18 January 2027. That is when the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency’s final rule implementing the GENIUS Act takes effect, according to The Block, which reported the rule’s publication on Wednesday 21 October.
The rule sets a framework for permitted payment stablecoin issuers, with routes for both banks and non-bank companies. It also sets standards for foreign issuers and for custodians of stablecoin assets. Comptroller Jonathan Gould said it contains strong standards on reserve backing, redemption and risk management.
The more contested change is on rewards. The proposed rule banned issuers from paying interest directly and presumed that some third-party arrangements would be unlawful. The final version drops that presumption. The OCC’s reasoning, as The Block reports it, is that the proposal guessed at evasion in a market that is still nascent.
In its place is a case-by-case approach. The OCC says it can still act against clear evasions of the statutory ban, but it has not said what would count as one.
That leaves the banks and the crypto industry roughly where they were. Banks argue that rewards could pull deposits away from community institutions. The wider CLARITY Act has stalled after the full Senate failed to advance it in a procedural vote, and other agencies are still writing their own parts of the GENIUS Act.
Until the OCC brings its first case, nobody outside the agency can say how much yield an exchange may pass through a partner before it becomes an evasion.
