Why July’s Legislative Moves Are Helping Ignite U.S. Staking Growth

By Josh Deems, General Manager of Americas at Figment and Eme Housser, Director of Regulatory and Legal Affairs at Figment

Legislative momentum continues for the U.S. digital asset landscape. The President signed the Stablecoin Bill (“GENIUS”) into law on July 18. In parallel, the House advanced the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act of 2025 (“CLARITY”). Together, GENIUS and CLARITY mark the most coordinated federal effort yet to legitimize and enable staking as part of a broader digital asset financial stack. For those creating institutional strategies around staking, these are important milestones. Here’s why.

Stablecoin Act Signed into Law

The President signed into law the GENIUS Act, which establishes a comprehensive federal framework for stablecoins. This law enables regulated issuance, custody, and trading of stablecoins that meet reserve and redemption requirements.

The Genius Act is specific to stablecoins, but it has broad ramifications for staking and decentralized finance:

• It enables stablecoins to be used alongside staked assets on regulated platforms.
• It opens the door for staking yield to be paired with stablecoin liquidity, especially in custodial and ETP contexts.
• It further cements dual SEC and CFTC oversight structures, ensuring product builders can integrate staking and stablecoin features with a clearer path to registration and supervision.

Zooming Out

Proof-of-Stake blockchains are quickly becoming the foundation for digital payments, with transactions increasingly being settled in stablecoins issued directly on chain. As of July 2025, the stablecoin supply is over $247B which represents more than 1% of the U.S. money supply. It’s estimated that 35-50% of all PoS on chain volume is driven by stablecoin activity.

This matters for stakers. Every stablecoin transfer creates demand for blockspace and drives fees, which flow back to validators. Figment customers are already earning from this because roughly 50% of Ethereum rewards now come from users paying to move stablecoins onchain.

Now that stablecoins are being federally recognized through the GENIUS Act, the rails are only getting stronger with centuries old established institutions like Citi and JP Morgan exploring launching their own stablecoins.  

House Passes the CLARITY Act

The CLARITY Act, passed by the House in mid-July 2025, sets the foundation for how digital assets are regulated in the U.S. It creates a formal market structure by:

• Splitting oversight between the SEC and CFTC, with the SEC handling assets tied to token sales or early-stage networks, and the CFTC overseeing decentralized tokens on mature blockchains without centralized control.
• Providing formal recognition for staking by clarifying that “end user distributions” are rewards earned for providing a technical service and not securities offerings. This includes self-staking, non-custodial staking, and custodial staking with delegation or ancillary reporting services.
• Making it easier to integrate staking into regulated products like ETFs and custodial platforms by clarifying how rewards are earned and distributed.
• Supporting future tax treatment of staking rewards as non-income when earned, helping avoid taxable events until rewards from staking are sold or exchanged.

Most importantly, this codifies the SEC’s May 29 staff guidance confirming that protocol staking, when conducted without pooling or managerial discretion, does not constitute a securities offering. That guidance now has legislative backing through CLARITY’s statutory language.

The bill now moves to the Senate where it will need 60 votes to pass. The Senate is expected to take it up after the August recess, with formal introduction, committee review, and a potential vote likely starting in mid-September. Early negotiations and drafting may continue in the meantime. If the Senate makes changes, the House will need to approve the final version before it heads to the President’s desk.

Key staking-related questions still to be addressed include:

• How will liquid staking and restaking be treated, especially when pooling or yield guarantees are involved?
• What are the tax implications for staking rewards within ETF and trust structures?
• Will the Senate’s stablecoin and DeFi rules under the GENIUS Act add clarity or complexity as they roll out in practice?

U.S. Institutional Staking Activity Shows Optimism in Action

The CLARITY Act and recent SEC guidance are already reshaping the US staking market: 

1. Figment’s incoming ETH staking volume has more than doubled since the SEC’s May statement, and the Ethereum staking entry queue has surged over 360%. 
2. Robinhood has launched staking in its U.S. app, and other non-crypto native institutions are likely to follow now that legal guardrails are coming into place.
3. ETP issuers are submitting applications to the SEC to add staking in Solana and Ethereum ETPs, which could be approved prior to CLARITY becoming law.
4. Crypto treasuries are also shifting. As institutional holders diversify beyond BTC into ETH, SOL, and others, staking is moving to the center of treasury management. CLARITY could help remove remaining regulatory friction for public companies.
5. We’re also seeing growing demand for non-custodial staking solutions that align with the law’s interpretation of “ministerial” validator roles. Pension funds, corporates, and banks are all looking for yield strategies that are both compliant and non-custodial and staking is emerging as a top option.

Market is Open for Regulated Staking at Scale

With GENIUS signed into law, CLARITY passed in the House, and SEC guidance on staking already in place, the U.S. is laying the foundation for staking at scale. The Senate is expected to take up its version of the CLARITY bill after the August recess but there’s shared optimism that a bill could be signed into law before the year ends.

While lawmakers, legal teams, and advocacy groups continue to work through the details, the market isn’t waiting. Institutional interest is accelerating, staking flows are increasing, and early movers are already shaping what the next phase of regulated digital asset growth looks like. After nearly a decade of waiting for regulatory clarity in the U.S., the window is now opening.