Hey, it’s Marc & the 51 team.

I don't think Washington has ever shipped this much crypto policy in a single week. Each one would normally be the headline.

* The US Labor Department proposed allowing Bitcoin in 401(k) plans, opening digital assets to $7.7 trillion in American retirement savings.

* US Congress advanced a payment stablecoin framework, pushing dollar-backed digital currencies closer to formal regulatory recognition.

* The Treasury published its first rule under the GENIUS Act. Under $10B, you stay with your state. Over it, you move to the OCC.

Other highlights we’re watching this week:

* U.S. Treasury publishes first GENIUS Act regulation

* Arizona opens $7.43B of pension money to crypto

* Franklin Templeton settles an acquisition in its own token

* Citadel-backed EDX Markets applies for US trust bank charter

* Moody’s rates first Bitcoin-backed $100M bond

and much more. Let’s jump in 👇

Top Boardroom Reads

* Stablecoins: What Strategic Choices for Europe (Banque de France)

* Making the Case for Tokenized Collateral (Nasdaq & The ValueExchange)

* Beyond Dollarization: The Rise of Local Currency Stablecoins (Visa & Dune Analytics)

* Tokenized Intraday Repo: Balance Sheet Optimization (Finadium & Broadridge)

* Global Economic Outlook 2026‑27: The Fog of War (Allianz Research)

* Stablecoin Payments at Scale (Artemis)

The Friday newsletter only scratches the surface. A lot more is going on that we’ll tell you in our PRO briefings.

Top Signals This Week

The $500B stablecoin rulebook

The U.S. Department of the Treasury on April 1 published its first regulation under the GENIUS Act, an 87-page proposed rule defining when state stablecoin regimes qualify as equivalent to the federal framework. Issuers under $10 billion can stay under state supervision if their state passes; above that line, they move to the OCC, which published its own 376-page rulemaking in February. The GENIUS Act takes effect by January 2027 at the latest. [RELEASE]

Why this matters: Three regulatory layers are now closing that gap at once: the GENIUS Act banned issuer-to-holder payments, the OCC added a rebuttable presumption targeting affiliate pass-throughs, and last week’s Senate CLARITY Act deal extends the ban to anything “economically equivalent to interest”. Every platform that built its stablecoin business around yield takes a hit: Circle fell 20% on the and Coinbase dropped 11% on the news. The banks got exactly what they lobbied for: the passive yield ban is now written into three concurrent rulemakings. Stablecoin issuance is heading toward $500 billion this year. How the Treasury draws the line between qualifying state regimes and federal oversight in the next 60 days shapes who gets to issue into that market.

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Arizona plugs pensions into the bitcoin reserve

Arizona’s SB1042 cleared the House Rules Committee, authorizing public retirement systems to allocate up to 10% of their portfolios into virtual currency, including through exchange-traded products or, notably, the federal Strategic Bitcoin Reserve for storage. The Arizona State Retirement System manages ~$50B and the Public Safety Personnel Retirement System holds ~$24.3B, putting the combined maximum crypto exposure at $7.43B from a single state. The bill passed the Senate on partisan lines and now sits on the House consent calendar. [RELEASE]

Why this matters: SB1042 is significant not because of the 10% ceiling but because it treats digital assets as an investable asset class for public pension systems. That is a category shift. New Hampshire’s HB 302 created a Bitcoin-only mandate; Texas’s SB 21 validated a full custody chain by routing $5M through BlackRock’s IBIT; SB1042 goes further by referencing the federal Strategic Bitcoin Reserve for storage, a state bill plugging directly into federal custody infrastructure. Every 2026 crypto regulation debate is about permission. Three states are already past it, building the operational plumbing for government-held digital assets before the BITCOIN Act reaches a vote.

Read our full CEO Notes👇

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Franklin paid in its own token

Franklin Templeton acquired 250 Digital, a CoinFund spinoff with all of CoinFund’s liquid crypto strategies, to create a new unit called Franklin Crypto. The interesting part is the payment: Franklin used it’s BENJI tokens, the on-chain shares of its own U.S. Government Money Fund (FOBXX), yielding 3.58%, as deal currency. The deal closes Q2 2026, one week after Franklin partnered with Ondo Finance to tokenize five ETFs for 24/7 crypto wallet trading. [RELEASE]

Why this matters: This the first time a top-20 global asset manager has used a tokenized fund share to pay for a corporate acquisition.

Let’s unpack that: There are two ways to get blockchain infrastructure. You buy it, or you b...

172: four rules, five days