The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency wants to finish its main GENIUS Act stablecoin rules by November, a sign that Washington is finally turning a federal stablecoin framework from political talking point into actual rule text.
- November target: OCC aims to finalize its core GENIUS Act Regulations: Notice of Proposed Rulemaking by then.
- Stablecoin framework: The proposal covers reserves, redemption, custody, supervision, and issuer wind-downs.
- More action at OCC: Digital asset applications and conditional approvals are picking up.
- Still unfinished: Treasury and other regulators still have key pieces to complete.
According to crypto journalist Eleanor Terrett, Comptroller of the Currency Jonathan Gould disclosed the November timetable at the Wyoming Blockchain Symposium in Jackson Hole, an event presented by SALT and Kraken. The timing matters because the GENIUS Act is the first federal U.S. framework written specifically for payment stablecoins, and the rules will decide how issuers, custodians, and platforms can operate in the American market.
That is a big deal for a sector that has spent years living in a haze of partial guidance, agency turf wars, and “we’ll get to it later” energy from Washington. Stablecoins are no longer being treated like some weird crypto sidecar. Regulators are building the actual highway.
The OCC published its main GENIUS Act proposal on Feb. 25, with the notice appearing in the Federal Register on March 2. A 60-day comment period ran until May 1. Gould said the agency is taking feedback from crypto companies and other industry participants and adjusting the final version accordingly.
Terrett did not specify which requirements might change, and it is not clear whether November applies to every rule the OCC must issue under the GENIUS Act or only the main stablecoin package. So this is progress, not a finish line with balloons and champagne.
The proposal itself is broad and serious. It covers the stablecoin lifecycle from issuance to reserve management, redemption, supervision, and even the closing of an issuer. That is the right scope if the goal is to regulate payment stablecoins like financial plumbing instead of treating them as casino chips with a blockchain sticker slapped on top.
Under the draft, issuers supervised by the OCC would have to maintain eligible reserve assets and redeem stablecoins at par, meaning for their face value, usually $1 per token. That requirement sits at the center of the whole model. If a payment stablecoin cannot reliably redeem one-for-one, the “stable” part becomes marketing copy.
The proposal also includes requirements for liquidity, risk controls, audits, reports, custody, and regulatory examinations. In plain English: issuers would need to prove the reserves exist, the systems work, and the institution can survive stress without turning into a trust-me-bro liability with a ticker symbol.
The application rules would apply to several categories of firms, including nonbank companies seeking recognition as federal qualified payment stablecoin issuers, subsidiaries of national banks and federal savings associations, certain state-qualified issuers under OCC authority, and foreign issuers looking for access to the U.S. market. That last category matters. The United States is not just writing rules for domestic players; it is also deciding how much foreign stablecoin activity gets a seat at the table.
The draft also includes a capital and operational backstop, though the final amount and structure could still change after comments. That matters a lot. Too little backing and you get fragility. Too much and you create a moat so wide that only the biggest incumbents can cross it. Regulators love “balance” the way traders love “prudence”, in theory.
One important detail is what the February proposal left out. It excluded Bank Secrecy Act, anti-money-laundering, and Office of Foreign Assets Control requirements, saying those would be handled through separate rulemaking with the Treasury Department. In June, the OCC issued proposals on anti-money-laundering, counter-terrorist financing, and sanctions risk management for permitted stablecoin issuers. Another proposal covering customer identification remains open for comments through Aug. 21, according to the OCC’s rulemaking tracker.
That split matters because stablecoin compliance is not arriving as one neat, tidy document. It is being assembled in layers. The OCC is handling issuer-side prudential oversight, while Treasury is tackling where and when payment stablecoins are issued, offered, or sold in the United States. Treasury’s Aug. 17 proposal also helps determine when a platform becomes subject to distribution restrictions and how foreign-issued stablecoins can be offered to Americans.
For readers trying to keep the regulatory map straight: the OCC is focused on the issuer’s balance sheet and operating discipline; Treasury is focused more on territorial reach and distribution scope. One rule asks, “How do you run this thing safely?” The other asks, “Who falls under the rules in the first place?” Different jobs, same pile of compliance pain.
The timing is also worth cleaning up. President Donald Trump signed the GENIUS Act into law on July 18, 2025. The statutory deadline for implementing rules passed on July 18, 2026, and the framework is set to take effect on Jan. 18, 2027, or 120 days after the primary federal regulators issue final implementing rules, whichever comes first. Finalizing the OCC proposal in November would not start that clock on its own unless the other agencies also finish their own required rules.
That means the framework is law, but not fully live yet. Ten proposed rulemakings were still pending across federal agencies when the deadline expired, so the system is still waiting on the plumbing to be connected.
Gould also said the OCC’s digital asset approval activity has increased eightfold compared with the Biden administration, according to Terrett’s post. The exact metric behind that claim was not spelled out, so it should be read as Gould’s characterization rather than a cleanly defined statistic.
Still, the direction of travel is obvious. In August, the OCC said it had received 40 de novo bank applications during the previous 18 months, including proposed national trust banks. Gould compared that with an annual average of fewer than four charter applications between 2011 and 2024. The agency’s public licensing tracker recently listed 13 pending digital asset applications, including Payward National Trust Company, Revolut Bank US, EDX Trust, Agora National Trust Bank, and PAYO Digital Bank.
That surge suggests more firms are trying to build regulated on-ramps for custody, settlement, and other digital asset services. No surprise there. When the rules start to harden, serious companies move early, and the less serious ones usually keep shouting on social media about “decentralization” while they wait for someone else to write the compliance manual.
The OCC has said it often decides complete charter applications within 120 days, though preliminary approval does not mean an institution can open its doors. That distinction matters. Conditional approval is not a get-rich-quick license. It is permission to keep working through the preopening checklist.
Several crypto companies have received conditional national trust bank approvals since December 2025, including Circle, Ripple, Paxos, BitGo, and Fidelity Digital Assets. On Aug. 14, the OCC also conditionally approved World Liberty Financial’s application to establish World Liberty Trust Company.
According to the materials, World Liberty Trust Company would issue and redeem the USD1 stablecoin, manage reserves, and provide custody services to institutional clients. To open, it still must satisfy preopening requirements, maintain at least $20 million in eligible capital, apply for Federal Reserve Bank stock, and receive written authorization.
That kind of conditional approval is meaningful, but it is not the same as a live, operating bank. The regulator is basically saying: keep moving, do not touch the stove, and do not confuse paperwork with permission.
The reserve framework in the OCC proposal is also more conservative than casual crypto commentary often suggests. The draft points toward high-quality, liquid reserve assets such as cash or Federal Reserve balances, insured deposits or insured shares payable on demand, Treasury bills, notes, or bonds with 93 days or less remaining maturity, certain overnight repo or reverse repo structures, government money market funds holding only the allowed reserve assets, and other similarly liquid federal government-issued assets approved by the OCC. Tokenized forms of allowed reserves may also be permitted if they comply.
That is not a license for yield-chasing nonsense dressed up as prudence. The whole point is to keep reserve assets liquid enough that redemptions can be met without fire-sale pricing. The OCC is clearly trying to prevent the classic stablecoin disaster scenario: everything looks fine until everyone wants cash at once and the “stable” part becomes a very bad joke.
The proposal also includes mechanisms that recognize real-world liquidity risk, not just balance-sheet theater. The rule text contemplates reserve monetization under stress and, in some cases, actual monetization transactions to prove assets can be turned into cash quickly when conditions get ugly. That is a sensible requirement. A reserve portfolio can look immaculate on a spreadsheet and still freeze up the moment the market decides to panic.
One unresolved question is how prescriptive the final reserve rules will be. The proposal includes two alternatives for reserve diversification and interest rate risk management: one more principles-based with an optional safe harbor, and one more rigid with mandatory quantitative requirements. The final rule will have to choose between flexibility and control, which is basically the regulator’s favorite tradeoff and everybody else’s headache.
There is also a broader policy angle here. Stablecoin rules will not just affect crypto-native issuers. They will touch banks, fintechs, exchanges, custodians, payment platforms, foreign issuers, and any business trying to move dollar tokens through the U.S. market. If the rules are workable, they could bring more stablecoin activity into regulated channels and make life harder for sloppy offshore issuers. If they are too restrictive or never fully harmonized, activity will route around them. Markets do not stop for paperwork. They just get more annoying.
Key questions and takeaways
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Why does the November target matter?
It suggests the OCC wants the core stablecoin rulebook finished soon, which could give issuers and platforms more certainty. But the full federal framework still depends on other agencies finishing their own rules. For background, see the earlier breakdown on U.S. Senate Rejects GENIUS Act: Crypto Regulation Stalls and the later push in Senate Advances GENIUS Act to Regulate Stablecoins Amid Warren’s Opposition. -
What does “redeem at par” mean?
It means a stablecoin must be redeemable for its face value, usually $1 per token. That is the central promise behind payment stablecoins, and if it fails, the model stops working as advertised. -
Why are reserve assets such a big deal?
Because stablecoins are only as credible as the assets backing them. High-quality, liquid reserves reduce the chance that redemptions or market stress trigger a messy run. -
Are these rules only for crypto companies?
No. They also affect banks, custodians, fintechs, foreign issuers, and platforms that want to issue, sell, or distribute payment stablecoins to Americans. The political side of this fight is spelled out in Trump Signs GENIUS Act: Stablecoins Legalized, But at What Cost. -
Is the U.S. stablecoin regime finished?
Not yet. The GENIUS Act is law, but several implementing rules are still being completed across agencies, and the final compliance picture is still coming together. -
What happens if agencies miss deadlines again?
The framework can remain partially stuck in limbo, with firms waiting for final rules and some activity continuing in a gray zone. That is bad for clarity and usually good for lawyers.
The broader picture is simple: the U.S. is moving from vague stablecoin politics to actual stablecoin bureaucracy. That may sound dull to hype merchants, but it is where the real market structure gets built. Good rules can legitimize serious issuers and lock out some of the offshore slop. Bad rules, or rules that never quite finish, just leave everyone operating in a swamp and pretending that counts as progress.
For crypto, this is one of those moments where details matter more than slogans. Stablecoins are not magic, and they are not automatically evil either. They are financial instruments, and if regulators want them to work as payment money, they need rules that are strict enough to keep the system honest without strangling the useful parts into dead weight.
Further reading
A couple of related updates from the stablecoin rulemaking front worth keeping on the radar:
