The upcoming U.S. STABLE Act mandates full reserves, which will likely benefit compliant stablecoin issuers like Coinbase.
U.S. stablecoin regulation is poised to have a significant impact on issuers. On Friday, April 17, Nansen released a report highlighting the potential winners of the STABLE Act. According to the report, compliant issuers like Coinbase, PayPal, and Visa will likely be the biggest beneficiaries.
The STABLE Act, which passed the U.S. House Financial Services Committee on April 2, provides comprehensive regulation for stablecoins. Its goals are to protect holders, ensure transparency by issuers, and strengthen the role of the U.S. dollar.
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Some of its provisions mandate full reserves in cash or U.S. Treasuries, while prohibiting interest payments to holders. At the same time, stablecoin issuers must be licensed banks, approved state trusts, or companies regulated by the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.
Coinbase, Visa, and PayPal to benefit from the STABLE Act
These provisions suggest that if the STABLE Act passes, entities already focused on compliance stand to gain the most. The biggest likely winner among them is Coinbase, a major distributor of Circle’s USDC stablecoin.
USDC is already aligned with what U.S. regulators are looking for. What is more, Circle focuses on transparency and has passed the test of the EU’s stringent MiCA regulation. For this reason, it dominates Euro-based stablecoin issuance.
PayPal is another potential winner. It issued PYUSD in partnership with Paxos. While PayPal is a big player in digital payments, PYUSD currently controls only 0.38% of the stablecoin market share. However, with the STABLE Act in effect, PayPal could leverage PYUSD across its broader suite of services.
Other winners include credit card giants Visa and Mastercard. These firms are already experimenting with stablecoins, and Visa even tested USDC for card settlements. In the future, these companies could integrate stablecoins into their core services.
Notably absent from the report is USD1, a stablecoin recently issued by the Trump-linked World Liberty Financial. While it fits the criteria Nansen picked for the likely winners, it is not attached to a strong ecosystem like Coinbase, PayPal, and even Visa are.
Read more: ARK Invest: Stablecoin transaction value in 2024 surpasses Visa and Mastercard
