# GENIUS Act

> GENIUS Act (US Congress · Treasury · FinCEN · OFAC): Stablecoins · censorability as a licensing precondition. Region: Americas. Restricts anonymity: Anonymity-enhancing assets or unattributed transfers are barred outright, or barred for regulated firms.

Part of the Soda Labs Privacy Hub regulation map, which reads the instruments
themselves rather than summarising the summaries: https://www.sodalabs.xyz/privacy-hub/regulation

## Key facts

- Entry type: Regulator or standard-setter
- Region: Americas
- Subject: Stablecoins · censorability as a licensing precondition
- Authority: US Congress · Treasury · FinCEN · OFAC
- Stance on on-chain confidentiality: Restricts anonymity. Anonymity-enhancing assets or unattributed transfers are barred outright, or barred for regulated firms.
- Tags: GENIUS Act, freeze and seize, stablecoins, architectural constraint
- Canonical page: https://www.sodalabs.xyz/privacy-hub/regulation/reg-genius-act

## What it actually says

The most restrictive thing in current US law on this subject, and it is architectural rather than procedural. A payment stablecoin may only be issued if the issuer has the technological capability to comply with any lawful order, and a lawful order is defined as one requiring it to seize, freeze, burn or prevent transfer. In other words the ability to censor is a precondition of the licence, designed into the token rather than imposed on the operator afterwards. Foreign issuers face the same test or lose access to US secondary trading. There are narrow counterweights: the word privacy appears once, requiring FinCEN to weigh privacy risks in what it collects, and the implementing proposal does not require issuers to monitor secondary market activity.

## The instruments that matter

- **Section 4(a)(6)(B)**: a stablecoin may be issued only if the issuer has the technological capability to comply, and will comply, with the terms of any lawful order
- **Lawful order defined**: an order requiring the issuer to seize, freeze, burn or prevent the transfer of its stablecoins
- **Section 8**: extends the same capability test to foreign issuers, on pain of a secondary trading ban in the United States
- **Not yet effective**: enacted 18 July 2025; effective on the earlier of 18 January 2027 or 120 days after final implementing rules, none of which had been published as of August 2026

## Sources

- [Public Law 119-27](https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/PLAW-119publ27/html/PLAW-119publ27.htm)
- [FinCEN and OFAC implementing proposal](https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2026-04-10/html/2026-06963.htm)

## Related entries

- [FinCEN](https://www.sodalabs.xyz/privacy-hub/regulation/reg-fincen): Bank Secrecy Act · the deepest US constraint
- [IRS broker reporting](https://www.sodalabs.xyz/privacy-hub/regulation/reg-irs-broker-reporting): Tax · live at the custodial perimeter, dead beyond it
- [NYDFS](https://www.sodalabs.xyz/privacy-hub/regulation/reg-nydfs): The most privacy-restrictive US regulator, state or federal
- [The third-party doctrine](https://www.sodalabs.xyz/privacy-hub/regulation/reg-third-party-doctrine): Why chain analysis needs no warrant
- [Financial Stability Board](https://www.sodalabs.xyz/privacy-hub/regulation/reg-fsb): Financial stability · and explicitly not the privacy body
- [OFAC and Van Loon](https://www.sodalabs.xyz/privacy-hub/regulation/reg-ofac): Sanctions · where the law found a limit