Regulation quietly encourages the separation of income and liquidity | Opinion
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Digital assets have long grappled with regulatory ambiguity, but two recently enacted United States legislative pieces are ending an era of chaos by delivering structural clarity. The Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins Act (GENIUS Act) and the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act of 2025 (Clarity Act) are potent signals of a major shift in how digital assets are built, traded, and understood.
- The GENIUS Act ring-fences stablecoin liquidity — requiring 1:1 backing in highly liquid assets, banning yield for simply holding, and segregating reserves to prevent rehypothecation.
- Income and liquidity are now legally separated — yield-generating activity must happen on distinct layers or products, freeing the base liquidity layer from speculative pressure.
- The Clarity Act defines digital commodities vs. investment contracts — giving builders a modular framework to separate utility tokens from profit-driven schemes, reducing SEC/CFTC turf wars.
- Regulatory certainty fuels innovation — clearer rules, consumer protections, and risk disclosures are drawing praise from industry leaders and setting the stage for U.S. leadership in crypto.
Most importantly, there is now a logical basis of separation between income-generating mechanisms and underlying liquidity. Let’s unpack what that means.
How the GENIUS Act ring-fences liquidity
The GENIUS Act targets payment stablecoins with unprecedented precision, mandating that they must be 1:1 backed by highly liquid assets, like U.S. dollars or short-term treasuries. Reserves must be held in segregated accounts without re-hypothecation (the holding institute cannot use the funds). The act also explicitly prohibits interest or yield payments solely for holding, using, or retaining stablecoins.
With a separation of income and liquidity, we can unequivocally define stablecoins as a pure form of base-layer liquidity, perfect for payments, settlements, and stable value transfers. In the U.S., they are no longer a passive income vehicle, and by stripping them of their yield mechanisms, the GENIUS Act forces builders to innovate.
For U.S.-based crypto investors, any yield-generating activity involving stablecoins must now take place on a separate layer or financial product, distinct from the stablecoin itself. Some may not be thrilled by this news, but this regulatory clarity ensures that speculative yield expectations unburden the liquidity layer. This will force disruption in one of the most widely adopted use cases for cryptocurrency.
The Clarity Act is an architect for modular systems
Complementing the GENIUS Act is the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act of 2025 (H.R. 3633). This passed the House and is heading to the Senate, aiming to resolve the longstanding jurisdictional ambiguities between the SEC and CFTC. It introduced statutory definitions for various digital assets, notably distinguishing “digital commodities” from “investment contracts.”
From now on, digital commodities will be those that derive their value from utility within a network. Investment contracts, however, will be vehicles through which a profit expectation from the efforts of others is conveyed. The core utility token (now a digital commodity) will be separated from any associated investment schemes or yield-generating activities (now investment contracts). This clarity will empower projects to build modular systems and go to market without worrying that the SEC may challenge their activities.
Yield-bearing layers vs. Base-layer liquidity
There’s now a framework in place to separate the different functions of a blockchain system and regulate them accordingly. This is thanks to the Clarity Act’s provisions regarding tailored registration for digital commodity offerings and its recognition of “Decentralized Systems” and “Decentralized Finance Trading Protocols”. Consider this a kind of regulatory sandbox and definitive demarcation line between “yield-bearing layers” and “base-layer liquidity”. These are terms we will be seeing used more frequently.
The eventual outcome of this decoupling is that transparency and proper disclosure are achieved, ensuring users (and builders) understand the risks associated with yield. Builders gain clearer pathways to design compliant products, while investors know exactly what they’re getting into.
Predictability provides the confidence and trust to attract substantial capital, while the U.S. taking this unique stance could inspire a great deal of domestic innovation and leadership. Sure, there will be implementation challenges and friction ahead, but this is a real moment of maturation for crypto in the U.S.
A new dawn of certainty
Experts generally echo positive sentiment about this change. Forbes, for example, has lauded the acts for providing much-needed clarity, reducing “jurisdictional turf wars,” and setting the stage for institutional engagement. Paul Grewal, Chief Legal Officer at Coinbase, noted:
“GENIUS is now the law of the land. Coinbase and crypto policy across the industry are committed to sensible rules for stablecoins and got it done. It’s been a good day.”
Ji Hun Kim, President and Acting Chief Executive Officer, Crypto Council for Innovation, stated that the GENIUS Act “includes important consumer protections, such as segregating customer funds, bankruptcy procedures, addressing conflicts of interest, and requiring risk disclosures of operation, ownership, and structure. We strongly support these requirements that would protect consumers and their funds.”
These powerful regulatory design signals are confidently reshaping digital assets, compelling necessary separations and modularity. Ultimately, they encourage much-needed innovation of the liquidity and yield-bearing layers by legally protecting them and their architectures. The Gensler era is over, as the GENIUS era begins.
