The stablecoin sector is now regulated in the U.S. after President Donald Trump signed the GENIUS Act into law in July. Owing to the regularity clarity, the state authority of New York has decided to pilot a stablecoin initiative with low income house holds. The authorities have teamed up with Coinbase to fund this initiative dubbed “Future First”.
Under the pilot, a group of 160 young adults picked via lottery, will be given USDC to assess the impact of “unconditional crypto support”. Each of the selected participants in this trial will receive $12,000 in USDC over the period of five months.
The funds are reportedly being supplied by Coinbase — two years after the exchange halted its “GiveCrypto” initiative. Of the total fund it had kept side for GiveCrypto, Coinbase was left with $2.6 million. This is the amount it has donated to GiveDirectly, which is now overseeing this pilot along with the New York state authorities. Givedirectly is a non-profit organization that helps families living in extreme poverty.
In the first phase of the payment — the participants will reportedly acquire upto $8,000 — to encourage them into investing in housing or education. The other installments would be smaller of upto $800 for them to manage utilities and sustenance.
The participants will have to create Coinbase wallets to receive the USDC tokens. They will be allowed to withdraw the funds into a bank account, move them to third-party wallet, or spend via a crypto credit card as well.
The outcomes of this pilot will be tracked under the Universal Basic Income (UBI) experiment. This experiment aims to analyze the impact of providing unconditional, regular financial aid to individuals in their employment, financial health, and spending patterns.
The results of this pilot are expected between March-April next year.