Two months ago, the United States quietly blew through a deadline it had set for itself on stablecoin rules. On Thursday, the Federal Reserve finally showed its hand: the Board unanimously approved two proposed rules under the GENIUS Act, and both land squarely on issuers' reserves.
The first rule is straightforward on paper: a bank that wants to issue a stablecoin under Fed supervision has to hold a dollar of reserves for every token in circulation — and not in just anything, only short-term US Treasury bills and other highly liquid assets. On top of that come standard capital requirements for credit and operational risk, plus separate risk-management standards that barely existed in the original 2025 law and that regulators have now had to write themselves.
The second document is procedural: it lays out how a bank actually applies to issue a stablecoin, including the right to appeal a denial and demand a hearing.
Fed Governor Michael Barr voted yes, but not without a caveat. The law's "significant or systemic" standard, he warned, could leave gaps in anti-money-laundering oversight, and nobody at the Fed seems fully sure yet how that will play out in practice. "Further work will undoubtedly be required if stablecoins are to be reliable payment instruments," he said — a cautious line for a rule that was supposed to be settled back in July.
Public comment runs for 60 days after publication in the Federal Register, with the rules set to take effect in January 2027. The OCC has promised its own final rule by November, and the Treasury is separately collecting feedback on licensing — meaning a full regulatory picture for stablecoins likely won't exist until the end of the year.
In short: this is a draft, not a finish line. Bank lobbyists and every major issuer's lawyers will spend the next two months trying to rewrite it.
