Treasury Chief Bessent Flags GENIUS Act as Stablecoin Shift Similar to Lincoln-Era Banking Reform

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Wednesday framed the Trump administration’s stablecoin push as a historic step toward building a national framework for digital payments, drawing an analogy to major banking reforms during Abraham Lincoln’s presidency. In a post on X, Bessent praised the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency’s (OCC) final rule implementing the GENIUS Act, calling it a “watershed moment in American finance.” He compared the legislation’s role in regulating payment stablecoins to the National Currency Act of 1863, which helped establish a federal structure for nationally chartered banks to issue currency.