06-24-2025 
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Stablecoins are making further inroads into mainstream United States finance, even as a rift develops in Congress on how best to get digital legislation onto President Trump’s desk.
- Fiserv launching bank-friendly stablecoin platform
- Circle investors embrace irrational exuberance
- House/Senate at loggerheads over crypto legislative strategies
- Adam Schiff gives Trump anti-corruption pantomime another shot
- Brad Sherman accuses TikTok of bribing Trump
- Trump keeps quietly reducing WLF stake
- TMTG to buy back shares, share price doesn’t budge
On June 23, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported that U.S. fintech firm Fiserv (NASDAQ: FI) plans to launch its own stablecoin (FIUSD), as permitted under the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act, which was approved by the Senate last week.
Fiserv later confirmed the report, saying FIUSD would offer its customers “access to a new, more efficient, and interoperable digital asset service for their banking and payment flows.”
Before year’s end, Fiserv also plans to launch a stablecoin-issuing platform on the Solana network that will allow Fiserv clients—including roughly 3,000 regional and community banks—to incorporate FIUSD or their own bespoke stablecoins into their operations. Fiserv has relationships with 10,000+ other financial institutions and six million retail outlets, opening up additional avenues for stablecoin-based payments.
While Fiserv won’t charge banks to use its stablecoin tech, it will take a cut of transaction fees as well as a share of the yield generated by the reserve assets backing bank-issued stablecoins, including U.S. Treasury bills.
Fiserv has teamed with USDC-issuer Circle (NASDAQ: CRCL) and Paxos Trust to provide FIUSD with stablecoin infrastructure “with the intention of making it interoperable with several leading stablecoins.”
Fiserv COO Takis Georgakopoulos said the venture would “advance stablecoin-powered payments and help democratize access to blockchain financial services.” Fiserv is also “exploring the use of deposit tokens to maintain the benefits of stablecoins in a more capital-friendly structure for banks.”
Multiple banks have expressed interest in launching their own stablecoins, including JPMorgan (NASDAQ: JPM), which last week unveiled plans for a stablecoin-like permissioned ‘deposit token’ it’s calling JPMD. Major corporate entities have also expressed interest in adding stablecoins to their payment mix.
Fiserv separately announced plans with payment processing giant PayPal (NASDAQ: PYPL) to “build future interoperability between FIUSD and PayPal USD (PYUSD), the stablecoin that PayPal launched in 2023 via a partnership with Paxos. The expanded partnership aims to “allow consumers and businesses to move funds domestically and internationally.’
Circle personifies irrational exuberance
News of Fiserv’s deals provided a modest boost to its stock price, closing Monday up 4.4% and gaining another couple of points in after-hours trading. PayPal rose a more modest 2.8% plus another 0.7% after-hours.
Meanwhile, Circle’s shares roared out of the gate, hitting a record high of just under $299 by mid-morning before slipping back to $263.45 (+9.6%), then rising to over $270 in after-hours trading.
Circle’s shares have been on a tear since the company’s Nasdaq launch earlier this month, thanks in part to the Senate approving GENIUS. However, there’s a certain level of irrational exuberance here, as Circle’s market cap ($64 billion as of Monday) now exceeds USDC’s market cap ($61.6 billion). Circle’s also closing in on the cap of equity partner Coinbase (NASDAQ: COIN), which earns nearly as much from USDC as Circle.
As more observers have started to point out, Circle’s valuation doesn’t reflect its simplistic revenue model, which is based almost entirely on the interest it earns on T-bills held as reserves backing issued USDC.
Interest rates have come down from their pandemic-era highs and Trump’s next pick to lead the Federal Reserve will (unlike current Fed chair Jerome Powell) almost certainly kowtow to the president’s wishes to reduce rates even further.
And with financial institutions and retail giants (online and offline) plowing into this space, how much larger can Circle’s bubble grow before bursting?
House v Senate v Trump v calendar
Having succeeded in getting stablecoin legislation off its desk, the Senate Banking Committee’s digital assets subcommittee will hold a hearing on Tuesday (June 24) titled Exploring Bipartisan Legislative Frameworks for Digital Asset Market Structure. There’s still no bill to discuss, although some rough sketches are expected to circulate ahead of Tuesday’s hearing.
Earlier this month, two House of Representatives committees approved that chamber’s market structure bill, the Digital Asset Market Clarity (CLARITY) Act. But while the two GOP-controlled chambers appear determined to get crypto bills onto Trump’s desk for signatures, they’re split on how to achieve that goal.
Rep. French Hill (R-AR), who chairs the House Financial Services Committee, has stated that his preferred route would be to combine stablecoin and market structure legislation into a single measure. Senate leaders want the House to approve the stablecoin bill first, then worry about market structure (a strategy that Trump appears on board with).
On Monday, the Brookings Institution hosted a discussion with Hill regarding his Committee’s agenda for the current Congressional session. Straight off, Hill was asked how he intends to proceed in terms of advancing digital asset legislation.
Hill said “in the short run, I want to honor the President’s request … where he wants to have both a payment stablecoin bill and a market structure bill on his desk before the August recess. So I’m devoting all my resources in the short run for navigating what the best, most effective way to do that is.”
Later, during the Q&A portion, Hill said he’d been “taking the temperature” of House members on “their preferred approach,” but said only that this discussion was continuing.
Hill was also asked about the need to reconcile GENIUS with the House’s own STABLE Act, which passed out of Hill’s committee in April but has yet to come up for a vote on the House floor.
Hill said the main areas requiring further negotiation include GENIUS allowing stablecoin issuers with market caps under $10 billion to opt for state rather than federal regulation, as well as how robust to make federal oversight of foreign stablecoin issuers (like Tether).
Hill also took issue with GENIUS allowing issuers to hold a broader range of assets to support their circulating stablecoins, but suggested “I think we can come to agreement there.”
A Politico reporter asked whether Hill would consider passing GENIUS as is when it gets to the House. Hill again hedged, saying he’d “listen to my colleagues” regarding both stablecoin and market structure legislative strategies with the idea of “hopefully” meeting the President’s timeline/deadline.
Queried about concerns that regulating stablecoins could increase their role in illicit finance, Hill said he was concerned with illicit transactions in all aspects of finance, not just digital assets. But Hill quickly pivoted to suggesting this was a good argument for having market structure rules in place before opening up the stablecoin floodgates. Absent those market guardrails, “how do you see those [Bank Secrecy Act/anti-money laundering] standards enforced?”Finally, Hill disagreed with the popular talking point that stablecoin growth will increase demand for T-bills. Hill said stablecoins will help preserve dollar-dominance abroad by expanding retail use of dollar-equivalents, but the T-bills that issuers will be buying are “all short-term debt” (no longer than 90 days to ensure they can meet redemptions). “It’s a quality use of a T-bill as security, but I don’t know that it solves a bigger issue, which is how do you finance unsustainably large federal budget deficits.”
Adam Schiff had it with Trump crypto corruption … no, really
Hill was also quizzed on concerns over unspecified politicians deriving financial benefits from issuing tokens (like the $TRUMP memecoin or USD1, the Trump family’s new stablecoin). Hill repeated his standard defense that “we make laws for all citizens,” minimizing any need to specifically restrain a person named Trump or a job called president.
Ahead of last week’s GENIUS vote, Senate Republicans blocked Democratic efforts to attach amendments that would have reined in Trump’s ability to profit off crypto ventures, but that doesn’t mean Dems have stopped trying.
On Monday, Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) announced the introduction of the Curbing Officials’ Income and Nondisclosure (COIN) Act, a bill that amends existing ethics rules to, in Schiff’s words, “prevent the financial exploitation of any digital assets by public officials, including the president and the First Family.”
Schiff noted the president’s recent filing with the Office of Government Ethics disclosing the $57.4 million he earned via World Liberty Financial (WLF)—the decentralized finance (DeFi) project launched by Trump and his family—by the end of 2024. Since then, Trump has almost certainly earned many times that sum via $TRUMP and his numerous other crypto ventures.
Schiff is well aware that if previous efforts to rein in Trump’s crypto excesses have failed to win over GOP colleagues, they aren’t likely to start now. So this is more performative activity of the kind Dems discuss in Signal chat groups, a token effort designed to make it look like they’re serious while doing nothing that could cause them to lose out on crypto industry campaign contributions.
Brad Sherman called out for TikTok-Trump bribery claim
Last month, a struggling Chinese firm made headlines with its pledge to sell up to $300 million worth of its Nasdaq-listed stock to an unidentified “accredited investor, a British Virgin Islands limited liability company.” GD Culture Group (GDC) (NASDAQ: GDC), said it intended to use the proceeds to launch a digital asset ‘treasury’ based on two tokens: BTC and $TRUMP.
Critics noted GDC’s claims that its threadbare revenue was primarily driven by creating AI models to flog products on TikTok. TikTok has been ordered by Congress to sell its U.S.-facing operations to American interests or face banishment from U.S. shores but this order was delayed for 90 days by President Trump last week.
It was the third such delay that Trump has issued since taking the oath of office in January. Critics point out that Trump lacks the authority to override Congress in this fashion, but again, it’s not like Trump’s GOP allies are eager to defy their President.
Enter Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA), who on June 19 tweeted that Trump’s failure to enforce the law passed by Congress (and upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court) was illegal. Sherman also offered a theory as to why the president appears determined to rescue TikTok in this fashion, saying: “[T]he Chinese owners of TikTok have announced they are buying ‘Trump Coins’ for $300 million. Trump creates ‘Trump Coins’ at no cost, meaning this is just a $300 million bribe that goes right into his pocket.”
For the record, there’s no evidence of any official relationship between GDC and TikTok, and TikTok’s official policy account on X swiftly punched back, telling Sherman that “claiming that the owners of TikTok are buying ‘Trump Coins’ is patently false and irresponsible.” Sherman has yet to respond to TikTok’s denial, while GDC has stayed silent throughout this dustup.
The idea that a firm would buy a Trump-linked token to influence the president’s policy decision isn’t entirely theoretical. In April, Freight Technologies (aka Fr8Tech), a Texas long-haul trucking firm impacted by Trump’s tariffs on Mexico, announced plans to raise $20 million to buy $TRUMP. Fr8Tech stated plainly that the tokens were “an effective way to advocate for fair, balanced, and free trade between Mexico and the U.S.”
Trump’s incredibly shrinking WLF position
On June 19, Forbes reported on a little-heralded change to WLF’s website text. When WLF launched last September, 75% of the firm was controlled by DT Marks DEFI LLC, a Delaware-registered entity controlled by Trump.
A couple days after Trump’s inauguration in January, this controlling stake was reduced to “approximately 60%.” The WLF website now states that DT Marks’ share has been further reduced to “approximately 40%.” To date, there’s been no information as to whom these additional chunks of the company have been sold.
Forbes previously speculated that WLF’s ownership ranks now include Justin Sun, founder of the TRON blockchain. Sun was named a WLF advisor last year after purchasing $75 million worth of the project’s governance token WLFI. Sun is also the largest $TRUMP holder and has been promoting adoption of USD1.
Trump’s sons Don Jr, Eric, and Barron are all listed as both co-founders and ‘Web3 ambassadors’ for WLF, and Forbes used Trump’s recent financial disclosure to estimate how much each son may have collected from their affiliation with the project.
Trump’s disclosure indicated that, as of the end of 2024, unnamed family members held a 22.5% stake in WLF. As the brothers are the only family members listed on the WLF site, and assuming the trio split that 22.5% share evenly, they would have each grossed around $39 million from WLF’s token sales.
However, that $39 million figure is based on their share of the total $550 million in WLFI sales to date, and it’s unclear whether the brothers’ WLF stakes were among those sold in the DT Marks sell-off, or whether the president is the one reducing his position.
The President also controls Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG) (NASDAQ: DJT), the company behind his Truth Social platform. TMTG has announced multiple crypto-specific projects, including raising $2.3 billion to fund the purchase of BTC tokens for its new ‘treasury.’
On Monday, TMTG announced plans to use some of the $3 billion in cash now sitting on its balance sheet to repurchase up to $400 million worth of its stock. TMTG clarified that this buyback program will be “funded separately from, and would not alter, Trump Media’s previously announced Bitcoin treasury strategy.”
TMTG’s stock has been in the dumps for a while, falling 47.5% since the year began. Despite its various crypto moves, TMTG generates a minuscule amount of revenue and investors appear dubious on its capacity to reverse that trend, president or no president.
Monday’s announcement provided a very brief spike in TMTG’s share price, but the stock closed Monday only $0.06 higher than it opened (although it rose 2.5% in after-hours trading on word that the U.S. v Iran tensions appear to be fading).
Watch: Blockchain is much more than digital assets
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