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Magyar21 Oct 2026
The US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has published the first final rule implementing the GENIUS Act, setting out how payment stablecoin issuers under its watch must handle reserves, redemption, risk management and custody. The rule takes effect on January 18, 2027, and gives no safe harbor to existing stablecoin rewards programs on exchanges.
The US stablecoin framework took a concrete step on Wednesday. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), which supervises national banks and trusts, announced a final rule to implement the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act. According to CoinDesk, it is the first federal banking regulator to finish its rules under the law.
The final rule and the GENIUS Act itself take effect on January 18, 2027.
What the OCC rule covers
The rule sets requirements for permitted payment stablecoin issuers and foreign payment stablecoin issuers under the OCC’s jurisdiction, plus certain custody activities by OCC-supervised firms. Comptroller Jonathan Gould said it brings “strong standards for reserve backing, redemption, and risk management.”
It does not cover Bank Secrecy Act, anti-money laundering or OFAC sanctions requirements. Those will come in a separate rulemaking coordinated with the Treasury. The OCC said it received hundreds of comments on its proposal and will announce separately when it starts accepting applications and waiver requests from would-be issuers.
One change from the proposal: on reserves, the agency moved to a principles-based approach to asset diversification and concentration, backed by requirements for a minimum amount of daily liquidity and limits on exposure to a single counterparty.
No safe harbor for stablecoin rewards
The most closely watched part for exchange users is yield. The GENIUS Act bans issuers from paying holders anything “solely in connection with the holding, use, or retention” of a payment stablecoin. CoinDesk reports that the OCC declined to give examples of which rewards programs would break that rule and said it will apply the statute to the facts of each arrangement.
The agency also said it “declines to presume” that rewards programs that existed before the GENIUS Act comply with it. At the same time, it signaled that the word “solely” matters: a reward paid at least partly for other reasons could fall outside the ban. The final rule also dropped the “rebuttable presumptions” from the proposal that listed specific activities assumed to violate it.
CoinDesk cites current examples such as PayPal’s 4% on PYUSD, 3.75% on USDC for Coinbase One members and up to 4.5% on USDG for Kraken+ subscribers. Commenters asked the OCC to account for the stalled Clarity Act, which could have changed the yield rules, but the regulator said that until such legislation passes, it must implement the yield prohibition “as enacted.”
Other agencies are still working
The OCC rule is only one piece. The FDIC, the Treasury and the Federal Reserve all have their own GENIUS Act rulemakings in progress, and Treasury’s FinCEN and OFAC proposed anti-money laundering and sanctions controls in April. CoinDesk notes it is unlikely all required rules will be in place by the January effective date.
What it means for traders
Nothing changes overnight, but the rule makes the US stablecoin regime more concrete ahead of January 2027. The key risk for users is the rewards question: exchanges that pay yield on stablecoin balances will need their programs to pass OCC review, and there is no grandfathering for programs that already exist. Anyone relying on stablecoin rewards as a steady return should treat those rates as subject to change.
For a side-by-side view of fees and features, see our exchange comparison, and read our reviews of Coinbase and Kraken, both named in the rewards discussion. Our how we test page explains our scoring. This is not financial advice.
Related reviews
Sources
- OCC: OCC Advances U.S. Digital Asset Leadership with Final Rule to Implement GENIUS Act
- CoinDesk: OCC's final rule to start fresh in weighing stablecoin rewards against GENIUS Act ban
- Watcher.Guru Telegram: US officially finalizes new crypto stablecoin regulations under the GENIUS Act
News is for information only and is not financial advice. More crypto news
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