OCC Says Crypto Platforms Can Keep Offering Yield-Like Rewards
Crypto exchanges can keep offering interest-like rewards on stablecoins for now, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency announced Wednesday, as the agency finalized its rule implementing the GENIUS Act and dropped a proposed presumption against such programs over the objections of the banking industry.Stablecoin issuers themselves remain barred from paying interest directly to holders. The rule takes effect Jan. 18, 2027, the same day as the law, and the OCC said it will announce separately when it will begin accepting applications from prospective issuers.The OCC is the first federal regulator to finalize its part of the stablecoin framework Congress passed in July 2025. The rule covers reserves, redemption, risk management, custody and audits for issuers under the agency’s supervision, a group that includes national banks and their subsidiaries, federally approved nonbank issuers, some state-qualified issuers and foreign issuers. Issuers must hold reserves worth at least as much as their outstanding stablecoins and generally process redemption requests within two business days.Anti-money-laundering and sanctions requirements will come in a separate rulemaking with the Treasury Department.The rule affects the two largest issuers in different ways. Circle , which issues USDC , is a U.S. company that already holds final OCC approval, granted July 10, to run Circle National Trust, a national trust bank that provides digital-asset custody. That charter doesn’t let Circle take deposits, and it is separate from any authorization the company may need to issue payment stablecoins under the new law.Tether, the issuer of USDT , is based in El Salvador and falls under the law’s foreign-issuer provisions, so its access to the U.S. market depends on how those provisions are applied. Treasury proposed its approach to foreign issuers in August, and the industry is watching closely how it will treat issuers such as Tether, CoinDesk reported. Tether also has a separate dollar stablecoin, USAT CRYPTO:USAT, issued through Anchorage Digital Bank, a federally chartered digital-asset bank.Rewards were the central fight. The GENIUS Act bars issuers from paying yield but says nothing about exchanges and other third parties that pass rewards on to stablecoin holders. That gap matters to Circle because USDC sits behind some of the best-known programs, including Coinbase One’s 3.75% return on USDC positions. The OCC’s March proposal would have presumed certain arrangements between issuers and third parties to be violations. The final rule drops that presumption and promises case-by-case review instead. It also declines to treat rewards programs that existed before the law as automatically compliant, and it keeps the OCC’s power to act against attempts to evade the yield ban.Banks objected quickly. The American Bankers Association accused the OCC of undermining Congress, and banking groups have argued that stablecoin yield could pull deposits out of banks and weaken lending. TD Cowen called the rule a negative for banks, saying case-by-case decisions create uncertainty. The Blockchain Association took the opposite view, saying that removing the presumption “brings the final rule more closely in line with the statutory text,” as The Block reported.The banks had turned to the OCC after their push to tighten the yield rules in the broader Clarity Act failed when the bill stalled in a Senate procedural vote in September.Comptroller Jonathan Gould said the rule gives stablecoin innovation “a clear, practical framework.” The rule isn’t the last word. The Treasury Department is still drafting its own rules, and other regulators have yet to finish theirs. Companies with substantially complete applications pending by Jan. 18 may be able to request temporary waivers while regulators review them.Shares of Circle are currently trading at $89.71, down from a 52 week high of $147.44.