The GENIUS Act: A New Era for Crypto Regulation

Well, a major milestone for crypto.

President Trump signing the Genius Act into law, making it the first ever federal law regulating digital assets.

The new law creates the legal framework for stablecoins, digital tokens backed by the US dollar or short-term treasuries.

Meanwhile, the SEC firing a warning shot across the bow of tokenite stocks recently, Commissioner saying new blockchain-based securities.

May look enchanting, but they're not above the law.

As the debate continues on Wall Street to Main Street.

Joining me today here at the New York Stock Exchange is Thomas Cohen, head of tokenization at Galaxy.

So Thomas, it's great to have you here.

Thank you so much for joining me.

Thank you so much.

Good morning.

Well, first and foremost, for viewers out there who might not be familiar with what's happening, why is it so important that we have the Genius X?

And what does it mean for the crypto landscape?

Yeah, so it's really transformative.

In a nutshell, it means that an on chain dollar and an off chain dollar can be can be more equal.

And for many of us in the crypto industry, getting this bill across the finish is the end of a long journey to finally have the regulatory clarity that this industry has really wanted for so long.

But on the other side, from a traditional financial institution perspective, this is really just the beginning.

And at Galaxy Digital we're really excited because in many ways we're at that intersection and we're excited to really mend those two worlds and bring them together between crypto and tray.

And here we are at the New York Stock Exchange, Thomas, and there's a lot of history here, but I understand at Galaxy you have tokenized a violin that was created back in the 1700s.

So tell us a little bit about the evaluation and the process that goes into tokenizing an assets such as a historical instrument.

Yeah, so behind that violin, really the idea was to demonstrate that tokenization can be broadly used across.

Many different asset classes, not only from stablecoins like the Genius Act covers, but also stocks, bonds, equities, whatever it is, including a violin.

Anything you can put into an SPV you can tokenize.

And so the idea behind the violin was to demonstrate that and also show that it can be used as a collateral agent and in many other use cases, the tokenization unlocks.

With Mick raw Hill going public here at the New York Stock Exchange, I personally used to play violin when I was a kid, so a lot of childhood memories coming up here.

But when it comes to the regulatory landscape, the expectations for the second half of 2025, what does all of this mean for the retail consumer out there, especially when it comes to tokenization?

Yeah, so I think you know now that we have the Genius Act, you know, across the finish in law which is very exciting, we still have to move the Clarity Act through and get real regulatory clarity across the broad asset landscape for all things on chain.

And so in many ways, you know, today or tomorrow, nothing changes, but on the other side, everything changes because we now finally have The large institutions coming in at scale in a way we haven't seen in the past.

So we're excited by that.

You add, you add the technological adoption and the maturity of the blockchain technology itself.

It means that we can finally bring these two worlds together and really unlock the value that we've seen for so long, but haven't quite been able to realize yet.

Yeah, and taking a step back, I remember one.

Bitcoin ETF's first launched at the beginning of last year here on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, but moving forward, there are a lot of expectations, a lot of criticism, as well as opportunities when it comes to tokenization.

In particular, we've been seeing headlines about tokenized stocks.

So what do you make all of them?

What does this actually mean?

So for tokenized stocks specifically, it's very exciting.

You're right over the past 6 weeks to a month we've really seen a lot of exposure and you know exploration and different ways to represent a stock on chain, and I think here in the US we still don't have that regulatory clarity that we need to be able to figure out what the structure actually is to get you know, the average stock on chain, and I think you know that process is going to be just that.

It's going to take a little longer than we'd like, but what's important is we get it right so that we can scale to.

The global economy in the longer run.

So with stocks, I think it will take a little bit longer, but in terms of structured debt, stablecoins, on chain money market funds, all of those other products, we're beginning to see much more adoption because we can kind of we have the rules of the road and can move move comparatively faster than stocks specifically.

Thomas, I think you mentioned a key word there, and that is adoption.

So as someone at Galaxy, someone who speaks to many stakeholders, what does tokenization adoption look like?

Just the rest of this year, but beyond 12 months to the next 18 months.

Yeah, so one thing that we're really excited about in terms of tokenization at Galaxy is specifically on chain debt and different structured products because if you look at the market today, it's comparatively opaque.

The settlement time can be comparatively long and the secondary market isn't isn't nearly as robust.

And so what you can do with blockchain is you have that transparency.

You.

Really, you know, drastically cut the settlement time and create a secondary market that otherwise wouldn't be possible.

And so we think that that's really where we're going to see a lot of adoption and a lot of interest over the next 12 months to 24 months.

But the thing about this industry is you can make as many predictions as you want and you can kind of see, see what actually happens.

Well, Tom, it's great to have you here at the New York Stock Exchange today.

Perhaps we'll have you back on before we know it.

So thank you so much for joining me.

Thank you so much.

My pleasure.