The legal and regulatory architecture around digital assets was fundamentally reshaped in 2025. The GENIUS Act, signed into law in July, created the first US framework for payment stablecoins, mandating reserves held one-to-one in US Treasuries and banning the payment of yield to holders. The Securities and Exchange Commission ended its case against Ripple in August, cutting the penalty from $125 million to $50 million and confirming XRP is not a security in secondary markets.
Accountability for past failures also arrived. Do Kwon pleaded guilty to fraud in 2025 over the collapse of the UST stablecoin, following a 2024 SEC judgment that put Terraform’s civil liability at about $4.47 billion. The founder of Celsius was sentenced in May to 12 years for fraud. In October, a presidential pardon was issued for a figure whose guilty plea remains on the record.
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