Originally published at https://monstadomains.com/blog/stablecoin-kyc-requirements/
The US Treasury just made stablecoin KYC requirements mandatory for the first time, and anyone who has been using USDT or USDC to pay for online services should take notice. The proposed rule under the GENIUS Act treats stablecoin issuers like banks – complete with customer identification programs, suspicious activity reporting, and the authority to freeze transactions. The comment period closed June 9, 2026. The final rule is scheduled for publication June 22. That is not a distant deadline. For privacy-conscious users who have relied on stablecoins as a middle ground between cash and bank transfers, this is the change that removes that option entirely.
The GENIUS Act Stablecoin KYC Requirements Explained
President Trump signed the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins Act – the GENIUS Act – into law in July 2025, creating the first comprehensive federal regulatory framework for dollar-backed stablecoins. The law directed FinCEN, the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), and federal banking regulators to implement the rules jointly. In April 2026, they published a proposed rule in the Federal Register that implements the stablecoin KYC requirements the GENIUS Act mandated.
The proposed stablecoin KYC requirements are not vague guidance or aspirational policy language. They specify mandatory anti-money laundering programs, formal customer identification processes, sanctions screening obligations, and transaction reporting requirements for all regulated stablecoin issuers. The rule also gives regulators explicit authority to block or freeze specific transactions on compliance grounds – powers that previously existed only in the traditional banking system.
What the Stablecoin KYC Requirements Actually Mandate
The core of the proposed stablecoin KYC requirements is the Permitted Payment Stablecoin Issuer (PPSI) framework. Under this framework, regulated issuers must build anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing programs that include four elements: customer identification and verification, ongoing transaction monitoring, suspicious activity reporting to FinCEN, and sanctions screening against OFAC designation lists.
Customer Identification Programs
Stablecoin issuers must collect and verify the identity of customers at account opening. This means full legal name, address, date of birth, and government-issued identification. FinCEN provided some risk-based flexibility, meaning lower-value transactions may face lighter scrutiny. But the baseline is clear: issuing regulated stablecoins to anonymous or unverified users is not permitted under the stablecoin KYC requirements as proposed. That flexibility does not extend to opting out of identification entirely.
The Authority to Block and Freeze Transactions
Beyond identification, the proposed rule gives issuers explicit authority – and in some cases an obligation – to block, freeze, or reject specific transactions. If a stablecoin transfer triggers a sanctions match or unusual activity flag, the issuer can halt it without the user’s consent or advance notice. This is a direct extension of bank-level controls into the stablecoin space. The proposed stablecoin KYC requirements effectively make centralised stablecoin infrastructure part of the broader financial surveillance apparatus.
Which Stablecoin Issuers Fall Under These Rules
The stablecoin KYC requirements apply to PPSIs operating through three regulatory pathways: subsidiaries of federally insured depository institutions, issuers licensed by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, and state-qualified issuers approved under state regulatory frameworks. In practice, this covers the issuers behind USDT (Tether) and USDC (Circle) – the two stablecoins most commonly used for payments to online service providers and the two most frequently offered at domain registrars and hosting services globally.
The GENIUS Act stablecoin KYC requirements were built on a deliberate principle: tokenised dollars should carry the same compliance obligations as bank dollars. The surveillance infrastructure is the same in intent – only the record-keeping technology differs. Foreign stablecoin issuers outside the US regulatory perimeter are not directly covered, but US-based exchanges and intermediaries handling those tokens face parallel obligations through the existing Bank Secrecy Act framework.
Stablecoin KYC Requirements Kill Pseudonymous Payments
For years, stablecoins occupied a useful grey area. On-chain transactions are permanently visible to anyone who examines the ledger. But the link between a wallet address and a real-world identity depended on whether the exchange or issuer had collected that information. Non-custodial wallets and peer-to-peer trades could sever that link. Many users relied on exactly this gap to keep stablecoin payments pseudonymous in practice, even while those transactions were transparent on-chain.
The stablecoin KYC requirements close that gap at the issuer level. USDT and USDC are centralised instruments – Tether and Circle are the issuers. Under the proposed rules, those issuers must identify their customers. Once an issuer ties your identity to a wallet at the minting or redemption stage, every subsequent transaction from that wallet is traceable. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has consistently warned that financial surveillance infrastructure, once built, expands well beyond its original stated purpose – and there is no reason to expect stablecoin surveillance to be any different.
Europe Did This First – and the Pattern Is Unmistakable
The US stablecoin KYC requirements did not emerge without precedent. The EU Markets in Crypto-Assets regulation – MiCA – has been fully active in 2026, imposing strict AML and customer verification obligations on stablecoin issuers operating in European markets. MiCA also set hard transaction caps: non-euro stablecoins like USDT face a limit of no more than 200 million euros per day in EU payments, as detailed in the Federal Register filing outlining the parallel US framework.
What MiCA demonstrated is how quickly enforcement cascades. Rules targeted issuers first. Secondary requirements expanded to exchanges and then to service providers. Stablecoins listed on EU exchanges faced geographic trading restrictions for retail users. The US stablecoin KYC requirements follow the same regulatory trajectory – and the cascade will follow in the same order. US service providers who accept stablecoins as payment should expect compliance obligations to arrive at their level within months of the final rule.
Privacy Coins Are Not Stablecoins – and That Distinction Now Matters
The stablecoin KYC requirements apply specifically to issuers of fiat-backed, centralised stablecoins. They do not apply to decentralised privacy coins like Monero (XMR), and the reason is structural: Monero has no issuer. There is no company to regulate, no compliance department to mandate, and no entity to serve with a customer identification requirement. Transactions use ring signatures, stealth addresses, and RingCT to obscure amounts, senders, and recipients at the protocol level.
This structural distinction was always theoretically significant. The stablecoin KYC requirements make it practically urgent. If you have been paying for privacy-sensitive services with USDT under the assumption it offered meaningful anonymity, that assumption was always weaker than Monero – and the new rules formalise exactly why. For a detailed breakdown of why this matters specifically for domain payments, this comparison of Monero vs Bitcoin for domain payments covers the core differences and is worth reading alongside the new regulatory picture.
What Domain Owners Need to Know Right Now
The stablecoin KYC requirements do not directly regulate domain registrars. But they regulate the payment rails that domain buyers use. If you pay for a domain registration using USDT that was purchased through a regulated exchange or issuer that collected your identity, the payment is not anonymous. It is permanently recorded on-chain, linked to your KYC data at the issuer level, and accessible to law enforcement through standard financial reporting channels and legal process.
The intent of the stablecoin KYC requirements is explicitly to eliminate untraceable financial flows. That applies whether the payment destination is a domain registrar, a hosting provider, or a VPN service. The payment method matters as much as the registrar. Using a privacy-respecting registrar with strong WHOIS protection does not compensate for paying with a coin whose issuer already has your passport on file. Stablecoins were available at many privacy-focused services precisely because they looked like a safer alternative to credit cards – under the stablecoin KYC requirements now being finalised, that safety margin is gone.
For a full breakdown of how to structure your entire setup – payment method, registrar choice, WHOIS protection, and DNS configuration – without exposing yourself at any layer, this guide on anonymous crypto domain payments covers the complete picture.
The Bottom Line
The stablecoin KYC requirements proposed under the GENIUS Act are not a hypothetical risk or a distant regulatory timeline. The comment period is closed. The publication date is June 22, 2026. USDT and USDC are being pulled into the same regulatory category as bank accounts, with the same customer identification and transaction reporting obligations attached. For anyone who has relied on stablecoins for payments where privacy matters, that model needs to change before the ink dries on the final rule.
Three things follow from this. First, stablecoins tied to national currencies now carry national-currency surveillance obligations – the stablecoin KYC requirements exist precisely to make that connection explicit. Second, Monero and structurally decentralised privacy coins are not subject to these requirements because there is no issuer to regulate – that is a structural feature, not a loophole that will be closed. Third, the payment method you use for sensitive purchases like domain registration deserves the same deliberate selection as the registrar itself. To register a domain with genuine crypto privacy, MonstaDomains accepts Monero for exactly the reasons this regulation makes clear.
