Bitcoin Climbs Back Above $64,000 as US Treasury Opens Stablecoin Licensing Rules for Public Comment
Bitcoin Recovers After Slipping Below $63,000
Bitcoin pushed back above $64,000 on August 18, recovering from a dip under $63,000 earlier in the week. The bounce comes despite headwinds: more than $385 million exited US spot Bitcoin ETFs over the previous week, and traders have been digesting geopolitical uncertainty alongside lingering questions about the pace of federal crypto rulemaking. At last check, BTC traded in the $64,000–$64,500 range, up roughly 2% on the day, though it remains well below its record high from late 2025. Analysts point to the tug-of-war between institutional outflows and renewed buying interest as the reason the asset continues to trade in a choppy, wide range rather than establishing a clear trend.
Treasury Opens 60-Day Window on Stablecoin Licensing
The bigger structural story for the US market came from the Treasury Department, which issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on August 17 to implement Section 3 of the GENIUS Act — the federal stablecoin law signed in July 2025. The proposal spells out, for the first time in detail, when a company is considered to be "issuing" or "offering" a payment stablecoin inside the United States, and it opens that definition to 60 days of public comment once published in the Federal Register.
Under the law's timeline, anyone issuing a payment stablecoin in the US will generally need a federal or state license starting January 18, 2027. A second, stricter deadline follows on July 18, 2028, after which exchanges, wallets, brokers and payment platforms would be barred from offering foreign-issued stablecoins unless the issuer can comply with US legal orders and reciprocal cross-border arrangements — a provision that directly touches major offshore issuers such as Tether.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent framed the rulemaking as part of a broader push to give businesses regulatory certainty while reinforcing the dollar's role in global finance. Notably, Treasury is the last of four federal agencies — alongside the OCC, the FDIC and the Federal Reserve — to publish its proposed framework, and all four missed the original 120-day deadline set for this past July. That leaves open the possibility that the GENIUS Act's January 2027 effective date arrives before every implementing rule is finalized, a gap that is likely to keep compliance teams at exchanges and stablecoin issuers watching Washington closely in the months ahead.
What It Means for the Market
Taken together, the two stories capture the current state of US crypto: price action still highly sensitive to ETF flows and macro headlines, while the regulatory foundation for the industry's biggest product category — stablecoins — is only now being written in detail. For traders, that combination points to continued short-term volatility around bitcoin's key levels. For the broader industry, the stablecoin comment period is arguably the more consequential event, since the final licensing rules will determine which tokens and platforms can legally operate in the world's largest crypto market.
