The US GENIUS Stablecoin Act: What Changes for Latin American Companies

The GENIUS Act is the first United States federal law dedicated to payment stablecoins. For a Latin American company that collects from customers, pays suppliers or holds treasury in USDC or USDT, it is the most relevant regulatory news in years. It defines who can issue a digital dollar, with what reserves and under whose supervision.

At Soulbit Academy we explain this without noise and with official sources. The law does not directly bind the company using stablecoins from Bogota, Mexico City or Sao Paulo. It binds the issuers. But its effects do reach that company's treasury: verifiable reserves, licensed issuers, and more banks and corporates joining the same rail. This article summarizes what the law says, where implementation stands in 2026 and what to watch.

What the GENIUS Act is and why it arrived now

The official name is the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins Act, shortened to GENIUS Act. The US president signed it on July 18, 2025, after bipartisan votes of 68 to 30 in the Senate and 308 to 122 in the House of Representatives. The full text, passed as bill S. 1582, is published on Congress.gov.

Until that date, stablecoins operated in the US without a specific federal framework. Each issuer answered to scattered state licenses and uneven supervisory criteria. That ambiguity held back banks, asset managers and large corporates that wanted to use digital dollars but could not justify the regulatory risk.

The law resolves that ambiguity with a central definition: the payment stablecoin. It is a digital asset designed to be used as a means of payment, whose issuer commits to redeem it for a fixed monetary value. Anyone wanting to issue one in the US market will need authorization and must meet reserve, transparency and compliance rules.

Who can issue payment stablecoins in the US

The law creates three authorization paths. The first is being a subsidiary of an insured depository institution, the banking route. The second is being a federal qualified nonbank issuer, approved and supervised by the OCC, the national bank supervisor. The third is being a state qualified issuer, under a state regime certified as comparable.

The state route has a ceiling. An issuer with more than 10 billion dollars in circulation must move to federal supervision, obtain a waiver or stop issuing above the threshold. In practice, the large global issuers fall under the federal orbit.

There is also a deadline for the market. Three years after enactment, offering or selling payment stablecoins to persons in the US will require the issuer to be authorized under the law. That progressive closing of the US market is what pushes every relevant issuer to seek a license.

Reserves 1 to 1, monthly transparency and zero interest

Reserves are the heart of the law. Every digital dollar issued must be backed by at least one dollar in permitted assets: cash, deposits at insured banks, short-dated Treasury bills, repos backed by Treasury bills, government money market funds and central bank reserves. Reserves must be segregated from the issuer's operating assets and cannot be rehypothecated.

Transparency is monthly. Issuers must publish the composition of their reserves every month, with executive certification and examination by a registered accounting firm. For a corporate treasurer, this turns the question of whether the stablecoin is backed into a verifiable, recurring data point.

Why does the law prohibit issuers from paying interest to holders?

Because it wants the payment stablecoin to work as a payment instrument, not as a disguised bank deposit or an investment product. A permitted issuer cannot pay yield merely for holding the token. This protects the banking system from deposit flight and clarifies the instrument's role. If your company is weighing stablecoins against other cryptocurrencies, this stability design is the key difference we explain in stablecoin vs cryptocurrency.

Provision	What the GENIUS Act requires	Relevance for a corporate user
Reserves	1 to 1 backing in cash, insured deposits and short-dated Treasury bills	The digital dollar you hold in treasury has verifiable backing
Transparency	Monthly publication of reserve composition, certified and examined	You can review the issuer's backing each month before concentrating balances
Interest	Issuers prohibited from paying yield to holders	The stablecoin is a payment instrument, not an investment product
Issuers	Federal or state license; 10 billion dollar ceiling for the state route	A clear standard to distinguish authorized from unauthorized issuers
Compliance	Issuers treated as financial institutions under anti-money laundering rules	Greater scrutiny of the origin and destination of funds across the rail
Foreign issuers	Require a comparable regime recognized by Treasury and OCC registration	Defines the future status of stablecoins issued outside the US

The timeline: from the 2025 signing to full application into 2027

The law was signed in July 2025, but it did not take effect immediately. Its application date is the earlier of two: 18 months after enactment, which is January 18, 2027, or 120 days after the primary regulators publish final implementing rules.

That rulemaking process advanced throughout the past year. In September 2025 the Treasury opened a public consultation on implementation. In March 2026 the OCC proposed its rules for issuers under its jurisdiction. In April 2026 the US Treasury proposed the anti-money laundering and sanctions rules that will treat permitted issuers as financial institutions. The FDIC and other supervisors published equivalent proposals for entities in their remit.

As of this article, August 2026, implementation is still in progress and the final rules are pending. The reasonable scenario is full application between late 2026 and January 2027. License applications, meanwhile, are already moving: issuers have spent months positioning themselves.

The most visible move came from Circle, the issuer of USDC. In July 2026 it received final OCC approval to operate a national trust bank that will custody USDC reserves under direct federal supervision. USDC exceeded 73 billion dollars in circulation at the time.

Foreign issuers: the offshore question

Here is the question that matters most for Latin America, where USDT has enormous adoption. The law allows a foreign issuer to operate in the US market only if its home country has a regulatory regime that Treasury determines to be comparable. It must also register with the OCC and hold reserves in a US financial institution sufficient to meet the liquidity demands of its US customers.

Tether, the issuer of USDT, is incorporated outside the United States. It has said it will pursue that comparability recognition and, in parallel, announced a separate stablecoin designed from the ground up to comply with the law inside the US. As of mid 2026, the comparability determination for its regime had not been issued.

Does this mean USDT stops being useful for a Latin American company?

No. The GENIUS Act regulates the US market; it does not prohibit a company in Colombia or Brazil from using USDT in its corridors. USDT remains the most liquid stablecoin in many emerging markets. What the law does create is a status distinction: stablecoins fully licensed in the US versus stablecoins pending recognition. A prudent treasury tracks both categories and adjusts its mix by corridor, liquidity and counterparty.

What changes for a Latin American company that collects or pays in stablecoins

The law's direct effect on a company in Latin America is limited: the rule binds issuers, not users. The indirect effect is large and comes down to one word: confidence.

First, confidence in the instrument. A digital dollar with 1 to 1 reserves verified monthly is easier to defend before a board, an auditor or a local bank. Second, confidence from counterparties. US banks, processors and multinationals are entering the rail because a legal framework now exists, which widens the network of parties that accept and settle stablecoins. Third, clearer standards for choosing: the issuer's license becomes an objective treasury criterion.

For the payment corridors the region uses most, the change reinforces an existing trend. Cross-border stablecoin payments settle in minutes versus days on the traditional banking rail, a comparison we develop in SWIFT vs stablecoin for international payments. Improving those payments is also a global priority recognized by the BIS cross-border payments programme.

Dimension	Before the GENIUS Act	After the GENIUS Act
US legal framework	Scattered state licenses, no specific federal law	A single federal law with defined licensing and supervision
Issuer reserves	Each issuer's own policies, with uneven standards	Mandatory 1 to 1 backing in cash and Treasury bills
Transparency	Voluntary reporting with variable scope	Mandatory monthly disclosure, certified and examined
Banks and corporates	Cautious participation due to regulatory risk	Active entry with clear rules and a banking license path
Offshore issuers	US market access without a defined status	Require a comparable regime, registration and US-held reserves
Institutional perception	Useful instrument but hard to defend before auditors	Regulated instrument with monthly verifiable backing

Practical implications with platforms like Soulbit and what to watch

It helps to land this in real operations. Soulbit is a stablecoin payment and treasury rail for companies, with KYB verification, institutional custody and on-chain AML/KYT monitoring. Its V1 operates with USDC and USDT, fiat in USD, EUR and GBP, and a local banking rail only in Colombia. It supports batch and payroll payments, payment links, QR collection and conversion via quote on request. It does not offer cards, yield, its own token or a native app, and it does not promise what the law has not yet settled.

For a company operating on such a rail, the GENIUS Act does not change its local obligations. Taxes and reporting in its own country still apply, as we explain for the Colombian case in DIAN and crypto for companies. What changes is the context: the instrument it uses gains regulatory status in the economy that issues the reference currency.

What should a Latin American treasury watch in the coming months?

Four concrete things. First, the publication of the US regulators' final rules, which will fix the exact date of full application. Second, which issuers obtain licenses and through which route, because that will define the list of fully regulated stablecoins. Third, Treasury's comparability determinations for foreign issuers, the key variable for USDT's status in the US market. Fourth, how banks in your own country respond to the entry of regulated players, because that can open or close local bridges for funding and cash-out.

The balance is favorable for the region. The law does not solve each country's local challenges, but it strengthens the instrument Latin American companies already use to collect, pay and protect cash in digital dollars.