Bitcoin treasury company Strategy diluted shareholders of MSTR, the company’s common stock, by $333.7 million last week and bought no bitcoin (BTC). Instead, the company redirected about 40% of the proceeds to repurchase STRC for its preferred shareholders, 16% as STRC dividends, and kept the rest for itself as cash.

Strategy disclosed the transactions in an SEC filing this morning. It was the company’s fourth straight week of diluting MSTR shareholders with $0 BTC purchases.

In fact, Strategy has not increased its BTC holdings since June 21, 2026. It owns 6,916 fewer BTC today than it did two months ago. 

As a reward for patiently enduring founder Michael Saylor’s shareholder dilution program, MSTR shareholders have lost 16% of their investment since the company reported its last BTC purchase.

In fact, since the July 2025 debut of STRC on the Nasdaq, the price of MSTR has declined 75%.

The STRC rollercoaster from $100 to $71.25 to $95

Strategy has raised roughly $16.3 billion by diluting MSTR since it launched STRC, a dividend-paying preferred share that is supposed to trade near $100 yet has actually traded as low as $71.25 on the Nasdaq.

As STRC collapsed earlier this year, the company started to stack USD instead of BTC — an effort to assure investors that it would pay STRC dividends. It also resorted to direct buybacks of STRC after amassing cash didn’t do the trick. 

Still, STRC languishes, trading below $95 today.

The U.S. Department of the Treasury has launched a formal rulemaking process for the payment-stablecoin framework established by the GENIUS Act, opening the proposal to public comment as regulators move toward a planned start date in January 2027.

In a notice released on Monday, Treasury said it is seeking input from market participants and other stakeholders ahead of the GENIUS Act’s implementation. Under the law’s timeline, stablecoin rules were set to take effect 120 days after agencies finalize the regulations, or 18 months after the bill was signed in July 2025—placing the effective date at Jan. 18, 2027, absent changes to the scheduling.

Key takeaways

• Treasury is proposing GENIUS-related rules and will accept public comments for 60 days after the notice appears in the Federal Register.
• GENIUS would generally require entities to have a federal or state license before issuing a “payment stablecoin” in the U.S.
• The law’s implementation is still expected for Jan. 18, 2027, but multiple agencies have reportedly missed earlier internal timing targets.
• Treasury’s proposed process is part of a broader 2026 rulemaking effort involving agencies such as the OCC, the FDIC, and the Federal Reserve.

Treasury opens GENIUS rulemaking to public comment

According to the Treasury Department, the notice of proposed rulemaking is intended to help establish regulatory certainty for businesses that want to build payment stablecoin products in the United States. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the department welcomes feedback from stakeholders as it works to “provide the regulatory certainty businesses need to innovate and grow in America.”

The proposal matters because GENIUS is designed to move stablecoin oversight from a patchwork of approaches toward a clearer legal structure. Once the law takes effect, Treasury said, an entity generally would not be able to “issue a payment stablecoin” in the U.S. without a related federal or state license.

Public input is a key part of the process. Treasury stated that comments will be open for 60 days following publication in the Federal Register, giving industry participants, financial institutions, and other interested parties a defined window to weigh in on how the framework should operate in practice.

Inter-agency rulemaking is underway, but deadlines slipped

Treasury’s proposal follows similar steps by other U.S. agencies. In 2026, multiple regulators—including the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), and the Federal Reserve Board—have reportedly issued their own notices of proposed rules related to implementing GENIUS.

However, the timing has become a focal point for observers. The report accompanying the Treasury notice says agencies missed a 120-day deadline in July to finalize regulations before January, raising the possibility that GENIUS could become effective without fully settled guidance.

This creates a practical problem for businesses trying to plan for compliance and product launches: even if the statute is scheduled to take effect in January 2027, companies may still be operating amid transitional uncertainty about the exact requirements they will need to meet.

For readers looking for additional background on the broader stablecoin rulemaking environment, earlier coverage noted how the OCC has advanced proposals aimed at resolving parts of the long-running debate over stablecoin yield and related practices. That context is reflected in the agency-by-agency approach to GENIUS implementation.

What GENIUS changes for payment stablecoin issuers

At the core of the framework is a licensing requirement that is meant to formalize who can issue payment stablecoins and under what authorization. Treasury’s notice indicates that once GENIUS is active, entities generally need a federal or state license before they can issue a “payment stablecoin” in the United States.

For investors and traders, this type of licensing can influence expectations around which stablecoins are likely to gain institutional support. For builders, it can affect how they structure reserves, partner with regulated institutions, and design compliance operations—especially if the market previously relied on regulatory uncertainty rather than clear authorization pathways.

It also raises an operational question that market participants will be watching: how quickly regulators will translate the proposed framework into final, implementable rules. Treasury’s comment period is designed to narrow that uncertainty, but the overall effectiveness timeline leaves limited margin for delays.

Cross-Atlantic coordination and competitive pressure

The U.S. rulemaking effort also intersects with international developments. In July, the UK-US Financial Regulatory Working Group met in London to discuss cooperation between U.S. and UK financial regulators, including implementation steps for GENIUS.

While the UK has taken steps to address stablecoin regulation, the pending rollout of GENIUS is leading some within the crypto industry to argue that the UK could be at risk of falling behind the U.S. in establishing a comprehensive, operational framework.

That perceived asymmetry matters because it can affect where stablecoin-related partnerships and compliance strategies form first. If the U.S. moves more decisively toward a standardized licensing approach, businesses may prioritize compliance-ready pathways there—at least until the UK’s own framework becomes equally concrete.

As Treasury’s proposed rules move through the comment period and toward finalization, the most important thing to watch will be whether agencies can converge on final requirements in time to reduce transitional risk before Jan. 18, 2027. If the broader suite of GENIUS regulations remains incomplete, market participants will likely press regulators for clarity on licensing timelines, compliance expectations, and how existing operations should adapt.

Crypto exchange Binance reportedly handed Russian authorities the transaction details of one of its customers despite fully withdrawing its operations from Russia in 2023. 

According to Reuters, the crypto exchange gave up the transfer history of Yuri Belenkiy, an IT specialist who holds a Bulgarian residency permit and Russian passport. 

Belenkiy was accused of terrorist financing by Russia’s Investigative Committee after he allegedly sent over $700 worth of funds to Ukraine’s military and another military group via Binance. 

Russia asked Binance to reveal further donations

Russia’s Investigative Committee claimed he made the payments after witnessing an online appeal from Arkady Babchenko, a Ukraine-supporting advocate exiled from Russia.

Crypto payments were allegedly sent between January 2023 and March 2024. The committee also pushed Binance to reveal who else had sent funds to the advocate, but it’s unclear whether Binance complied.