto industry that we have

an OCC that is here to support.

The digital asset space.

And that is not here to act as a moat or blockade to in favor of the banks.

And as I look at November, if you look at the publicly listed

custodians and exchange operators, I mean they really outpaced the, the large

main cap token index by roughly six to nine percentage points on the month.

While the spot funds pulled about 3.2 to $3.8 billion, it nudged

Bitcoin share of total market value back into the 58 to 60% band.

It's kind of funny how it, it drops down into the forties and then

back up in the fifties and sixties.

But I think one of the other cool things that happened in November

also is the IRS and treasury guidance under the revenue procedure 20 25, 31.

Really gave fund issuers a, a clear path to stake assets inside

of exchange traded products.

And it is all done without blowing up the grantor trust tax treatment.

Several sponsors started floating term sheets for products and passing through,

as we've talked about multiple times already today, three to 8% on staking

yields that the shift may suggest that the proof of stake exposure,

a plain price fund is going to feel incomplete without it going forward.

And then in December we have what I would believe is sort

of an unnoticed, largely unnoticed update that could be groundbreaking.

And this is from the CFTC in December, the CFTC approved SPOT Crypto trading

for OMIM under the company's designated contract market license or DCM license,

which is A-C-F-T-C regulated license.

And this signals that the CFTC, which traditionally does not

regulate spot products, may begin taking the lead in regulating

spot crypto exchanges in the us.

And if that were to be the case, that would really be groundbreaking because it

would be a new way for exchanges to, uh, gain the regulatory approvals they need

to trade spot crypto in the US market.

Additionally, the federal banking regulators issued their first proposed

rule outlining a process for stablecoin issuers to submit applications.

Under the Genius Act, and this is all going to lead up to what

I believe will be a flood of Genius Act applications in 2026.

Well, and those applications are not gonna slow down because in

December, SoFi also became the first nationally chartered bank to launch a

stable coin, the SoFi USD, on a public chain, and has decided it's gonna position

itself as a stable coins as a service infrastructure for other institutions.

At the same time, the largest video creator platform began offering its

US creators payout options and PY USD, alongside of their fiat payouts.

Now, what this tells me is that stable coins have no longer stayed a side bet.

This little thing that we try out a little bit, they are squarely sitting directly.

Inside of each one of these organizations revenue stack.

I agree.

And with SoFi becoming the first bank to issue its own stablecoin,

you better believe there'll be more banks looking to launch stable

coins or offer similar stablecoin infrastructure services in 2026.

And what a whirlwind of a year for the digital assets space.

Can't believe we just covered it all or attempted to cover

it all in about 15 minutes

and we left out so many things.

It was so hard to pick the one, like the couple things to hit on each month

because this year, like you said, it's just, it's been a whirlwind.

There's been so much stuff that's going on.

But I think what it shows as we go through that is really, there's this, this

snowball effect that started to happen at the beginning of the year and it just

keeps growing and getting more momentum and getting all these different things in.

The first real catalyst that was the enforcement pressure coming off.

Then you have the regulators, the legislators, throwing the anchor down,

and that being the genius act to do that, I think it's just been, it's been kind

of crazy to see that move at that point.

Yeah, and, and I, I really agree with, and like your analogy

of the snowball effect, we can get into a little bit of the detail and like how

that operated specifically with Genius.

I'm happy to talk to that if you like.

Ted,

what would be really interesting is from your perspective,

I mean you, you covered the regulatory side of the house to

a level that is second to none.

Help us understand why the Genius Act mattered.

And one of the things that I thought was really ing is that how

fast it happened, why did it move way faster than anybody expected?

Yeah, it really did move faster than I, certainly faster

than I anticipated, and looking back over the course of the year.

You can sort of put the pieces together and see sort of how it happened.

And it really begins in my view, actually with late 2024 with the European MICA

legislation, which created a pathway for reg regulated stable coins in the eu.

And that I think by and large, a little bit of a sense of urgency for

the US Congress and a little bit of a sense of FOMO for the US market.

Seeing that the Europeans have beat us to the punch in stablecoin regulation,

and we of course did not like that one bit here in the US and wanted to

make some moves to get ahead of that.

That really drove a lot of what we saw at the beginning of 2025.

That moved into very quick introduction of the Genius Act and the Payment Stablecoin

Act, the two bills that were introduced into Congress in February, 2025.

But then we see the SEC issue, its own statement on stable coins in April, almost

preempting the Genius Act and saying, well, from an SEC standpoint, this is how

we're going to treat these stable coins.

In particular stable coins that are Heather reserves examined monthly by US

public accounting firms, which are by and large the type of stable coins that the

market has accepted in the US already.

Then we see circle, uh, as we noted in the lightning round.

Completing its initial public offering before the Genius

Act is even passed into law.

So what, what a gamble.

I mean, talk about putting your bets down

and, and what an, what, amazing timing because, you know, they,

they finished their IPO and just a couple weeks later, the Genius Act is in fact

passed through both hou, both houses of, of Congress and signed into law.

So they could not have made that timing any better.

But what the IPO showed was that you have the flagship.

Stablecoin company here in the US willing to take that risky step

before we have an actual law passed.

And then of course, their bet paid off when the Genius Act is

passed and the Genius Act itself from a legal geek perspective and

financial services geek perspective.

Really does a great job of bringing stable coins into the mainstream by

enforcing a lot of this, frankly, a lot of the same safety and soundness

concepts that provide confidence in the regular traditional US banking system

and traditional US financial markets.

Things like.

Limiting the activity.

So before you dive into details, let, let's help everybody

understand like the numbers behind what the Genius Act provisions

are, are really regulating.

I mean, if you look at, and I just wanna give everybody like a sense of,

of where this market has, has gone.

Like the market cap for stable coins grew from $2.5 billion

in January of 2025 to 300 and.

$8 billion by December, 2025.

Now, mind you, that's a 50% increase in only one year.

How often do we see that happening?

Not only that, but the transaction volumes process were $9 trillion.

Now, mind you, that was adjusted for some bot activity.

Those are real people actually using real transactions, and that's

up 87% from the previous year.

Now if you compare this to traditional rails, um, the stablecoin volume now

exceeds more than one quarter of the credit card giants that we all know and

love or loath of their payments volume.

The US Treasury Holdings, the stablecoin issuers collectively

hold $155 billion in US treasuries, making them the 17th largest holder

globally, up from 20th in 2024.

What this does is it really positions stable coins as a macroeconomic player

in supporting the US dollar dominance and the market concentration in this area.

Really has been between made two major players.

Now, we talked about all these additional stable coins that have been launched.

There are gonna be thousands of them out there, folks, but really

tether at $184 billion market cap and 69% of the market share.

Then you've got USDC or circle at $73.5 billion market cap with a

24.7% market share, and together they control over 80 to 90% of the

total stablecoin market depending on what day you're looking at it.

That is what this does, is it.

Genius Bill.

What it did is it, it created a $300 billion plus ecosystem processing

trillions of dollars across border value that Congress has chose to

legitimize and channel into the traditional financial guardrails,

like what you were just talking about.

So let's, let's dive into the key ACT provisions of the Genius Act

to kind of give an understanding of like the guardrails that have

been put around so that this.

Trillion and billion dollar industry doesn't go sideways.

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So here are the top 10 things that you need

to know about the Genius Act.

Stablecoin issuer activity is limited to just issuing stable coins.

Stablecoin issuers are deemed to be financial institutions for purposes

of the Bank Secrecy Act and anti-money laundering laws, reserves, and stable

coins must be kept in short term T-bills and other liquid assets.

Reserves cannot be pledged or re ated.

There will have to be procedures for timely redemption of stable coins.

Custodians of the of stablecoin reserves cannot commingle that money with

other value and have to protect those reserves from creditors of the issuer.

Issuers will have to have monthly reports examined by public accounting

firms here in the us attesting to the stable coin reserves backing the coins.

Issuers with over 50 billion in outstanding, stable

coins will have to have.

Audited financial statements, just like any public company.

And lastly, in the event of a bankruptcy, the first priority goes to

the retail holder of the stable coins, second priority to the stablecoin

custodian, and third priority to the actual stablecoin issuer itself.

And so these are some of the key guardrails.

And if you wanna learn more, check out our eight page paper that explains the entire.

Genius Act in plain English.

That's a great paper you all wrote.

I, I really enjoyed it when it first came out.

It helped me understand it and, and changed my perspective a little bit on

some of the areas that were a little fuzzy for a lack of better things.

But I want the, the audience to understand that like these requirements really.

Our direct response to a lot of the things that happened.

I mean, an example was in May of 2022, Tara UST.

It was an algorithmic stable coin and it lost its dollar peg and then it

has triggered this huge spiral and wasn't back where reserves and the Luna

Token just, I mean, it just imploded and caused everything to go basically

down to not only zero, but negative.

And I think that's one of the really interesting things with the

geniuses one-to-one reserve backing the timely redemption redemption

procedures you talked about.

The custodian protections we're all designed to ensure that

no US regulated stable coin.

Would repeat that same tragic failure.

And there are so many different things that are in that.

Rob said, go check out their eight page report.

If you don't wanna read the 150 plus document, check it out.

It, it'll definitely give you a good focus in on that.

But it also in and up having a bit of an impact on defi Rob.

So help me understand what really happens in, in the, the defi world,

in my view, that passing the Genius Act,

the US Congress is legitimizing the entire stablecoin industry.

That's straightforward enough, but what's interesting is that it's actually also

legitimizing the defi space because stable coins are the primary payment

and store of value mechanism for defi protocols and for those operating

and trading in the defi markets.

And so by legitimizing stable coins and creating a new category

of what will soon be regulated.

Stable coins under the Genius Act on one hand versus all other stable coins.

Now you have Defi activity that if Genius Act regulated, stable coins

are underpinning that activity.

All of a sudden that Defi activity becomes a lot more legitimate

and a lot more secure from a financial markets perspective.

Well, I think one of the most contentious parts of the Genius

Act was the fact that there was the issuer interest prohibition and

really put billions of dollars at stake for a lot of these providers.

We're seeing some of the effects of that with the OCC charters,

a number of different things.

But because Circle was one of the first folks to come out and do the

IPO and all this fun stuff, it really put like a microscope on how they were

earning money and where it was going.

And because they're so dependent on distribution through

exchanges and other services.

They're not able to benefit from this where they're

getting a lot of their revenue.

And I mean, think when I did the numbers like in 2024, US Circle made like $101.6

billion in revenue just from investing.

It's USDC reserves and short term treasuries.

But at the same time, I think what this is also doing is when you have.

The exchange is offering a reward.

I forget, we gotta call it reward.

I wanna call it interest.

It's not interest.

It's a reward.

It's a yield on holding those items.

I think it's really good now and and act.

I've taken some benefit of that myself by moving some funds over

there to reap those benefits of the higher rates of return on that.

But one of the things that made me really think about this is that, you know, we're

talking about all this at a time when the rates are higher than what it has been.

I mean, if you go back to just as late as 2021, we're talking four, five years ago.

If we go back to that rate, I mean, that's nearly zero at an interest rate.

This profitability piece of it really starts to collapse and

what happens to these rewards?

I, I just thought it was really interesting that they said

that the issuers can't provide any sort of yield, but the

intermediaries and exchanges could.

Right.

And I think that is absolutely going to be one of the most discussed topics

related to the Genius Act in 2026.

And as we've discussed on prior episodes, the banks have been fighting that concept,

stating that these rewards paid through a third party are essentially the same

thing as the issuer paying interest.

And so should be prohibited, even though the exact language of genius

doesn't prohibit those types of rewards.

And so I think that's one of the biggest fights and will continue

to be one of the biggest topics of discussion over the Genius Act in 2026.

Do, do you see regulators like issuing guidance or any sort of

regulation to close this rewards loophole?

Like how.

How are they gonna,

it's hard to say whether it's gonna be closed or left open or

narrowed or adjusted, but I do think that we will see regulations as the regulations

are published to implement genius.

I do believe that those regulations will address this issue.

And again, I think it's gonna be the subject of a lot of public commentary from

the banking sector, from the crypto native sector, and other sectors of the market.

So with that guidance, did, I mean, do you feel like that drove.

A new wave of stable coin issuers and other crypto natives to really

file for these OCC national charters.

It's either five or seven.

You know, these handful of charters.

Did it fuel that?

And

I absolutely think it did.

And I think this was another unin potentially unintended consequence

because as has written, uh, one of the ways to launch a permitted

payment stable coin issuer is as a subsidiary of a national bank.

And I think the vision there, by and large was probably.

That a stablecoin issuer would partner with a traditional bank to do this.

Now instead, what we have is we have the crypto native firms, some cases

the issuers themselves filing for OCC bank charters, which indicates that

they may be interested not only in playing the issuer role, but also in

playing the role of the bank that has to sponsor that subsidiary under one of

the methods for issuing stable coins.

Again, that just signals that the crypto native firms are not, uh, while in a

lot of cases are partnering with the banks, they're also looking to take

market share from the banks and replace the bank's roles or perceived roles.

What will be the permitted frameworks for issuing stable coins under Genius?

Well, and and that triggered at least my opinion, if you look at that

happening, it was kind of interesting.

If you look at the timelines, right, so you have the applications go in.

Then an October Western Union makes their announcement.

Traditional payment provider has all the mtls, has all the money, like

all the money licenses globally.

So they offer theirs and then you see a. A financial institution like SoFi

and other traditional banks, I mean, they started either launching their

own coin or they're partnering with exchanges or it's just been crazy and,

and I really think that those trends are, are really gonna continue into 2026.

But I, I think what I want to cover just really quick is like there

were five distinct issuer strategies that happened in 2025 because all

stable coins are not the same.

The way to go to market with stable coins are not the same.

So we've talked about circle and their launch.

I mean they really focused on the compliance as their competitive moat.

With their strategy being an institutional first maximum regulatory compliance.

They decided to go IPO to become a public company.

All of these things really to go, we are open to being regulated,

we're open to being audited, we're open, we're open, we're open.

And it really drove that in.

As I mentioned, SoFi, they basically said, Hey.

If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

They built their own infrastructure.

They're offering a stable coins as a service for other banks and

fintechs, which I think is gonna be really interesting to see how

community banks do they partner with this or do they look for someone, a

ripple or a circle to play into that?

Because a lot of the larger players in the financial services have said,

Hey, we're gonna go with Circle because they've made so much traction.

We're talking top 10 banks that, uh, have made that decision.

Will the community banks do the same or they will they partner with another

financial institution to bring that in?

I think that's gonna be another one.

The other place that we're starting to see it.

And Western Union was a perfectly good example of legacy providers

deciding to pivot to stay relevant.

Just give you an idea.

I mean, Western Union is 170 5-year-old brand.

They have over.

400,000 retail outlets, a hundred million customer base, and they're expecting to

launch this the first half of this year.

Uh, I thought it was really interesting though that they chose

Solana as their, as their base chain.

So that was something that's really interesting for me.

But it didn't do a whole lot for their, their valuation.

I mean, their, their stock actually went down 10% after making the announcement.

And I think that was, that was the interesting piece with a traditional

payments player you mentioned it is that Wyoming, a US state decided that

they were going to launch a state backed public innovation strategy

first focused on all of that.

I mean, let's be honest, I mean, Wyoming has been digital asset.

Friendly since day one.

I'm not surprised they were the first state to do it.

They definitely will not be the last, but I think it'll be really interesting

to see how they scale and manage this with all of the caps that go on,

what they've been working through.

It's really this use anywhere public trust plus public benefit plus transparency.

They're trying to lead it as.

This is how you beat the private profit maximization that's going

on with players like Western Union, like SoFi, like circle.

And then you have these, I will call them multi chain distribution

plays, ripple and the pie, USD.

Both of those are, are going on multiple chains.

It's really interesting 'cause that's something that I've said over the

course of a few years, is that those who can traverse across multiple chains

without losing value, without losing any sort of momentum are going to win.

And I think that's gonna be a place that we're gonna continue to, to see grow.

There's just, there's just so many things that are going in that

cross platform side of the house.

So,

and I, I really like your perspective, Ted, on how this is not

a one size fit all market by no means.

And that there will be different stable coins designed for different purposes,

targeted at different people and entities and using different business models.

And it's anybody's guess as to which of these business models.

Will ultimately succeed, which ones will coexist and which ones will fail?

As, as we look at it, I started to dive deep into all the stable coins

that have been been launched this year, and by the way, there are over a hundred.

So as, as we look at that and I started diving into them, I started to notice

there was this, this common thread of the buyer, the reci, the sender, and

the receiver had special needs, like special requirements, special pieces,

especially when you got out of your big ones, your USDT, U-S-A-T-S-D-C.

Soon as you got out of those, it really became community and or use case.

Or customer base focused.

A lot of folks are starting to look at this as a means of being able to

move value anytime, anywhere, real time, no days off, just constant

movement so they can book their revenue and book their payables

and receivables in near real time.

And that's been a huge change and I think we're gonna see a lot

of that happen in 2026 as well.

But I think one of the things that's it's important also is as we.

Talked about all these different issuers, they're betting on a different

future based upon where they sit today.

Like I said, not, it's not a one size fits all.

We're gonna see more and more.

I honestly think that in the next five to 10 years, we're gonna see

thousands and thousands of stable coins that are specific to their use.

I mean, I could go on a whole bunch of different things.

I want you to help me understand, you know, I, I've looked at the

SEC Project Crypto in plain English for non-regulatory and legal folks.

What this signal to the market and what does it mean in

very simple terms?

The SEC has really over the course of 2025, completed what really

is a 180 degree pivot, uh, from its prior posture under the prior

SEC chair and administration.

It starts with this wave of SEC statement as we talked about in the

lightning round beginning in February.

The SEC began issuing statements almost on a monthly basis that were addressing

very specific parts of the crypto market, and essentially saying, if this part

of the market meets X, Y, Z criteria, we're not gonna consider this activity

to be covered by the securities laws.

And they start doing this, you know, first with meme coins, then with

proof of work, then with stable coins, then proof of stake liquid

staking, and it goes on and on.

And so it starts there.

And then later in the year, as we mentioned, they issue

actually three no action letters.

We mentioned two of them in the lightning round, but two no action

letters that were specifically.

Addressing tokens in the deep end market, decentralized public infrastructure.

Uh, so again, having a very similar effect as the informal statements,

but a no action letter is arguably even has a little bit more force of

law, even though it's only related to its own specific fact set.

But really giving the deep end market more confidence that the SEC is not

going to be regulating them with as heavy as a hand as it previously had.

And then the no action letter essentially saying that a state charter trust company

can custody crypto for its clients.

Then along the way you've gone.

The SEC through a series of speeches by the SEC chair and a series of

round tables by SEC Commissioner Hera Purse, launching what's called

project crypto and project crypto.

Really, in very simple terms is the SEC laying out its roadmap for how it can

not only end regulation by enforcement, but actually proactively supporting the

crypto industry through proactive guidance and statements that provide clarity

that the market has been asking for.

All really culminating, at least in my view, in, in what I believe is the

signature statement from the SEC chair, uh, in a speech in May when he said that

quote, despite what the SEC has said in the past, most crypto assets are not

securities, and that is literally a 180 degree shift from prior statement by

the prior SEC chair who essentially said that most crypto assets are securities.

You know, with that moment and that speech and, and the crop project crypto

speech, that's really when the 180 degree pivot, I think was made complete.

If that's not enough, then in November, just before the end of the year.

We have another speech by the SEC chair where he lays out these four

different categories of tokens and says that outta these four categories only.

The fourth category is of security.

I'll go over them really quick.

The first one, digital commodities or network tokens, and these would

be tokens that derive their value by operating a both functional

and decentralized crypto system.

Second category, digital collectibles.

These are essentially things like NFTs and meme coins.

That represent rights to artwork, music, videos, in game

items, things of that nature.

Third, digital tools, which are crypto assets that perform a practical

function, like a membership ticket, a credential, a title instrument,

or an a digital identity credential.

And so those three categories, according to the SEC's chair speech

in November, would not be considered securities and only the last category

of quote tokenized securities, which a very simple definition, A financial

instrument that is enumerated in the definition of a security, and that

is maintained on a crypto network in the form of a token, only that fourth

category would be considered securities.

Now, mind you.

None of this has the force of law yet.

It does give quite a bit of confidence to the market now has a clear framework

for looking at this stuff that has been articulated by the SEC chair himself.

However, none of it has legal effect.

So it's just informal guidance or statement as to the SEC's current posture.

And so I think one of the challenges for, uh, the SEC in 2026, and one

of the things I'll be keeping an eye on is to what degree some of these

concepts are actually brought into the law through proposed regulations,

other formal guidance, or even through an act of Congress, like the current

pending market structure legislation.

And I think that will be a key theme for 2026.

What I would expect to see is proposed rules by the SEC or at

a minimum additional guidance and informal statements by the SEC

to further solidify some of this.

There's been so much regulatory stuff happening in 2025.

I mean, there, there were some regulatory wins.

I mean, genius Act Project, crypto Salon, XRP, clar, uh, clarity, a lot of

these things didn't lift all the boats.

They lifted those who had institutional backing compliance infrastructure

and very, very clear use cases.

I think one of the interesting things also was.

Watching the ups and downs of the market also happen.

One of the things that I feel was one of the major changes in this

area were the banks, the regulators.

They started playing by a new playbook.

There were, heck, I think you mentioned there were one, two, what,

three interpretive letters that they came out this year to really help

people understand what was going on.

That, you know, they gave crypto asset safekeeping guidance.

I mean, there's just so many different things that come along in that.

And, you know, I, I probably sound like a broken record at this

point, but all this guidance really addresses the real vulnerability

exposed in all of the different parts of the financial ecosystem.

They're starting to see places that didn't work in the traditional, and

they're making sure it doesn't happen in the digital asset side of the house.

They're trying to figure out how to not have.

Another SVP happen.

How do we make sure that we don't have another FTX happen?

How do we make sure that we don't like all of these swan events?

But the definite dark spot on the industry have happened both on traditional as

well as the digital asset side, and it's been really interesting to see how

they're, they're pushing through that.

Maybe we can dive a little bit more into looking at the national charters.

I think that that's a neat area that we could dive into.

We can get into.

What I believe is a really interesting juxtaposition between the OCC interpretive

letters and other banking guidance on one hand, and then this wave of OCC charter

applications by crypto native firms.

On the other hand, one of the ways I like I analyze it is you have this,

the three interpretive letters issued this year that you mentioned Ted.

The first basically saying you don't need permission, A bank doesn't need

permission anymore, or non objection anymore to engage in crypto activities.

The second saying that national banks and federal savings associations

can provide or outsource crypto custody and execution services.

Then the third interpretive letter, 1188.

Confirming that banks and federal savings associations can engage in what are

called riskless principle transactions, where they're essentially acting as an

intermediary, enabling two different parties to trade crypto assets, and then

the crypto asset safekeeping guidance, which provides a supervisory framework

for how a bank can custody crypto and what banking regulators will be looking

for by, in their supervisory exams.

When they examine banks that take on this activity.

You package all that together and really what it's providing for the banking

community, in my view, is essentially saying banks, all the things that crypto

exchanges have been doing for years.

Now, you can do all that stuff under your bank charter.

In other words, you can compete with the crypto exchanges and

the crypto native companies.

You can do all the things that they're doing and you can, and you should compete.

Then you've got the OCC charters where we've got a wave of

crypto native companies seeking bank charters through the OCC.

The banks fight this vigorously and they lose.

And so what the message there, there is in my view, is that the OCC is saying,

no, sorry, banks, we hear your concerns.

You don't, you know, you don't think a National Trust charter is

the right charter for all these different activities that these crypto

native firms are proposing to do.

And yes, there are some safety and soundness concerns that we'll have to

watch out for, but we, OCC believes it's manageable and under the purview

of those National Trust bank charters, all that to say that they're allowing

the banks to compete with the crypto natives and they're also gonna allow the

crypto natives to compete with the banks.

And so they're allowing both parts of this market to attempt to compete

with the other and steal market share or take market share from the other.

Also, I might add they're allowing both the sides of that market to

cooperate, uh, or engage in cooperation.

Some like to call it.

Yeah.

And we did see the first huge example of that near the end of the year we were,

we had a major bank announcing that it's partnering with a major exchange to offer

Bitcoin services to its banking clients.

All this to say that the actions from the OCC and then the actions from the market

in interacting with the OCC are really teeing up really intense competition

and opportunities for collaboration between the traditional financial

services space and the crypto space.

And I think we're gonna see a lot of that continue to heat up in 2026.

Rob, I want to dive into, like we, we've talked about this,

we've got five key takeaways for 2025.

I'll let you start off like what was, what was number one for you in 2025?

So first key takeaway.

The Genius Act.

The genius act passing into law officially brings crypto into the mainstream.

Well, so for me, the next one would be stable coins.

I moved, they, they moved from just a topic to an actual

product at mainstream scale.

By the year end, I mean we're, we're processing $9

trillion a day in transactions.

You're seeing creators start receiving payouts and stables.

African users are accessing the dollar stability through

platforms that are global as well.

That's a good one, and I'll give you a third takeaway.

Number three.

This was the year that US capital markets embraced crypto.

We had.

The public capital markets supporting the sector through crypto company IPOs,

as well as over 143 crypto ETFs, along with SEC approval for in-kind redemption

and staking and public companies launching digital asset treasuries.

Not to be outdone, I mean, really the competition

between digital asset crypto and traditional financial institutions.

I mean, it went, it went insane this year.

The OCC, federal banking regulators, they provided guidance and really set

the stage for all of these companies to compete with banking services and

traditional banks to compete with crypto and digital asset services.

I mean, these guys are going all over the place and like we

mentioned, there's already been a handful of charters in 2025, I'm

guessing we're gonna see in 2026.

A handful more come out, at least in the first half of the year.

And Rob, to close us out, what is the number five item

for the key things for 2025?

There's so many, but if I had to pick one, it's the SEC completing

its 180 degree pivot and really shifting away from enforcement by regulation

and opening up an entirely new posture.

Statements, guidance speeches, really creating a crypto friendly environment

from the SEC standpoint that is seems to be set to continue in 2026.

And it's funny you mentioned that because one of the conversations

that I had at the end of last year was in 2025, was how as these regulators were

going out and talking about all these changes and what was going on, they have

publicly stated, I would rather give loose guidelines that allow me to have

some sort of oversight and some sort of insights into what's going on versus leave

it completely open until it's perfect.

And then it'd be too late.

And, and I'm summarizing obviously the conversations, but that is, that

is something I thought was really interesting and you brought up,

like what you see happening in 2026, like from my perspective, 2026 and

like kind of give you a preview.

Like, this is my thought, give a, let's give a preview.

Of kind of what to expect in 2026.

From my perspective, the speed of change, the speed of regulations, the speed of

more players, speed of acquisitions, like the speed of everything around this

space is gonna continue to accelerate.

The, the thing that I'm wondering, is it, are the wheels gonna

come off or are we gonna finally get to a good cruising speed?

So hopefully it's a good cruising speed and not the wheels come off.

What is one of the, the larger picture perspectives that Rob, that

you're looking at for, for 2026?

My message to the banks and the traditional financial

services sector, payments companies.

Things of that nature is find a crypto crypto industry partner.

Yes, there's gonna be a lot of competition, but I think there's even

more opportunity for collaborative partnerships across sectors.

And I think that because of all the momentum we've seen in 2025 and the

continued momentum, and I agree with you a hundred percent Ted is just gonna

increase in 2026, the market is going to demand the ability to access traditional

and crypto services in a seamless way from the same source and manage their

traditional financial assets alongside their crypto assets and vice versa.

And, and I think one of the, some of the larger players may try to

offer termed the super app where all that's offered under one platform,

managed and owned by one company.

But I think more often the way to bring those products to market more quickly is

through collaborative partnerships where you've got two or three different actors

that have each built their own stack.

It's a lot easier to integrate those already built stacks through APIs than

it is for one partner to build two more.

Stacks from the ground up and then and make that integration.

And so from a tech perspective, I encourage both sides of the industry,

the crypto natives and the traditional financial services firms to ask

themselves what's a good partner for me?

How do I launch a new product through a tech integration and

a partnership agreement instead of building from the ground up?

So in terms of what I would expect people to see happen in 2026, I think

we're gonna see more collaborations, joint ventures, mergers and acquisitions

across the traditional crypto native and traditional financial services space.

What we'll be driving those events will be the desire to bring new products to

market that enable the ultimate user of those services to access both traditional

financial services and crypto powered services all in the same application.

And so I do think we will see a wave of joint venture agreements, collaborative

partnerships, mergers and acquisitions.

Across the crypto and traditional financial services space.

Well, Rob, we, there's no way we could have covered everything today.

We don't have enough time.

We don't have, like, it just, it's not possible.

But I do appreciate you spending the entire 2025 with

us over here at Web3 with FTC.

I'm looking forward to diving deeper into the regulatory and legal

perspective with you going into 2026, and thanks again for hopping

on and, and covering what 2025 had.

And what we might be able to think about for 26.

Thanks, Ted.

It's been a a pleasure being on the show this year, and I look

forward to more podcasts in 2026.

It'll be an exciting year.

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