- Key insight: Comptroller of the Currency Jonathan Gould told the audience at the DC Blockchain Summit to submit substantive comments on a proposal to implement last year's stablecoin law, saying the agency welcomes and requires diverse viewpoints. Gould made similar remarks to an American Bankers Association conference last week.
- Supporting data: The OCC's February proposal would prohibit yield-bearing stablecoins but gives stablecoin issuers an avenue to challenge whether that prohibition applies in their individual cases.
- Forward look: Gould said there are more GENIUS Act implementation rules to come, including one issued jointly with the Treasury Department on applying anti-money laundering requirements to stablecoins.
Comptroller of the Currency Jonathan Gould Tuesday called on the crypto industry to provide feedback to refine its proposed rule implementing the federal stablecoin framework established under the GENIUS Act.
Speaking at the 2026 DC Blockchain Summit in Washington, Gould said his agency is moving to finalize its GENIUS Act implementing regulation "as quickly as we can" and described the rule and finalization process as iterative, saying a number of issues in the proposal are first drafts that may be reshaped during the 60 comment window. Gould made
"We ask a lot of questions [in the proposal] to build as robust an administrative record as possible, because we want to provoke a response from you and other concerned stakeholders and to get as much substantive feedback on the proposal as we can so that we can improve it," Gould said. "It is just a proposal, and we do actually welcome and need your feedback across the board on issues ranging from the mundane to the most controversial."
Discussing how the agency is approaching the line between bank and nonbank stablecoin issuers, Gould said similar activities should receive consistent oversight even where legal classifications diverge.
"We recognize that payment stablecoin issuers are not necessarily — and shouldn't always be treated — as banks," he said. "That being said, because we regulate a number of entities, including bank entities engaged in payment stablecoin activity, we want to ensure that the supervisory approach to the activity is going to be treated similarly, regardless of who's doing it."
Gould also noted that some of the key elements of stablecoin regulation, like anti-money laundering regulatory standards, were left out of the recent proposal and will instead be addressed in a separate joint rulemaking with Treasury.
"There are very important components left out of it, including on the BSA/AML side, which is obviously a very high public policy value and hopefully of high interest to many folks in this room," Gould said. "And so we will be releasing a separate NPR in conjunction with main Treasury on that aspect."
The thorniest question being considered in the GENIUS implementation rule is how far stablecoin issuers can go in offering returns for holding consumer assets without having stablecoins behave more like deposits than payment mechanisms, potentially triggering enhanced supervision and regulation.
The GENIUS Act barred issuers from paying yield on stablecoins, but the law is silent on the extent to which third-party entities like crypto exchanges may offer "benefits" or "rewards," like those offered by credit card issuers. A number of crypto firms have been
The OCC's February
That ambiguity comes amid ongoing efforts to pass a crypto market structure bill, known as the CLARITY Act, are stalled in Congress. Yield has been one — but
