Unlocking the GENIUS Act: A Comedy of Surveillance and Digital Currency!

by

Ah, the GENIUS Act! A dazzling piece of legislation that many believe has firmly shut the door on the scintillating world of Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs). Stablecoins, those cheeky little digital darlings, were paraded as the private currency of the people-so unlike the dreary government-issued digital dollar.

Aaron Day, a fine fellow at the Brownstone Institute and a veritable critic of the crypto scene, is waving his arms about, claiming that the GENIUS Act is merely the velvet glove over the iron fist of increased government surveillance. How charming!

Surveillance Concerns Under the GENIUS Act

The GENIUS Act, in all its glory, explicitly prevents the Federal Reserve from bestowing a CBDC directly upon the masses or through a third party. A noble endeavor, one might say, aimed at keeping the government-issued digital dollar at bay-like a bad dinner guest you just can’t shake off.

Its passage in July 2025 conveniently aligned with President Trump’s earlier campaign promises to put his foot down against the creation of a CBDC, which he charmingly described as a form of tyranny. Oh, how we love a bit of drama!

According to Day, stablecoins and CBDCs are like two peas in a pod, with one being privately issued and the other kissed by the central bank. But fear not, dear reader! As long as Uncle Sam is at the party, the level of surveillance remains positively thrilling.

“The issuance by the Federal Reserve is not actually the part of this that people are concerned about. The Federal Reserve is a private organization that is a collection of banks. Whether you end up having a stablecoin issued by Jamie Dimon at JP Morgan Chase or by the Federal Reserve doesn’t matter,” Day told BeInCrypto. A fascinating point, indeed!

What the privacy-conscious masses truly fret about, he argues, is the delightful prospect of a government entity being able to program, track, and censor money. How practical!

This line of thinking has led him to dub the GENIUS Act a “backdoor CBDC.” How scandalous! Day underscores the urgency of this issue, especially given the astonishing surge in stablecoins.

“Last year, there was $33 trillion worth of stablecoin transactions. Globally, this is larger than the amount processed through Visa,” he said, adding, “What they’ve done essentially is they’ve taken stablecoins… and they put [them] under the surveillance and control of Congress.” Ah, the irony!

According to him, this level of surveillance was already prancing about before the GENIUS Act waltzed on stage. The freshly signed bill is merely a new hat on an already established order. How quaint!

Government Surveillance Tools Already In Place

Day muses that most of our dollars are already swirling in the digital ether.

When prodded for examples, he points to the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA)-the 1970 gem that requires financial institutions to assist the government in sniffing out money laundering, terrorism financing, and other delightful activities.

According to Day, the BSA allows government agencies to engage in a bit of overreach here and there. What fun!

“We have something called suspicious activity reports. Anytime you do a financial transaction through your bank greater than $10,000, a report is automatically generated and sent to the Treasury Department. This shows you that we already have tracking within the system,” he said. What a splendid game of cat and mouse!

While these tools are often wielded for public protection, our dear government can implement them without so much as a polite request.

Day highlights a particularly riveting example. In March 2025, FinCEN, a charming bureau of the US Treasury Department, issued a geographic targeting order to combat money laundering activities near the southwest border. What a riveting plot twist!

As part of that order, FinCEN demanded that money services businesses in 30 ZIP codes report transactions over $200. How utterly thrilling!

“Understand what this means. The Treasury Department, without Congress, without a bill, without a law, can simply send a memo and banks will start adjusting the dollar transaction amount with which they start automatically reporting to Treasury,” he said. How delightfully bureaucratic!

In light of these delightful examples, he argues that surveillance mechanisms were already dancing about the ballroom. The GENIUS Act merely hands Congress the baton to supervise stablecoins, potentially expanding their control over digital currencies in ways that mirror those of a CBDC. How utterly captivating!

Read More

2026-03-05 02:55