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Nonprofit Organizations and Digital Assets, Beginning with Stablecoins

In July of 2025, the U.S. Congress enacted a law titled: “Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins Act” (commonly referred to as “the GENIUS Act”). This law would permit the issuance of a form of digital asset known as a “payment stablecoin” that would be used only for purposes of payment or settlement and not investment. Among various entities, payment stablecoins maybe issued by depository institutions but are not federally insured. Rather, they are supported by the requirement that every payment stablecoin issuer maintain a reserve fund of equal value to its outstanding payment stablecoins in U.S. dollars or items of a similar form.

In the course of implementing the GENIUS Act, the U.S. Department of the Treasury requested comments from the general public with respect to future regulation. The memorandum below was submitted in response.

From: Lori G. Nuckolls, Public Policy Researcher and Writer, Philosophy, Law and Politics (lorigaylenuckolls.blog)

To: U.S. Department of the Treasury, Attention: Office of the General Counsel, 1500 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20220, Via Electronic Submission: https://www.regulations.gov

Re: GENIUS Act Implementation Comments, TREAS-DO-2025-0037, 90 Fed. Reg. 45159-45163 (Sept. 19, 2025), 90 Fed. Reg. 47251 (Oct. 1, 2025) (Submission date extension)

Date: November 1, 2025

I. Introduction

The GENIUS Act, 12 U.S.C. §§ 5901-5916 (2025), was enacted with the legislative purpose of providing legal guidance and regulation in the use of stablecoins as a digital asset. A statutorily created “payment stablecoin,” denominated in U.S. Dollars, would be issued by legally approved entities and would allow entrance into the digital marketplace in a safe and sound manner. 90 Fed. Reg. 45159 (Sept. 19, 2025). In regulating the issuance of payment stablecoins by subsidiaries of depository institutions, specifically nonprofit depository institutions such as credit unions, the U.S. Department of the Treasury should consider regulations that support and permit as well require the nonprofit organizations to honor their asserted charitable mission and purpose. With respect to the credit union, this would be pursuance of its historical mission and purpose of enabling its governing members to obtain access to historically unavailable financial services, develop financial literacy, and transition into a competitive socio-economic environment premised upon self-government and self-sustainability. Credit unions which have already successfully entered the heretofore unregulated digital asset marketplace offer extensive and direct training to leaders, staff, and members to avoid financial loss. Participation of credit unions, large and small, in a well-regulated digital asset marketplace would facilitate the long-sought self-government and financial growth of members.

The Department of the Treasury should consider that nonprofit financial institutions bear a higher ethical standard than do for-profit entities. Their existence depends upon their reputation within the communities they serve and the absence of their engaging in intense competition with their peers. Credit unions rely upon the trust they engender in society, not to mention donors, volunteers and members. In governing the payment stablecoin activities of all nonprofits, including credit unions, regulators should premise requirements upon the principle that the trust engendered by the conduct of the nonprofit organization is based upon not only the appearance of propriety but also upon the absence of even the appearance of impropriety.

As a consequence, regulation could guide nonprofit organizations in achieving balance between engaging in authorized emerging digital assets and guaranteeing the financial stability of the communities served. Whereas, unleashing digital assets in a scarcely regulated environment to enable the efficiency, directness and globalization emerging digital technologies provide, would be an example of dialectical creative destruction. And, this achievement of positive development while permitting a threshold level of hardship is to be mitigated in the regulatory process. Specifically, in the historically financially fragile communities of the credit union, little is achieved by regulation allowing entrance into the digital asset marketplace if the burden of greater risk is endured by the financial communities most in need. Thus, questions arise as to how regulation of the nonprofit organization is to be structured in theory and practice.

II. Credit Union Subsidiary Issuers of Payment Stablecoins: a Theory of Regulation to Avoid the Creative Destruction Dialectic

The GENIUS Act currently provides that all issuers of payment stablecoins, state and federal, are required to meet federal standards. 12 U.S.C. § 5903(c) (2025). In regulating nonprofit organizations and, guiding regulation by the National Credit Union Administration of credit unions and the distinct communities they serve, perhaps the Department of the Treasury could consider the theoretical doctrine of the “veil of ignorance” established by American philosopher John Rawls. In the veil of ignorance, Rawls suggests that society place itself in the “original position” in which each individual in society envisions oneself to not know one’s specific place in society. (Rawls, A Theory of Justice (1971)).

In this case, the principles of the veil of ignorance guide governing leaders and citizens in reaching agreement as to public policy, law and regulation. Choices in law would be determined by a general understanding as to what being a citizen should mean. Commonality of thought would arise from leaders and the public alike perceiving themselves guided by the veil of ignorance under which they reach decisions and enact laws without consideration of their own personal circumstance and condition. Rather, each person deems their position to be that of those most vulnerable and in need. And, in turn, they seek a legal structure most capable of providing a just and fair society.

Specifically, the Department of the Treasury would identify with credit union staff and members most benefiting from the financial services and training provided and least familiar with emerging digital asset technologies. Safe harbor regulations for credit unions and other nonprofit organizations would guide the ambitious and encourage the wary ones unfamiliar with the digital asset marketplace. For, both are truly outnumbered by for-profit entities. In doing so, credit union regulation, in particular, would allow financial growth through the creative use of digital assets while maintaining a safety net for the credit union governed by members most in need of financial literacy and growth.

The GENIUS Act and its framework for the issuance of payment stablecoins as a creature of statute is a blank slate. It enables the beginning of a new economy premised upon regulation in the John Rawls original position, derived from the veil of ignorance. For example, both regulators and credit unions, including their issuer subsidiaries, would envision themselves in the position of a credit union with truly dependent members situated in a community of similar prospective members increasing in number. To continue in existence, this credit union and its members must be knowledgeable of market development, namely the advent of digital assets. In this position, Treasury would govern with reference to legal standards that would enable an understanding of rights, powers, and privileges, as well as the risks they engender. From this new beginning, credit unions would be able to implement risk assessment policies allowing the balancing of legally authorized conduct against the forbearance of some legally permitted activity in order to maintain trust and goodwill within the community. For, credit unions might not need to be as ambitious and as competitive as the GENIUS Act possibly allows.

III. Conclusion

With the GENIUS Act as a beginning, Congress and the administrative agencies may readily provide financial regulation of all nonprofit organizations as they enter every aspect of the digital asset marketplace. In guiding this transition, the law should promote new strategies of growth and risk management as to digital assets as it has historically with respect to more traditional financial markets.

Is There A Panacea For The Masses?

World history contains reference to the many forms of communication shared. The lyre player, knight, storyteller, dramatic troupe, athletic league, not to mention pamphleteer and more. All impart a unique view of current events. The number and diversity in these forms ensure that there is access to information.

The question arises: how should these various forms of communication be governed? We ask what is the proper purpose of the regulation? And, how extensive should this regulation be?

The extent of regulation should depend upon the purpose of the information. Is it intended as a panacea, a manipulation. Or, does it reflect the obligation of certain nongovernmental institutions to provide sufficient information for the public to maintain its representative democracy.

To review and decide upon rules governing our information, both leaders and the public must define the concept of manipulative panacea. Is the purpose of the information moral, legal and rational? All regulations should place a duty to safeguard the public from communication that improperly influences and deludes more than informs.

Improper influence and delusion is often imperceptible. Thus upon whom is the burden to decide whether something constitutes honest information, regardless of whether in the form of musical performance, drama, athletics, printed material or other forms of communication?

In the thinking of some we do not begin as we become. We are formed and develop as we learn, absorb and reflect. This we do individually and collectively as we communicate. Perhaps purpose and intent and not content should govern our expressions of community.

Lori Gayle Nuckolls

We Must Each Participate In Change

America is a republican form of government created by its citizenry. It relies upon an educated society. This democracy must ensure an adequate education to all citizens. Today we are in difficult times. We seek to both educate the public and provide well administered government. Education requires talent and resources. A population the size of that of the United States requires much to create and maintain an educated people.

Over the years, many have said that America’s government is too large, its agencies too numerous. The nation’s federal agencies were primarily created during a time of hardship and need, arising during the era of the Great Depression. They have been the subject of reform since creation. Can society envision the manner in which future reforms should be structured? Does each of us individually have a sense of our place and responsibilities in the revision of our government?

We all have an obligation to seek an education and share in that pursuit. Our nation requires it. We require it individually. Government cannot be reformed without it.

Lori Gayle Nuckolls

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When Was There Last Enforcement Of The American Identity?

Why is there a declining sense of community in America? Less active participation in one’s neighborhood, religious organization and charities is occurring. Could this be a result of an increasing awareness of the current American social identity and our failing to achieve or actualize our identity as described by the literal wording in our time honored governing documents: the Declaration of Independence, U.S. Constitution, enforcing statutes and interpreting judicial opinions. Many blame the atomization of society upon social media and Artificial Intelligence. But, perhaps, popular resort to an obsession with the arts of new technology is a remedy of this absence of human connectedness and not the cause.

There are some attributes of personhood in America that require public discussion and enforcement by the law. For, without enforcement, trust in American society and government ceases to exist. Many of these laws in want of enforcement involve social conduct and behavior that are prerequisite to the rights and liberties of American law. This is not a reference to the future recognition of new rights and liberties, though there probably will be some new ones overtime, but, instead, a focus upon the long ago designated crimes that undermine democratic American society: incest, truancy and illegal immigration.

Enforcement is necessary because American democracy is premised upon the sanctity of the individual as each person obtains learning and an understanding sufficient to engage in self-determination and self-government. Incest is prohibited owing to the scientific rationale that children produced from such relationships often suffer from genetic impairment and the social rationale that the relationships often result from abuse and exploitation creating a sense of shame and inferiority.

School attendance is a fundamental requirement for citizens to be able to function and participate as active members of the voting public. This includes an adequate skill level in an arts and sciences curriculum, with vocational training available. And, as a nation of immigrants, America demands the absence of the abuse and exploitation of those seeking liberty from oppression in other lands. Without a path to legal residency they lead a life of illegal employment, want of civic involvement and nonexistence of social integration.

There are newly recognized civil rights and liberties in the modern era: integrated schooling (1954), contraception (1965), integrated relationships (1967) abortion (1973) and same-sex marriage (2015). However, the theories and rationales underlying prohibitions against incest, truancy and illegal immigration support the emergence of the person upon which the foregoing more recently acknowledged rights and liberties exist as an expression. Without the attributes resulting from the absence of incest, truancy and illegal immigration, one may not partake in fair schools, private relationships and self-governance.

We must look to the very foundation of America, below our officials in all aspects of government to the concept of the Rawlsian “original position” in which each one of us imagines that we do not know our place in society. From this position, we conceive of what our world should be. We must begin again to establish our society and government from its description in our essential documents. Enforcement is necessary according to modern terms for a modern era. And, individual existence in such a society requires a viable economic structure of single income livelihoods and feasible higher education tuition. For, even the cost of a public college or university education is beyond the ability of most parental incomes as well as the incomes of most graduates who rely upon student loan financing.

Ongoing progress and development has and will improve law enforcement as it has given rise to the emergence of new rights and privileges, such as scientific advancements in contraception, abortion and in vitro fertilization, which have resulted in newfound debates over the meaning of life. Similarly, incest prohibitions may be reformed with scientific developments in the field of genetics.

Currently, we must ask both government and ourselves as members of the public to look to the connection between our pervasive social ills and the absence of the enforcement of century old legal restrictions. Eliminating duplicity and inefficiency will only make our true society and government more visible and render more feasible achievement of the American dream.

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Is There A Universal Morality?

In our world, we individually experience rites of passage and achieve a meeting of the minds, a collective understanding that a development has taken place. Our understanding is based on knowledge of facts and ideas acquired from both mental and sensory views of life. Even according to the 1901 publication of a noteworthy, yet controversial, Continental Philosopher:

To the extent to which knowledge has any sense at all, the world is knowable: but it may be interpreted differently, it has not one sense behind it, but hundreds of senses…

Consequently, we should defer to our collective appreciation of reality and the law that governs our existence.

We may disagree, one with another, about the law and our governing leaders. If so, we must look to the role in politics and society that law and government permit us. To change law and or society, we may only participate in the specific manner we are allowed. Participation begins with the act of daily self-governance. In doing so, we will together understand and change our lives and world.

In America, we made certain promises at its founding which we are achieving gradually through many transitions in society and government. Ultimately, we seek to create a country of equal opportunity in a popular melting pot of free choice. Ideally, our schools, churches, clubs and places of employment will permit unfettered access and participation in a meritocratically ruled government and society.

In thinking of the recent transition in the American Presidency, we should evaluate governing leaders and the policies they propose by the same standards with which we govern ourselves. In no way may we hold them accountable to standards higher than our own.

Lori Gayle Nuckolls

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A Natural Aristocrat for DNC Chair

In selecting the next Chair of the Democratic National Committee, democrats should learn from mistakes made in the most recent election this past November. The losses, president and below, are not solely the fault of current Chair Jamie Harrison. If any reason is to be cited, perhaps Harrison did not stress upon party members the importance of supporting candidates like himself. And, the next Chair should do so. A well-educated, wise, and worldly Democratic Chair would attract similar candidates.

Need we do much to remember the roles of Franklin Roosevelt and John Kennedy in history, not to mention Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. Democrats must admit that both Vice President Kamala Harris and President Joe Biden are not historical figures. Jamie Harrison would present a better candidate.

Democrats possess an opportunity in recently announced DNC Chair candidate Ben Wikler, currently Democratic Chair in Wisconsin, to elect a DNC Chair who may be held accountable to a known standard of ability. He and Jamie Harrison should be compelled to bring forth candidates, local to federal, similar to themselves. The nation must rely upon learned elites as its source of governance. This presidential election did not do this and qualified candidates further down the ballot lost.

Partisanship is not the issue. Rather it is the essential principle of democratic government, that of leadership by a natural aristocracy, derived from its populace with an equal access to education and information. Both Harrison and Wikler are meritocratic leaders. It is possible that more candidates of similar quality will announce for the position as Chair. However, Democrats, and all Americans, must abide by the manner in which a democratic society must be governed.

Lori Gayle Nuckolls

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Where Is The American Governing Meritocracy?

America was founded upon a principle of equality of opportunity. It is world history that provides an appreciation of this ability to participate in society and government. Those well steeped in the thought, languages and literature of their era were learned scribes, tutors, and writers, from Ptahhotep, to Plato, to Shakespeare, to Beauvoir, and beyond. They are members of a historical meritocracy.

America must derive its leaders and elected officials from this stratum to form a governing natural aristocracy. In the words of founder Thomas Jefferson: “[t]he natural aristocracy I consider as the most precious gift of nature for the instruction, the trusts and government of society.” America’s political parties, citizens, and residents do not benefit from governing leadership that is not of the natural aristocracy. Average Americans cannot rise to the level required to govern an ever more demanding world. The political parties must empower its intellectual elites, both within as party leaders and as nominated candidates.

Reliance upon a governing meritocracy requires that society not engender a sense of personal inferiority within its working class. Becoming an intellectual must be feasible for all with the required ability. Respect must also exist for craftsmanship and industrial production. America needs to recognize those meritocraticaly able in all occupations in order to provide self-governance and participation for all. Self-government is an indication of individual achievement and success in a democratic society. It requires adequate education, economic self-sufficiency, and a sense of respect and integrity so that one may maintain trust in government. Personally, I have found that discrimination undermines self-confidence and creates a sense of inferiority, especially when reinforced with an emphasis on the newly declared impropriety of affirmative action. This harm long ago found resulting from racially separate but disputedly equal academic institutions one must wonder might currently exist in racially segregated yet ostensibly separate but equal religious communities.

A meritocratic leadership based upon self-government requires an equal access to education. Disparities in wealth have created an admission gap with wealthy families investing more in college preparatory resources resulting in a far higher level of admission to elite colleges and universities. To provide equal opportunity, government investment is needed in public college preparatory schools of the type that have long-existed in the United States but in insufficient numbers. Such an equal access to education allows the natural aristocracy to assume positions of leadership in both the private sector and in government.

And, as to those not inclined to attend college, all natural talents must be valued and serve as the basis of a meritocracy. For, attribution of a sense of value broadly across all expressions of ability will mitigate the present departure of many young people from scholarship to social media. Meritocracy should provide, in combination with the theory of self-government, a means for every individual to engage in self-evaluation and determine one’s interests and abilities at as young an age as may be possible, both vocational and professional.

In looking for our ruling meritocracy in the results of the recent election, one may look to the candidates leading the ticket in the Presidential election: President-elect Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris. But, arguably, one must first ask whether President Joseph Biden would have been elected to the presidency if he had not previously been Vice President under President Barack Obama, unquestionably a natural aristocrat, even after having served many years as a publicly well known Senator? Does Vice President Kamala Harris differ from President Biden? Do we have to admit that they are not natural aristocrats? And, must we also admit that President-elect Donald Trump arguably is one? Are we empowering a meritocracy?

In conclusion, in this election, was the Democratic Party merely akin to being a child appended to the hip of the Republican Party as the ruing class. The Democratic Party must consistently designate its intellectual elites if it is to gain financial independence and exist as an effective independent entity. America requires competitive political parties that respect talent and ability in all expressions. And, America must recognize that it promised itself upon its founding that representation in a democratic republic is by its natural aristocracy.

Lori Gayle Nuckolls

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The Ohio Citizens Redistricting Commission of Ohio Issue 1, November of 2024

How do we evaluate the fairness of proposed reforms? Historically, we see ourselves anew and think empathetically that we are in the place of those whose condition is being remedied.

The Ohio Issue 1 Citizens Redistricting Commission creates a different method of redistricting Ohio for the purpose of General Assembly and Congressional elections. Issue 1 removes the persons currently empowered to serve as the Ohio Redistricting Commission by the Ohio Constitution: the Governor, Auditor of State, Secretary of State, an appointee of the House Speaker, an appointee of the House Minority Leader, an appointee of the Senate President, and an appointee of the Senate Minority Leader. In their place, Issue 1 would name 15 Ohio citizens who: (1) are not elective or appointive officials and (2) in the previous six years, have not: (a) held elective or appointive office in Ohio; (b) been a candidate for elective office in Ohio; (c) been an officer, paid consultant, or contractor to a political party, political action campaign, or campaign committee; (d) been a staff member, paid consultant, or contractor for an elected official or candidate; or (e) been a registered lobbyist or legislative agent with the State of Ohio or the federal government. These disqualifications apply to the immediate family members of the citizen commissioners as well. Citizen commissioners will represent the two largest political parties and independent voters based upon their previous primary ballot selections.

The citizen commissioners must not, in general, possess interests that conflict with the redistricting process. For, they are prohibited from holding elective or appointive office in Ohio for the six years following certification of their commission ‘s redistricting plan.

The redistricting plan of the Citizens Commission is subject to judicial review and must comply with the U.S. Constitution and applicable federal law, including the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The proposed redistricting method of Issue 1 is, thus, accountable to the judiciary and constitutional principles of due process and equal protection of the law. Court action is a more speedy path to justice and fairness than would be awaiting the next feasible popular ballot approval of General Assembly elective officials or the redistricting plan itself. And, the citizen commissioners are selected by a panel of retired judges. Former judges often are active in the practice of law and subject to professional rules prohibiting even the appearance of impropriety in their conduct, no less actual conflicts of interest.

When we seek to begin a new governmental structure, we should consider our personal situation. If we were potential candidates without knowledge of our political party affiliation or socio-economic status, would we deem the proposed Citizen Commission fair and just in its consideration of districts for candidates? This view is that of American philosopher John Rawls in his theory of the “veil of ignorance.” For Rawls, we at no time know our future, what our social and political standing will be. Consequently, we seek governmental reform that assures equal government. In evaluating Ohio Issue 1, and all redistricting proposals, including that currently in place, we should envision that we are both the voter and the candidate whose district is to be drawn.

Lori Gayle Nuckolls

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Union or Disunion: Is America Devolving into a Land of Divided Fiefdoms?

The law develops overtime. The experiences of a country result in new technology and customs. Incrementally, individuals form personal opinions guiding the way they live. In America, laws are agreed upon as individuals communicate their opinions to their elected officials. The judicial system serves as government by redress when individuals disagree about the meaning of the law.

How do personal opinions and the laws to which they give rise lessen in their ability to facilitate technology and cultural experiences? We should determine whether opinions and proposed laws are evolving or devolving, going forward or backward. Do we measure advances in technology and custom objectively against earlier expressions of science and social interactions?

American expressions, like the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution, are evaluated against the extent to which the law recognizes the inherent freedom of the individual. Human rights exist, fundamentally, under a federal system led by a central, national government of definitions that apply equally. Basic rights are not divvied up as decided among and between the states and territories. Achievements and advances only possess value if uniformly maintained for all. The goal of a representative democracy is peace and harmony for its public, not a devolution into acrimony and argument over the definition of essential rights and freedoms.

The law is a circular, yet didactic form. It instructs those it is made by. It creates a nation as it is created. And, an overarching abstraction then becomes the law for all. Regardless of your opinion on any matter, the naturalized American John Hector St. John de Crevecoeur provided a profound view in the idea that: from soil, values grow.

Lori Gayle Nuckolls

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Utopia?

Will any society ever achieve perfection or an ideal structure of government? Many philosophers and political thinkers have offered utopian theories. How do we define a democratic utopia in the modern era, and how would it be expressed in practical politics, namely, in individual participation through self-government and self-expression?

Is it necessary for political candidates and elected officials to possess individual theories and understandings of what constitutes an ideal government and an ideal society? Citizens and governing officials look at democratic society from the “grassroots up” to the world above. Yet, perhaps we should also share in the belief that society and government be viewed from the top down, and that each of us should possess an individual understanding and opinion as to the manner in which we think society and government should be structured. Our choice of candidates would then be based upon whether their view of the world is close to our own.

Regardless of the place of one’s political opinion on the ideological spectrum, from radical to conservative, our individual participation in an election might be determined by our sense of what our society should be. For each of us, perhaps, utopia is our view of the ideal world.

Lori Gayle Nuckolls