Company: CRCL
Filing Date: 2025-08-12
Form Type: S-1
Source: 0001193125-25-178989
Chunk: 226

Company: Circle Internet Group, Inc.
Filing Date: 2025-08-12
Form: S-1
Chunk 226
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 and beyond.

Principal U.S. federal and state regulatory regimes

The laws and regulations to which we are or may be subject are rapidly evolving and increasing in scope. Most significantly, on July 18, 2025, President Trump signed into law the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation**

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for U.S. Stablecoins Act of 2025 (the GENIUS Act). The GENIUS Act takes effect on the earlier of January 18, 2027 and 120 days after the primary federal payment stablecoin regulators issue any final regulations implementing the GENIUS Act. The GENIUS Act The GENIUS Act provides for the first comprehensive federal regulation of payment stablecoins in the United States. Under the GENIUS Act, a “payment stablecoin” is a digital asset:

| • |     | that is, or is designed to be, used as a means of payment or settlement; |

| • |     | the issuer of which— |

| • |     | is obligated to convert, redeem, or repurchase for a fixed amount of monetary value, not including a digital asset denominated in a fixed amount of monetary value; and |

| • |     | represents that such issuer will maintain, or create the reasonable expectation that it will maintain, a stable value relative to the value of a fixed amount of monetary value; and |

| • |     | that is not a national currency, deposit, or otherwise a security. |

**Only “permitted payment stablecoin issuers” (“PPSIs”), as defined under the GENIUS Act, may issue stablecoins in the United States. Depending on a number of factors and determinations, a PPSI may be primarily regulated at the federal or state level. In addition, the GENIUS Act contains certain prohibitions on digital asset service providers offering or selling unlawful stablecoins beginning on July 18, 2028. The GENIUS Act generally prohibits a PPSI or foreign payment stablecoin issuer from paying yield or interest to the holder of a payment stablecoin solely in connection with the holding, use, or retention of the payment stablecoin. The GENIUS Act amends the federal securities laws to provide that a payment stablecoin issued by a PPSI is not a security and that a PPSI is not an investment company, and amends the Commodity Exchange Act to exclude payment stablecoins issued by a PPSI from the definition of “commodity.” Payment