The GENIUS Act may have closed the door on interest-bearing payment stablecoins, but it has not ended the search for yield. It has simply pushed that search into new structures, where the return comes through DeFi design rather than through the stablecoin itself.
BeInCrypto asked two industry experts how the market is adapting.
Stefan Muehlbauer, Head of U.S. Government Affairs at CertiK, says the issue remains politically contested. He says”
In his view, the line now sits between products that resemble interest and products that present rewards differently.
“Banks are taking aim at yield that is earned as interest, while DeFi players are innovating around products that treat rewards more as a service fee through mechanisms such as staking,” Muehlbauer continues.
Anton Efimenko, co-founder at 8Blocks, sees the same divide. He notes:
He adds that the opportunity may extend even further. “If you think the structure through properly, a stablecoin issuer can also launch its own DeFi platform and distribute deposit yield through that layer.”
That leaves the U.S. stablecoin market in an unusual place. Yield remains one of the strongest product incentives in crypto, but in 2026, it has to be packaged with much more care.
Federal Charters Change the Balance of Power
Federal charters are where the balance of power changes most visibly. Crypto-native firms are already entering the U.S. financial system, and the focus now is how directly they can compete with the institutions that have controlled access to payments and settlement for decades.
Muehlbauer argues that this is where the biggest realignment is happening:
In his view, these licenses change who can operate with institutional standing inside the system. By securing federal charters, he says, digital asset issuers gain “the official federal imprimatur needed to compete directly for core payment and settlement services.” That gives them a path to “operational autonomy” rather than continued dependence on banking partners.
Fernando Lillo Aranda, Marketing Director at Zoomex, says the key change is that crypto-native firms no longer need to rely entirely on incumbent banks for legitimacy.
Aranda notes:
In his view, that gives firms like Circle or Paxos clearer standing across payments, custody, and reserve management, turning them into directly regulated financial institutions rather than outside partners looking in.
At the same time, Lillo Aranda does not see this as a sudden reversal of bank dominance:
But, he argues that the competitive gap has narrowed.
Where banks once held the regulatory advantage and crypto firms mainly moved faster on product design, some crypto-native issuers now have both. That shifts the contest away from basic market access and toward who can scale trust, distribution, and integration fastest.
Efimenko agrees that the market is opening up, but he does not think legacy finance has lost its edge.
“The U.S. stablecoin market is going to be highly competitive, but banks and asset managers will still hold the advantage,” he says. For him, the decisive factor is distribution.
Federal charters give crypto-native issuers more room to operate on their own terms, but banks still control the customer relationships that turn financial products into mass-market products.
Federal rules rise, but the states are still in the room
The GENIUS Act may have established a federal path for stablecoins, but it has not erased the state systems that helped define earlier phases of U.S. crypto regulation. What it has done is place them in a more constrained position.
Muehlbauer says the era of states acting as independent “laboratories of innovation” is largely over. In his view, the market is entering a period of “cooperative federalism” in which Washington sets the main rules for stablecoin oversight.
“Although the Wyoming Model and New York’s BitLicense endure, they are no longer autonomous,” Muehlbauer says. He argues that they now function within a federal framework that sets the minimum standards for capital and reserves.
He also points to a hard limit on how far a state-led route can go:
That leaves states with a role, but not the leading role they once claimed in crypto policy. They still influence licensing, supervision, and regional experimentation, though the center of gravity now sits in Washington.
CLARITY still has to solve the token question
Stablecoins may now have a federal framework, but the larger question of token classification remains unsettled. That is where the CLARITY Act comes into play.
Muehlbauer says the bill is designed to address what he calls the “security-forever” dilemma by updating how U.S. law treats tokens across their life cycle. He says:
In his telling, the bill creates a path for tokens to leave that category once a network develops beyond heavy reliance on a core team. Muehlbauer says:
He says that originators would be able to certify that managerial efforts have become “nominal,” opening a 60-day window for the SEC to challenge that claim or allow the asset to proceed with a presumption of non-security status in secondary trading.
If that framework survives negotiations, it could bring the U.S. closer to a usable definition for utility tokens. Until then, stablecoins may have moved into a clearer legal era, while much of the rest of crypto still waits for its answer.
Final thoughts
The GENIUS Act has given the U.S. its clearest stablecoin framework yet, but it has also opened a new phase of competition. The debate now reaches beyond regulation itself and into who controls issuance, who captures the economics around digital dollars, and who gets direct access to the financial system.
Muehlbauer’s answers suggest that Washington has moved stablecoins into a more formal federal order, while leaving the next major fight unresolved around token classification and market structure.
Efimenko, meanwhile, points to the commercial reality behind that legal progress. Even with new charter opportunities and room for product innovation, crypto-native firms still have to compete with banks that already control distribution and client access.
Lillo Aranda sharpens that point: federal charters may have narrowed the old moat around legacy finance, but they have not erased the incumbents’ advantage in scale, trust, and customer ownership.
Stablecoins are entering a more defined legal era, but the balance of power between crypto firms, banks, regulators, and token issuers is still being contested in real time.
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Source: https://beincrypto.com/genius-act-crypto-regulation-stablecoin-policy/
