OCC Approves Rules for Stablecoin Rewards

The Office of the U.S. Currency Controller (OCC) has become the first federal banking regulator to issue a final rule on the implementation of the GENIUS Act. The document, published on Wednesday, sets out the operating procedure for issuers of stablecoins pegged to the dollar, including their relationships with the exchanges on which the tokens are traded. The rule comes into force on January 18.

American crypto exchanges, which have been charging rewards for using stablecoins for a long time, will have to coordinate existing programs with the OCC: there will be no automatic compliance with the law for them. "The OCC does not assume that the reward programs that existed before GENIUS comply with the law," the document says. "The fact that Congress may have known about these programs does not mean that it approved them."

OCC did not provide examples of which schemes violate GENIUS' ban on payments "solely in connection with the storage, use or retention" of the payment stablecoin. The regulator hinted that the key word here is "exclusively": remuneration that "can be paid at least partially for other reasons" does not fall under the ban. "Refutable presumptions", a list of actions that would have been considered a violation in advance, were removed from the final version.

Among the existing programs, PayPal offers 4% on PYUSD, Coinbase One – 3.75% on USDC, Kraken+ – up to 4.5% on USDG. Bankers called such payments a threat to deposits and lobbied for amendments through the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, but the bill failed to pass a key vote in the Senate last month. Without amendments, the unchanged GENIUS remains the only standard. "Until and if such a law is adopted, the OCC is obliged to comply with the GENIUS ban on remuneration in the form in which it was adopted," the regulator said.

"The OCC's final Rule advances this landmark law by providing a clear practical framework for private innovation, competition, and American leadership in digital assets," said Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

The implementation of GENIUS is not limited to OCC. The FDIC was the first to issue application standards at the end of last year, and in April proposed an approach for institutions with full-time licenses. Treasury published its proposal in August – the industry is watching how it will deal with foreign issuers like Tether. In April, FinCEN and OFAC jointly proposed controls, including blocking and freezing transactions and complying with the Bank Secrecy Act. Last month, the Fed presented proposals for subsidiaries of member banks planning to issue stablecoins, including capital and reserve standards.