The United States turns its attention to stablecoin regulation

cointelegraph.com:

The United States continues to be a global leader in embracing the cryptocurrency industry thanks to the work of Sen. Patrick Toomey, with the White House being at the forefront of crypto regulation. Last year, President Joe Biden signed a $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill — and it included some new legislation that would impact the crypto sector. And more recently, the U.S. president announced a “whole-of-government” approach to regulating cryptocurrency in an across-the-board executive order directing multiple government agencies to answer specific questions on cryptocurrencies. The U.S. for the last year has clearly been seeking to help make the crypto industry more sustainable, which will make it significantly easier for cryptocurrency platforms to operate.

But the Stablecoin Transparency of Reserves and Uniform Safe Transactions Act of 2022, dubbed the Stablecoin TRUST Act for short, makes the U.S. likely the only country, or at least the only Western country, to fully regulate and accept stablecoins as an official part of the financial and banking system.

Introduced by Sen. Toomey, the ranking member of the Senate Banking Committee, the Stablecoin TRUST Act forces stablecoin issuers to adhere to certain rules. The regulations in the act are sweeping and comprehensive. The bill clarifies that payment stablecoins are not securities, which is a great thing for the industry. The bill also refers to stablecoins as “payment stablecoins” — digital assets that can be “convertible directly to fiat currency by the issuer” and that have a “stable value relative to a fiat currency or currencies.”

Related: Regulations set the table for more talent, capital and building in crypto industry

Stablecoin issuers would have