OCC finalises first GENIUS Act stablecoin rule

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) has finalised its rule implementing the GENIUS Act, the first federal regulator to turn the 2025 US stablecoin law into binding requirements for issuers. The rule covers reserves, redemptions, risk management and some custody activities, and takes effect together with the law on January 18, 2027, Cointelegraph reported, with further detail from Decrypt.

Who it applies to

The rule covers payment stablecoin issuers that fall under the OCC's authority:

• national banks, federal savings associations, federal branches and their subsidiaries;
• non-bank firms that apply for or receive federal qualified issuer status;
• state-qualified issuers where the OCC has supervisory or enforcement powers;
• foreign issuers and certain custody activities at OCC-supervised firms, according to the agency's bulletin.

The core requirements

• Reserves: an issuer must hold reserve assets worth at least as much as its outstanding stablecoins.
• Redemptions: requests should generally be honoured within two business days.
• Other standards: risk management, audits and reporting, custody, the application process, supervision of foreign issuers and a capital and operational backstop. The rule also sets out how state issuers move to the federal framework and when the OCC can revoke an approval.

"We are providing a clear, practical framework for payment stablecoin innovation," Comptroller Jonathan Gould said.

What changed from the proposal

The OCC proposed the rule in February and received hundreds of comments. The biggest change: it dropped a proposed presumption that certain arrangements with affiliates or related third parties automatically violate the law's ban on yield. The ban itself remains — issuers may not pay holders interest or yield just for holding, using or keeping their stablecoins — and the OCC says it can still act against attempts to dodge it. The question of rewards paid by exchanges and other platforms has been one of the most contested in Washington, as we noted when the Blockchain Association filed its comments to Treasury.

What's still missing

Bank Secrecy Act, anti-money-laundering and sanctions rules are not included; Treasury's FinCEN and OFAC are handling those in separate rulemaking. The OCC also said it will announce separately when it starts processing applications and waiver requests. Regulators already missed the law's earlier July deadline for final rules.

For a plain-language overview of the law, read our explainer on what the GENIUS Act is, and for the basics of dollar tokens see what a stablecoin is.