The legal architecture of the cryptocurrency industry was redrawn in 2025, marked by a presidential pardon, a landmark fraud conviction, and the resolution of a long-running regulatory battle. In October, a pardon was issued for a figure who had previously entered a guilty plea, though the pardon does not erase that plea from the record. Separately, Do Kwon pleaded guilty to fraud over the collapse of the UST stablecoin, and the founder of Celsius, who marketed the slogan “unbank yourself”, was sentenced to 12 years for fraud.
Regulatory clarity also emerged from Washington. The GENIUS Act, signed into law in July 2025, created the first US framework for payment stablecoins, mandating reserves be held one-to-one in US Treasuries and short-dollar assets while banning the payment of yield to holders. The Securities and Exchange Commission ended its case against Ripple in August 2025, cutting the penalty from $125 million to $50 million and confirming XRP was not a security in secondary markets.
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