Federal Reserve Proposes Two GENIUS Act Stablecoin Rules, Opens 60-Day Comment Window

Two Proposals, One 60-Day Window

The Federal Reserve set the terms for who may issue a payment stablecoin under its watch, publishing two proposed rules on September 24, 2026 that convert the GENIUS Act's statutory skeleton into operational requirements. The central bank's announcement — which COINOTAG reviewed in the original filing — directs the first proposal at payment stablecoin issuers already under Fed supervision: every token in circulating supply would need to be fully backed by approved reserve assets, with short-term US Treasury bills and other high-quality liquid assets named as eligible collateral. The same proposal layers on standardized capital requirements sized to credit and operational risk, risk-management standards for stablecoin activities, and a separate rule set for the supervised firms that hold reserve assets — a custody question that reaches down to whether backing sits in segregated accounts or a cold wallet arrangement rather than commingled balances. The second proposal opens a new application track: banks regulated by the Fed that want to issue payment stablecoins through a subsidiary would file a business plan, financial information and supporting documents, with the proposal also spelling out appeals, hearings and the procedural path to a final decision. Neither rule is final. Both were placed in the Federal Register for a public comment period lasting 60 days from publication, and the Fed says it will shape the final rulemaking on the input it receives. Once finalized, the package would hand prospective bank issuers a defined checklist — capital, reserves, custody, application — before committing capital to a stablecoin business, replacing today's ambiguity with a known set of supervisory conditions.

From Statute to Supervision

The proposals rest on legislation that moved through Congress in 2025. The Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act passed the Senate 68-30 on June 17, 2025 and the House 308-122 on July 17, before President Donald Trump signed it into law on July 18, creating the first federal framework for US payment stablecoins. The statute obliges permitted issuers to hold reserve assets covering at least 1:1 the outstanding tokens, designating US dollars and short-term Treasury securities among the eligible assets, and takes effect on January 18, 2027 — or 120 days after major federal payment stablecoin regulators publish final rules, whichever comes first. Governor Michael Barr tied the Fed's proposed requirements to that redemption promise: stablecoins can hold their peg only if users can redeem at full value on demand, including during market stress or when the issuer and its affiliated companies come under financial strain. He endorsed the reserve asset limitations and the transparent, standardized capital requirements, while flagging public input as necessary on whether the rules adequately address interest rate and foreign currency risk. The Fed is not building this regime alone. The OCC issued its own GENIUS Act implementation proposal in February 2026, the FDIC followed in April, and the Treasury Department last month proposed the federal definitions that determine who may issue US stablecoins and which entities must comply. In June 2026, several agencies also jointly proposed requiring issuers to verify and identify users under existing financial regulations, a measure announced in a Fed press release. A finalized application track would add a supervised bank lane to a market now led by non-bank issuers and trading venues such as Coinbase Global. Readers tracking the market in real time can follow live spot and futures prices on Bybit.

Where Fed Oversight Ends

Our read of the filing is that the Fed has defined the outer edge of its own authority. The two proposals bind only issuers and bank subsidiaries under Fed supervision once finalized; they say nothing about state-regulated issuers, whose eligibility will be settled by the Treasury Department's pending definitions rulemaking. That boundary — supervised banks inside the Fed's application track, everyone else waiting on Treasury — is where the GENIUS Act's implementation will now be tested, and nothing in the documents reaches decentralized issuance, from open Bitcoin DeFi protocols to offshore structures. With the effective date fixed at January 18, 2027, or 120 days after final rules, the 60-day comment window effectively sets the clock for both agencies.