The U.S. Genius Act has received more rulemaking.
The Treasury department has published new rulemaking proposals for the Genius Act and provides a 60 day window to provide further commentary concerning payment stablecoins.
In an official statement, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent expressed:
Treasury welcomes input from stakeholders as we work to provide the regulatory certainty businesses need to innovate and grow in America.”
This follows on nearly 1 year ago when early remarks were first released. The Genius Act itself was already passed in July 2025 and requires input from all regulators.
Since then, other federal regulators and departments released their interpretations.
These include the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and its updated feedback, as well as the latest rulemaking from the Federal Depository Insurance Corporation (FDIC).
Both have already passed the initial 60 day window for comments, with the FDIC soon to be closing its additional deadline for more feedback this month.
More broadly, the Treasury is picking up the pace to ensure that the stablecoins are well regulated.
This comes after the Clarity Act vote in the Senate was recently delayed to September.
Timeline
Starting from January 18 2027, the U.S. Genius Act will be officially enforced across all states.
This means that that all stablecoin issuers undertaking issuance activities have to attain at least one of either a state or federal (OCC) permitted license.
Additionally, exchanges and firms managing buy/sell orders of stablecoins have to ensure that only permitted Genius Act compliant stablecoins are available across their platforms.
This part starts from July 18 2028.
Afterwards, digitial asset service providers will face a penalty, and the Treasury is giving strict guidance to not use poor due diligence as an excuse.
However, foreign issuers of stablecoins may be still permitted to operate in the U.S. This is largely dependent on their ability to comply with regulators and the legislation’s requirements.
Specifically, the Treasury department to ensure that its foreign oversight is “comparable to the regulatory and supervisory regime established under the Genius Act.”
Section 3 Rulemaking
The published rulemaking covers Section 3 from the Genius Act.
Under each subcategory, it provides questions seeking feedback from agencies and industry participants.
Importantly, the Treasury deems “that payment stablecoins are not securities or commodities”, falling in line with the legislation and broader consensus with other regulatory rulemaking.
Certain proposals on amending and reviewing existing language in the Genius Act stand out.
Question 5 looks to understand if a stablecoin balance “that the issuer is obligated to redeem in other forms of value that may be the functional equivalent of those forms of monetary value”.
In other words, if a payment stablecoin redeemable in one asset should be allowed and/or may have further impact to be assessed.
Credit union shares, bank deposits, and non-deposit liabilities of a company are all listed as possible options that should be reviewed when deciding on this ruling.
Question 6 considers how an issuer could also be labelled as a digital asset service provider, in the event that it undertakes activities related to offering or selling stablecoins.
Therefore, the rules “are not mutually exclusive” for both entity types. Subsequently, the Treasury seeks to know whether any additional limitations should be placed.
Here, it maintains that certain permitted stablecoin issuers may opt to sell a payment stablecoin whose primary or native issuer is foreign and/or is not compliant under the Genius Act.
This example would then make an issuer also a digital asset service provider.
Additionally, the Treasury looks to define certain terminology.
The updated rulemaking on the term “Issue” proposes to include emphasis on including “first transfer” in the stablecoin for use, conversion, redemption, or other similar actions.
Interestingly, this would also mean giving the rights to a transfer that can be implemented at a later date, without an actual transfer taking place. This is proposal has around 15 relevant questions.
Other key issues address: foreign issuers, clarification on offers and sales of stablecoins, U.S. regional compliance, as well as considerations on safe harbors and exemptions.
