In Brief
- Treasury proposed rules deciding which dollar tokens can reach US buyers.
- Europe already delisted USDT under MiCA, and users converted to USDC.
- Hyperliquid leads on licensed dollars, with USDC at 97.8% of supply.
Treasury’s new stablecoin rules would decide which dollar tokens can legally reach US buyers. Chains already running on a licensed dollar hold the edge, and six altcoins sit closest to it.
Nothing is final yet, and Treasury opened a 60-day comment period. The hard deadlines land in January 2027 and July 2028.
How Treasury’s New Stablecoin Rules Sort the Chains
Congress passed the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act in July 2025. The idea is simple. A dollar token needs a US license to reach American users.
Two dates carry the weight. Unlicensed issuance inside the country ends on January 18, 2027. Then from July 18, 2028, platforms generally cannot sell payment stablecoins to US persons. Only licensed issuers pass.
No issuer holds that license yet, because licensing opens in 2027. However, the queue has already formed.
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) approved five trust bank charters last December on a conditional basis. Circle, Ripple, Paxos, Fidelity Digital Assets, and BitGo made that list. Circle then went further and won final approval in July.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent framed the goal as certainty.
“Treasury welcomes input from stakeholders as we work to provide the regulatory certainty businesses need to innovate and grow in America…” read an excerpt in the Monday announcement, citing Bessent.
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This is the third time Treasury has asked the industry to weigh in. It opened a second comment window last September.
.@POTUS and Congress delivered the GENIUS Act, establishing a landmark framework and clear rules of the road for payment stablecoins, and Treasury is moving quickly to implement that framework. @USTreasury welcomes input from stakeholders as we work to provide the regulatory…
— Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent (@SecScottBessent) August 17, 2026
Europe Already Ran This Experiment
The US is not first. Europe’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) rules set a similar test, and the result is on record.
Binance told European users on March 3, 2025 that eight tokens would go. USDT also led that list. Margin pairs were delisted on March 27 and converted to USDC automatically.
Spot pairs then followed on March 31. In its announcement, Binance pointed users toward USDC.
That is the pattern the GENIUS Act now sets up for America, only on a far larger base.
6 Altcoins That Could Benefit From the Proposal
Stablecoins hold about $300 billion across all chains, according to DefiLlama.
The ranking below uses one measure. It is the share of each chain’s stablecoin supply that already sits with a licensed issuer.
Hyperliquid carries $6.18 billion in stablecoins. USD Coin (USDC), issued by Circle, makes up 97.8% of it. No other major chain leans so hard on a single licensed issuer. HYPE trades at $59.34, up 3.9%. It is also the only altcoin here in profit over 12 months, at 26.3%.
USDC covers 63.5% of Arbitrum’s $3.5 billion stablecoin base. Foreign-issued tokens face the tighter test, so that mix helps. ARB trades at $0.0749, up 1.2%.
Polygon holds $3.03 billion in stablecoins, with USDC at 53.3%. A slim majority therefore sits with a chartered issuer. POL changed hands at $0.0781 after a 3.8% gain.
Solana’s $15.33 billion base ranks third among all chains. USDC leads it at 43.5%, ahead of Tether (USDT). SOL trades at $75.84, up 0.9%.
Ethereum hosts $146.57 billion in stablecoins, nearly half the global total. However, USDT holds 50.4% of that. The rest, about $73 billion, is the deepest non-Tether pool anywhere. Meanwhile, ETH price near $1,900 reflects a 1.4% gain to $1,904.24.
Ripple issues Ripple USD (RLUSD) and holds one of those conditional charters. More than half a billion dollars of RLUSD supply moved to XRPL. That network passed Ethereum as RLUSD’s main settlement venue in June. XRP trades at $1.002, up 0.3%.
Tron Holds the Largest Bet the Other Way
Tron carries $92.04 billion in stablecoins, second only to Ethereum. USDT makes up 97.9% of that. The chain therefore has almost no licensed alternative.
BeInCrypto reported in March that Tron’s USDT balance had passed Ethereum’s. TRX trades at $0.3313, up 0.1%.
Tether is not sitting still, however. It launched a US token called USAT in January through Anchorage Digital Bank. The company says USDT is working toward GENIUS Act compliance.
None of this promises a rally. Every altcoin listed except HYPE is down 58% to 86% over the past year. Monday’s moves also stayed under 4%. The comment file closes 60 days after Federal Register publication. That is where the real fight happens.