$USDC The GENIUS Act is simply about the U.S. drawing a "regulatory circle" around the stablecoin market — all stablecoins operating in the U.S. must be backed 1:1 by hard currencies like cash and short-term U.S. Treasury bonds, and they must publicly disclose their ledgers monthly, just like a supermarket must post its inventory list at the entrance for transparency. The Senate has already passed it, but it still needs the House of Representatives' approval and the President's signature to take effect, likely by this summer.

For the industry, this act is like a double-edged sword: the benefit is that it makes the market more regulated, as those previously unregulated stablecoins will be eliminated, allowing compliant giants like USDC and USDT to capture more market share, and it may even attract traditional institutions like BlackRock to enter the space. The recently passed Stablecoin Regulation in Hong Kong follows a similar logic, but with a focus on promoting the internationalization of the RMB, leading to a "USD vs RMB" digital currency shadow war.

The downside is that compliance costs will skyrocket, making it unaffordable for small companies, which could lead to market monopolization by giants. Additionally, the act confines reserve assets strictly to U.S. Treasuries and cash; while issuers can profit from interest rate spreads when rates are high, once the Federal Reserve cuts rates, the profit margins will be squeezed, putting significant pressure on publicly traded companies like Circle that rely on USDC spreads for income.

Finally, we must be wary of two "hidden dangers": first, the act tightly binds stablecoins to traditional finance, and those leveraged plays in DeFi (like repeatedly collateralizing and borrowing with USDC) could trigger systemic risks, reminiscent of the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis in a digital form; second, political maneuvering, as Trump might use stablecoins to bypass the Federal Reserve for "covert printing" to stimulate the economy, but in the long run, this could raise inflation and replay the historical