Stablecoin Rules Hit the Snooze Button: GENIUS Act Deadline Comes and Goes 🪙

Federal regulators missed Saturday's statutory deadline under the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act to finalize stablecoin regulations, leaving issuers without complete compliance rules one year after the law was signed. The Treasury Department, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDID) and the Federal Reserve Board each published proposed rules and collected public comment during the past year, but none issued final regulations before the deadline, according to rulemaking trackers maintained by law firm Chapman and crypto investment company Paradigm. Missing the deadline does not invalidate the GENIUS Act, though the unfinished rules could create regulatory uncertainty for stablecoin issuers.

The GENIUS Act established the first comprehensive federal regulatory framework for stablecoins in the US. It was signed into law by President Donald Trump on July 18, 2025, and mandates that final rules be completed within one year. Under the law's implementation timeline, the GENIUS Act takes effect on January 18, 2027, and issuers must comply regardless of whether all operating requirements have been finalized.

Of the 10 notices of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) issued since the law was signed, the Treasury Department issued the most proposals, four, covering broader implementation of the act, including standards for determining whether state stablecoin regulatory regimes are comparable to the federal framework, registration requirements for foreign stablecoin issuers and guidelines for compliance with anti-money laundering measures. The OCC issued two NPRMs covering nationally chartered payment stablecoin issuers, approval requirements and supervisory standards. The FDIC issued one NPRM addressing FDIC-supervised institutions that issue payment stablecoins, focused on supervisory expectations and operational standards such as reserve management. The National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) proposed rules enabling federally insured credit unions to participate in stablecoin issuance. Federal banking agencies also jointly proposed an interagency implementation rule to harmonize supervision across the OCC, Federal Reserve and FDIC.

Some comment periods have been extended beyond the statutory consultation window, meaning agencies cannot finalize those rules until the review process concludes. Proposals still in review encompass reserve assets, liquidity, custody, reporting, anti-money laundering, redemption rules and foreign issuer requirements.

Federally chartered crypto bank Anchorage Digital used the one-year anniversary to urge lawmakers to pass a second piece of crypto legislation, the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act (CLARITY). "On GENIUS' one-year anniversary, we're renewing our call for Congress to pass the CLARITY Act and extend the clear market-structure rules that worked for stablecoins to the broader digital asset economy," Anchorage Digital wrote in a Friday report. The CLARITY Act seeks to establish the first federal regulatory framework for digital assets in the US and recently cleared the Senate Banking Committee.