The Trump administration advanced a policy package that pulled crypto firms closer to the core of the U.S. banking system while shutting the door on a Federal Reserve-issued digital dollar. Taken together, the regulatory push and the July 2025 GENIUS Act changed how digital-asset companies could access payment infrastructure and how stablecoin issuers would be supervised.
At the center of the shift was a dual move: crypto firms gained a clearer path into regulated banking, while stablecoin issuers were brought under stricter anti-money-laundering obligations. The same framework also drew a hard political line against a U.S. central bank digital currency, making the administration’s digital-dollar strategy as much about exclusion as expansion.
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Banking access moved from theory to policy
Comptroller of the Currency Jonathan Gould drove the effort to remove earlier barriers that had limited banks’ involvement with digital assets. The administration’s approach was to reduce the distance between crypto businesses and traditional banking rails, including access to Federal Reserve payment systems for approved institutions.
That approach quickly produced visible results. By December 2025, the administration had approved plans for several crypto-focused national banks, with reported approvals including firms such as Circle, Ripple, and Paxos. In early 2026, Erebor Bank became the first crypto startup to receive a national bank charter during the administration’s second term, while World Liberty Financial applied for its own federal charter in January 2026 and proposed a dollar-pegged token called USD1.
The legislative side reinforced the same direction. The GENIUS Act, enacted in July 2025, placed stablecoin issuers under Bank Secrecy Act AML rules and at the same time explicitly banned a U.S. CBDC. A separate proposal, described publicly as the Clarity Act, was pushed as a broader market-structure framework for crypto oversight. David Sacks, serving as the administration’s crypto and AI coordinator, said the goal was to erode the boundary between crypto firms and banks, arguing that the two were moving toward becoming “one industry” and that regulatory clarity was “closer than ever.”
Political resistance followed the market opening
The package did not move forward without resistance. Traditional banks and Democratic lawmakers argued that opening the banking system to crypto more aggressively could distort competition and increase capital and deposit risks. Critics pointed to public debate around Treasury estimates suggesting that stablecoin-related yields could pull deposits away from banks on a massive scale, with some reported scenarios projecting losses as high as $6.6 trillion.
Ethics concerns added another layer of pressure. A reported $500 million investment from an Abu Dhabi investor into World Liberty Financial intensified calls for tighter guardrails around charter approvals and political oversight. Economists focused on the public interest, along with several senators, pressed for greater transparency, and one public critic described the World Liberty filing as evidence of compromised oversight.
Approved crypto banks gained broader access to payment rails and settlement channels, while stablecoin issuers faced heavier compliance demands under federal AML rules. That combination created a new reality in which expansion and supervision moved forward at the same time, forcing firms to scale operations while hardening their compliance systems.
The next phase will depend on how charters are implemented and how supervisors apply conditions to them. What now matters is whether this integration reduces operational friction for institutional crypto activity or creates new vulnerabilities around liquidity, governance, and depositor protection inside the wider banking system.