First to arrive, three months late. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) published its final rule implementing the GENIUS Act on October 21. Stablecoin issuers under the supervision of the federal banking regulator therefore have a deadline, January 18, 2027. They also inherit a text that has changed a lot since the February proposal. Indeed, the famous presumption of circumvention on returns paid by third parties disappeared en route.
The federal banking regulator is the first to complete its part of the GENIUS Act, several months after the deadline set by Congress. Reserves, repayment, equity and risk management come into force at the same time as the law. Platform rewards programs will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis, with no presumption rule. The anti-money laundering aspect remains to be written with the Treasury.
Donald Trump signed the GENIUS Act on July 18, 2025. The law then gave regulators one year to publish their implementing rules. Yet July 2026 passed with nothing. In August, Comptroller Jonathan Gould promised a final version “by November”. He kept his word a few weeks early. The OCC thus beats the Fed, the FDIC and the Treasury, who are still working on their own texts.
The perimeter is precise. The rule first covers approved issuers of payment stablecoins and foreign issuers under the OCC. It also covers certain conservation activities of the establishments it supervises. In his press release dated October 21, Jonathan Gould speaks of a “clear and practical framework for the innovation of payment stablecoins”. It also promises “solid standards for the backing of reserves, reimbursement and risk management”. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent goes further. He compares the law to the National Currency Act of 1863, which created the OCC and the American national banking system.
Three bulletins accompany the rule. The first contains the text itself. The second details the procedure for submitting requests for approval and exemption. Finally, the third reviews the reporting forms. The OCC also received approximately 328 comments during the consultation, and the final text reflects this.
This is the point that the entire market has been waiting for. The GENIUS Act prohibits issuers from paying interest to their holders. For months, American banks have been calling for this ban to be extended to exchanges and affiliates. The latter in fact circumvent the rule via reward programs. The February proposal partly proved them right with a rebuttable presumption. In other words, the OCC presumed illegal any return paid by a third party, with the burden on the issuer to prove the contrary.
This presumption no longer exists. Quoted by Unchained, an OCC official speaks of an initial estimate on a “nascent market”. Instead, the regulator will consider arrangements on a case-by-case basis. However, it reserves the right to act against any “obvious circumvention”. Coinbase and PayPal still pay rewards on USDC and PYUSD. So they gain time, but not an absolution. On the other hand, the Fed retained a presumption of the same type in its September 24 proposal. This remains open for comments until November 30.
On reimbursement, the two working day period does not change. But the automatic seven-day extension planned for February disappears. An issuer will therefore have to request an extension from the OCC if redemptions exceed 10% of the outstanding amount in 24 hours. Clearly, a bank run on a stablecoin will no longer trigger an automatic reprieve.
The capital floor of $5 million changes in nature. The proposal limited it to the first three years of an issuer’s activity. The final rule now makes it permanent, regardless of seniority. Issuers already in operation may, however, request a temporary exemption, provided they submit a “substantially complete” approval file. They will thus avoid finding themselves outside the law on the morning of January 18. The OCC will announce the opening date of the counter in a separate press release.
Not everything fits into these few pages. Money laundering, the Bank Secrecy Act and OFAC sanctions are in fact a separate project, carried out with the Treasury. FinCEN and OFAC published their proposals in April, without a final version to date. In other words, an issuer will know now how much capital it must immobilize, but not yet how to monitor its flows.
