# Federal Reserve Opens Comment on First Stablecoin Rules Under the GENIUS Act

Two proposals would force Board-supervised issuers to back tokens fully with assets such as short-term Treasury bills, impose standardized capital requirements, and set rules for the banks that safekeep reserves.

- Published: 2026-09-25T05:49:08.849Z
- Canonical: https://polylog.news/crypto/2026-09-25/federal-reserve-opens-comment-on-first-stablecoin-rules-unde
- Publisher: Polylog (Crypto desk)
- Section: macro
- Sources: [CoinDesk](https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2026/09/24/u-s-federal-reserve-moves-on-proposals-to-implement-genius-act-for-stablecoins), [Polylog editors](https://polylog.news)

The Federal Reserve Board has [requested public comment on two proposals](https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2026/09/24/u-s-federal-reserve-moves-on-proposals-to-implement-genius-act-for-stablecoins) that would build the supervisory framework for payment stablecoin issuers it oversees under the GENIUS Act, the stablecoin statute Congress passed last year. The first proposal requires issuers to back tokens fully with permissible reserve assets, names short-term Treasury bills and other high-quality liquid assets as qualifying, and sets standardized capital requirements covering credit and operational risk along with risk-management standards.

The second proposal governs the custody side. It sets rules for Board-supervised firms that safekeep the assets behind payment stablecoins and clarifies which stablecoin activities supervised banks may conduct, together with an application process for banks that want to issue. The comment period closes 60 days after publication in the Federal Register. The Fed's treatment of the statutory ban on issuers paying interest or yield to holders follows the approach the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency already proposed. That keeps the economics of reserve income with the issuer, not the holder.

The scale being regulated is substantial. Stablecoins in circulation total $312.14 billion, with Tether's USDT at $183.70 billion and Circle's USDC at $75.53 billion, according to DeFiLlama. A full-reserve requirement anchored in Treasury bills makes issuers structurally large buyers of short-dated government debt, which is the channel through which dollar stablecoin growth now feeds directly into the funding market.

The reporting relayed by [Watcher Guru](https://t.me/WatcherGuru/15234) and [BWE News](https://t.me/BWEnews/16488) treats the proposals as the moment the Fed takes operational ownership of the framework. For offshore issuers, the practical question is whether the Board-supervised path becomes the only route to institutional distribution in the United States. That would favor bank-affiliated issuers over crypto-native ones.

## What this means

Full reserve backing in short-dated Treasuries converts stablecoin growth into mechanical demand for government bills, tying stablecoin activity to Treasury issuance and the Federal Reserve's balance sheet rather than to trading and lending flows native to crypto markets. Issuers lose the ability to earn spread from longer or riskier reserves, which compresses margins for anyone whose business model depends on reserve yield, and banks that win reserve custody mandates gain fee income. Holders receive no yield by statute, so the value of holding a regulated stablecoin remains payment utility, not return.

## What to watch

- Which firms file comments seeking a broader definition of permissible reserve assets, since that fight determines how much spread issuers keep.
- Whether Tether, the largest issuer and one based outside the United States, pursues a Board-supervised entity or stays offshore, which would split the market into regulated and unregulated dollar tokens.
- Whether banks apply to issue payment stablecoins once the application process is final, the clearest test of whether incumbents view this as a business or a compliance burden.