Five US regulators jointly released draft KYC rules for stablecoin issuers, focusing on the primary market and formalizing practices already used by Circle and Tether. A 60-day comment period follows.

Tether’s USDT is moving into the final two years of its U.S. compliance window under the GENIUS Act, with Jan. 18, 2028 set as the key deadline for stablecoin issuers that want their tokens to keep trading on U.S. platforms. According to the law, issuers must register as permitted payment stablecoin issuers and meet strict reserve, disclosure, and supervision standards. Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino has said the company will comply with the GENIUS Act, but Tether is not taking the route of bringing USDT itself into that framework. Instead, the company is separating its strategy: USDT would follow a foreign issuer path for non-U.S. markets, while USA₮, issued through Anchorage Digital Bank in January 2026, is designed for the U.S. market. The structure matters because roughly 25% of Tether’s current reserves are described as non-compliant under the act’s standards, which require 100% backing in cash and U.S. Treasuries. That gap helps explain why Tether is preserving USDT’s existing reserve model while creating a separate U.S.-focused token. The article also points to Europe’s MiCA rollout as a reference case, where several exchanges removed USDT spot pairs for European users after Tether did not seek authorization.

South Korean regulators took center stage in the past 24 hours after launching a sanctions process against Dunamu, the operator of Upbit, and outlining a broader push to tighten oversight of the virtual asset market with artificial intelligence. According to Yonhap, authorities have sent an inspection report to Dunamu following a 44.5 billion won hacking incident, starting a formal sanctions procedure whose outcome remains uncertain because there is no direct penalty rule for hacks or computer system failures under the current framework. Separately, KBS reported that South Korea’s Financial Services Commission said it has completed about 40 investigations into unfair virtual asset trading in the two years since the Virtual Asset User Protection Act took effect, and has referred or reported more than 30 cases to judicial authorities. The FSC said the next phase of oversight will include an AI-based monitoring system capable of real-time market surveillance, second-level price manipulation analysis, and automated detection of suspicious accounts and trading ranges. The broader market update also included missed U.S. stablecoin rulemaking deadlines under the GENIUS Act, a South Korean roadmap for won internationalization and won-denominated stablecoins, fresh liquidation data from Coinglass, new figures on Bitcoin mining concentration, tokenized stock activity, and security developments involving Ostium.

The one-year statutory deadline tied to the U.S. GENIUS Act has now passed without a single federal agency completing the final stablecoin rules required under the law. Signed on July 18, 2025, the act gave seven federal regulators one year to finish their respective implementing rules. As of July 18, 2026, none had done so. According to The Block, six of the seven agencies — the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, National Credit Union Administration, Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, Treasury Department, and Office of Foreign Assets Control — had issued Notices of Proposed Rulemaking between December 2025 and May 2026. The Federal Reserve, however, had not yet released even a proposed rule. The law also does not include a fallback mechanism if the deadline is missed. There is no automatic implementation clause and no temporary guidance framework built into the act. That leaves stablecoin issuers operating in a gap where the old framework no longer fits, while the new one has not formally taken effect. Even so, the broader GENIUS Act framework is set to take effect either 120 days after final rules are published or on January 18, 2027, whichever comes first.

U.S. regulators failed to publish the final rules needed to implement the federal stablecoin framework within the one-year window set by the GENIUS Act, according to The Block. The law, signed by Donald Trump on July 18, 2025, required the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Federal Reserve, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., the National Credit Union Administration, the Treasury Department and state stablecoin regulators to complete their rulemaking by July 18, 2026. As of the afternoon of July 18 local time, major proposals from the OCC, FDIC, NCUA and Treasury were still in the proposal stage, while some rules tied to the Federal Reserve and anti-money laundering oversight were still open for public comment. The report said the statute does not provide for an automatic extension if the deadline is missed, nor does it suspend statutory requirements or delay the framework’s broader effective date. It also outlined the rule packages still unfinished across the agencies.

This week the U.S. Senate resumes debate on the Clarity Act, while NCUA closes comments on stablecoin rules. Tax deadline on April 15 may trigger volatility, and earnings from Goldman, JPMorgan, BlackRock offer clues on institutional crypto appetite.

The U.S. Senate resumes debate on the Clarity Act as NCUA's stablecoin comment window closes. April 15 tax deadline, PPI data, and earnings from Goldman, JPMorgan, and BlackRock may amplify crypto market swings.