diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index 35bc123fc1..e396d6fb5e 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -29,6 +29,7 @@ This release will contain consensus-breaking changes.
 
 ### Changed
 
+- The new minimum Rust version is 1.61
 - The act of walking the mempool will now cache address nonces in RAM and to a
   temporary mempool table used for the purpose, instead of unconditionally
 querying them from the chainstate MARF.  This builds upon improvements to mempool
diff --git a/Cargo.toml b/Cargo.toml
index 45bbcc14ca..2b41cc29b9 100644
--- a/Cargo.toml
+++ b/Cargo.toml
@@ -12,6 +12,7 @@ keywords = [ "stacks", "stx", "bitcoin", "crypto", "blockstack", "decentralized"
 readme = "README.md"
 resolver = "2"
 edition = "2021"
+rust-version = "1.61"
 
 [profile.release]
 debug = true
diff --git a/clarity/src/vm/ast/traits_resolver/mod.rs b/clarity/src/vm/ast/traits_resolver/mod.rs
index 84ab59c45f..c4299d9d12 100644
--- a/clarity/src/vm/ast/traits_resolver/mod.rs
+++ b/clarity/src/vm/ast/traits_resolver/mod.rs
@@ -153,7 +153,9 @@ impl TraitsResolver {
                 | DefineFunctions::PersistedVariable
                 | DefineFunctions::FungibleToken
                 | DefineFunctions::NonFungibleToken => {
-                    self.probe_for_generics(args[1..].to_vec(), &mut referenced_traits, false)?;
+                    if args.len() > 0 {
+                        self.probe_for_generics(&args[1..], &mut referenced_traits, false)?;
+                    }
                 }
             };
         }