OCC races to finalize GENIUS Act stablecoin rules by November

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency intends to finalize its rules for stablecoin issuers by November, its head said Wednesday at the Wyoming Blockchain Symposium, an event hosted by SALT in Jackson, according to Decrypt. Jonathan Gould, who leads the OCC, said the agency is moving at a rapid pace and expects a final rule by November so it can begin processing applications within the new year. The rules implement the GENIUS Act, the stablecoin framework President Donald Trump signed in July 2025, which takes effect in January 2027 and carries a statutory deadline of Jan. 18 for regulators to have regulations in place. The OCC has already missed an earlier July target.

Background

The GENIUS Act, signed by President Donald Trump in July 2025, is described by Decrypt as the country's landmark digital-dollar law. It tasks federal regulators with writing the details governing payment stablecoins, and it takes effect in January 2027. Agencies face a statutory deadline of Jan. 18 to have regulations in place. The OCC's proposal is a 376-page draft released in February and opened for public comment through May, covering the full life cycle of a payment stablecoin. The framework spells out requirements for reserve assets, redemption at par, liquidity, risk management, audits, custody and supervision, along with the process for winding down a failed issuer. Anti-money-laundering and sanctions requirements were carved out into separate rulemaking coordinated with the Treasury Department. The OCC has already blown past an earlier July target, a slip that Decrypt says has fed concern about lingering regulatory uncertainty. Under the law, only permitted issuers will be able to offer payment stablecoins to Americans, and Treasury has separately proposed rules that would bar platforms from selling noncompliant stablecoins to U.S. customers once the law's provisions kick in.

What happened

Speaking Wednesday at the Wyoming Blockchain Symposium, hosted by SALT in Jackson, OCC head Jonathan Gould laid out the timeline for finalizing stablecoin rules, Decrypt reported. He said the agency is working at a rapid pace and expects to publish a final rule by November as it weighs feedback gathered from the crypto industry. "We are very intent on moving quickly and getting a final rule out by November so that we will be able to start processing applications within the new year," Gould said, according to Decrypt. The rules will implement the GENIUS Act, which Trump signed in July 2025. The law takes effect in January 2027, and agencies face a statutory deadline of Jan. 18 to have regulations in place. The OCC has already blown past an earlier July target, a slip Decrypt says has fed concern about lingering regulatory uncertainty. The OCC's proposal, a 376-page draft released in February and open for public comment through May, covers the full life cycle of a payment stablecoin, spelling out requirements for reserve assets, redemption at par, liquidity, risk management, audits, custody and supervision, plus the process for winding down a failed issuer. Anti-money-laundering and sanctions requirements were carved out into separate rulemaking coordinated with Treasury. Gould said the agency expects to begin processing applications from stablecoin issuers starting in 2027. He also pointed to a surge of interest in federal oversight, saying digital-asset chartering activity has jumped eightfold compared with the Biden administration, and criticized the prior administration's approach to crypto risk as shortsighted. The OCC did not lay out a firm date within November for the final rule.

Market impact

The sources provide no prices, trading volumes or fund flows, so this article cannot report market moves. The figures Decrypt does supply are regulatory and calendar-based. The OCC's draft rule runs 376 pages and was released in February, with public comment open through May. The GENIUS Act was signed in July 2025, takes effect in January 2027, and sets a statutory deadline of Jan. 18 for agencies to have regulations in place. The OCC had an earlier July target that it has already missed. Gould said the agency expects to begin processing applications from stablecoin issuers starting in 2027, and that digital-asset chartering activity has jumped eightfold compared with the Biden administration. The OCC did not give a firm date within November for the final rule. Decrypt frames the stakes in structural rather than price terms: under the GENIUS Act, only permitted issuers will be able to offer payment stablecoins to Americans, and Treasury has separately proposed rules that would bar platforms from selling noncompliant stablecoins to U.S. customers once the law's provisions kick in.

Why it matters

The timeline matters because the GENIUS Act makes federal permission the gateway to the U.S. payment stablecoin market. Decrypt reports that under the law only permitted issuers will be able to offer payment stablecoins to Americans, and that Treasury has separately proposed rules barring platforms from selling noncompliant stablecoins to U.S. customers once the law's provisions kick in. Until the OCC finalizes its rule, the application process cannot start, which is why Gould ties a November final rule to processing applications within the new year and to beginning that processing in 2027. The missed July target has already fed concern about lingering regulatory uncertainty, per Decrypt, and the statutory deadline of Jan. 18 leaves little room for further slippage. The scope of the draft is also consequential: it covers reserve assets, redemption at par, liquidity, risk management, audits, custody, supervision and the wind-down of a failed issuer, with AML and sanctions requirements handled in separate rulemaking coordinated with Treasury. Gould's comments on an eightfold jump in digital-asset chartering activity and on the prior administration's approach signal how the OCC frames its own posture.