OCC Finalizes Its First GENIUS Act Stablecoin Rule, and Active Issuers Will Need a Waiver to Keep Issuing After January 18

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) on Wednesday finalized its rule implementing the GENIUS Act, the 2025 federal stablecoin law. The rule covers payment stablecoin issuers under OCC jurisdiction, certain foreign issuers, and crypto custody by federally supervised institutions. Issuers must comply from January 18, 2027, and the statute attaches criminal penalties to noncompliance.

The central operational detail is the waiver process. The OCC's waiver and application guidance lets the agency waive the prior-approval requirement for up to 12 months starting January 18. The agency says it "generally expects to grant" such waivers for existing US issuers unless its review finds more compelling reasons to deny. CryptoSlate's reading is that filing an application is not enough. An existing issuer that has not won approval by the deadline needs discretionary relief to keep issuing. On yield, The Crypto Times reports that the final rule dropped a proposed presumption on stablecoin rewards. Other coverage notes the rule also offers no safe harbor for rewards programs already running. That leaves exchange-paid yield on stablecoins to case-by-case supervision.

The Treasury Department said the finalized rules "cement American dominance in digital assets." That is a political claim, and it is consistent with how the administration has framed dollar stablecoins as an extension of dollar demand abroad. The rule produced little market reaction. Bitcoin traded back above $84,500 shortly after the release, though the move also tracked equity futures.

The stakes are large. DeFiLlama puts total stablecoin supply at $305.68 billion. Tether's USDT accounts for $182.68 billion and Circle's USDC for $72.65 billion. World Liberty Financial's USD1, the stablecoin connected to the president's family business, stands at $4.00 billion. Tether, which issues USDT from outside the US, keeps expanding where US rules reach least. It has invested in Peso, a Bolivian fintech, to connect USDT to food delivery, merchant services and banks in four Latin American countries.