GENIUS Act rally pushes crypto space to historic $4 trillion market cap
XRP also hit an all-time high amid exuberance over the passage of the first major crypto legislation in the US.
The crypto space reached a $4 trillion market cap for the first time last night, following the House of Representatives overwhelmingly voting in favor of the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins Act, aka the GENIUS Act, yesterday. The House also passed the CLARITY Act and the Anti-CBDC Surveillance State Act, which will advance to the Senate for a vote.
President Trump is set to sign the GENIUS Act today during a ceremony.
“The House of Representatives delivered a three-bill parlay that marks the most significant legislative progress for digital assets in US history,” Ari Redbord, global head of policy and government affairs at TRM Labs, told Sherwood News. “But it will always be the GENIUS Act that makes history as the first federal crypto law, providing a clear framework for stablecoins and giving financial institutions the confidence to lean into crypto payments and blockchains as rails.”
XRP, Ripple’s native token and the third-largest crypto by market cap, is one big winner, reaching an all-time high late last night of $3.66. The token is up about 30% in the past week and more than 450% in the past year.
“The passage of the GENIUS Act is helping lay the foundation for the financial system of the future, which will be faster and more efficient in a myriad of ways. Ripple is one of the leading companies that have been positioning themselves for exactly this moment, which is likely why the XRP token has seen such significant price appreciation in reaction to the passage,” Sal Gilbertie, CEO of Teucrium Investment Advisors, told Sherwood. In April, the firm launched the first-ever XRP-based ETF.
Last December, Ripple launched its own dollar-pegged stablecoin, RLUSD, which now has a $518 million market cap. That’s chump change compared to stablecoin giant Circle’s USDC, which is the second-largest stablecoin and has a roughly $64 billion market cap. Circle is up 4% in early trading this morning.
Tether’s USDT continues to dominate the asset class, holding $161 billion of stablecoins’ overall market cap of $260.5 billion.
“The passage of the GENIUS Act is big news for the crypto and banking industry. The regulatory guidance that will be brought on by this shall not only make it easier for banks to get into the market, but allow their customers to dive into it too as stablecoins will be a very good entry point for those who have been hesitant in getting into the crypto world,” Patrick Gerhart, president of banking operations at Telcoin, told Sherwood.
Bitcoin hit a new all-time high earlier this week ahead of the vote, and while it hasn’t seen a post-vote bump, it’s been steadily climbing in dominance among cryptos and now takes up a huge 63% of the total crypto market’s value.
Ethereum is also rallying, up 20% in the past week and up 4.3% in the past day. Meme coin dogecoin is also getting a treat, rising 15% in the past 24 hours and 22% in the past week.
Finally, another winner of the bill is the US dollar. Greg Magadini, director of derivatives at Amberdata, told Sherwood that as one of the main elements of GENIUS is the requirement for stablecoins to be backed 1-to-1 by highly liquid reserves, it creates an implicit partnership with the US government.
“Adoption of stablecoins will not only create new buyers of US short-term debt, but it will also help cement the US dollar as the blockchain reserve currency,” he said, adding that the current use cases for stablecoins involve DeFi Dex trading, smart-contract dApps, and simple payments.
“In order to help grow adoption of USDC [and the like], the US government is now incentivized to continue to support the next waves of blockchain innovation... such as RWAs and tokenized stocks,” he added.
