The rule published on August 18 puts compliance obligations on exchanges, wallets, and brokers. On the same day, the FASB proposed a cash-equivalent test that’s stricter than anything regulators require.
The U.S. Treasury’s new proposed stablecoin rule is being discussed in most coverage as a licensing framework for issuers. That framing is incomplete. The more consequential provision — the one that will force operational changes at exchanges, brokers, and wallet providers — is proposed §1523.3, which says a digital asset service provider may not offer or sell a payment stablecoin to a U.S. person unless the token was issued by a permitted issuer.
That’s a distributor obligation. The issuer has to get licensed. The platform has to check.
Treasury published the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) on August 18 in the Federal Register (91 FR 53368, docket TREAS-DO-2026-0496, RIN 1505-AC95), implementing Section 3 of the GENIUS Act. The proposed rule would create a new 12 CFR part 1523. Comments are due October 19, 2026, per the Federal Register DATES section. The prohibition in §1523.3 would take effect on July 18, 2028; the underlying statutory licensing requirement for issuers would take effect on January 18, 2027.
On the same day, the Financial Accounting Standards Board published an exposure draft amending ASC Topic 230 — Statement of Cash Flows — that proposes a three-part test for treating a stablecoin as a cash equivalent. That test, described below, is narrower and harder to satisfy than the GENIUS Act’s permitted-issuer standard. FASB’s comment deadline is November 19, 2026.
Neither rule is final. Neither is in force.
What the NPRM Actually Requires
The NPRM’s structure is three operative sections. Proposed §1523.2 addresses issuance. Proposed §1523.3 addresses offer and sale. Proposed §1523.4 creates safe harbors: pending applications under Section 5(f) of the GENIUS Act, unusual-and-exigent-circumstances relief, and de minimis transactions.
The statutory exemptions carved out in the NPRM cover peer-to-peer transfers, cross-border transfers between accounts with the same parent entity, and software self-custody wallets. Everything else, including the exchange, broker, or custodial wallet that routes a payment stablecoin to a U.S. person, falls inside §1523.3’s scope.
The NPRM defines “located in the United States” as individuals physically present in the United States (excluding temporarily present non-residents) and entities incorporated in a U.S. state or with a principal place of business here. The NPRM contains 43 numbered questions soliciting public comment on how these definitions and obligations should be refined. None of those 43 questions is explicitly about yield; the GENIUS Act’s prohibition on issuers paying yield or interest is carried through the NPRM as a statutory bar, not a subject of proposed rulemaking.
Foreign issuers are addressed separately. Under Section 18(a), a foreign issuer must be regulated under a comparable foreign regime, register with the OCC, and demonstrate technological capability to comply with U.S. lawful orders. The NPRM includes immediate restrictions on foreign-issued stablecoins whose issuers cannot demonstrate that compliance capability when the rule takes effect. How Treasury will define or test that “technological capability” is an open question the NPRM poses but does not answer.
Penalties under Section 3(f) of the GENIUS Act reach up to $1 million per violation and up to five years’ imprisonment for knowing participation in unlawful issuance. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a statement accompanying the release that Treasury welcomes input from stakeholders.
The Distributor Problem
The practical weight of §1523.3 falls on platforms, not on the issuers the GENIUS Act’s headline provisions address. An exchange or broker that lists a payment stablecoin will need a mechanism to verify that the token’s issuer holds permitted-issuer status before selling to a U.S. person. However, what type of mechanism needs to be implemented is not yet specified in the proposed rule.
That verification problem is real. The GENIUS Act’s issuer licensing regime doesn’t become effective until January 18, 2027. The distributor prohibition in §1523.3 doesn’t kick in until July 18, 2028. That 18-month gap between issuer licensing and distributor obligation is presumably intentional, as it gives permitted issuers time to establish themselves before platforms are required to check. But the NPRM doesn’t specify how platforms are supposed to perform that check, or what documentation would constitute adequate diligence.
The American Bankers Association has separately urged Congress, in the context of the CLARITY Act, to tighten language around distribution-fee arrangements — specifically, arrangements that route reserve income to holders through exchanges in ways that functionally resemble yield without technically being issuer-paid interest.
The GENIUS Act’s yield prohibition is at the issuer level. Whether a distribution fee paid by an issuer to an exchange, which then passes value to holders, violates the spirit of that prohibition is a question the NPRM does not resolve.
Ethena’s USDe, which does pay a yield, is explicitly not a payment stablecoin under the GENIUS Act’s definition. Its supply stood at $4.038 billion as of August 20, per DefiLlama at the moment of publication.
FASB’s Test Is Stricter
The accounting question is separate from the regulatory question, and the FASB exposure draft published August 18 draws a harder line than the NPRM.
FASB’s proposed three-part test for treating a stablecoin as a cash equivalent under ASC Topic 230 requires:
- an on-demand contractual right to redeem with the issuer for a known amount of cash;
- the issuer holds at least 1:1 reserves in segregated accounts of short-term, highly liquid assets; and
- secondary-market liquidity cannot substitute for a direct redemption right. FASB Chair Richard Jones summarized it as three questions: whether you have a right to cash, whether it is on demand, and what backs that right.
That third condition is the one that cuts. A stablecoin that trades at par on secondary markets but lacks a direct contractual redemption right with the issuer would fail the test, regardless of its market liquidity. FASB said it was adding illustrative examples to ASC Topic 230 to promote more consistent application after preparers reported divergent treatment. The exposure draft also requires filers to disclose the significant components of cash equivalents and their amounts. Comments are due November 19.
Where the Market Sits
As of August 20, DefiLlama showed a total stablecoin market cap of $300.94 billion. USDT accounted for $182.997 billion, or about 60.81% of the market. USDC stood at $71.967 billion, followed by USDS at $6.713 billion, DAI at $4.767 billion, USDe at $4.038 billion, PYUSD at $2.758 billion, and RLUSD at $1.761 billion.
Visa Onchain Analytics reported a record $1.79 trillion in adjusted stablecoin volume for June 2026, with USDC at roughly 67% of that volume.
Circle reported Q2 2026 results on August 5. It announced a revenue and reserve income of $701 million (up 7% year over year), net income from continuing operations of $48 million, adjusted EBITDA of $143 million (up 8%), USDC in circulation of $73.3 billion (up 19%), and on-chain USDC transaction volume of $14.8 trillion (up 151%). Distribution, transaction, and other costs totaled $412 million (up 1%).
Circle raised its 2026 other-revenue guidance to $310–330 million and disclosed an Arc public mainnet launch date of September 16, 2026. The OCC granted Circle final approval on July 10 to establish First National Digital Currency Bank, N.A. — though that national trust bank charter is a distinct approval from GENIUS Act-permitted payment stablecoin issuer status, which remains a separate determination.
Tether’s Q2 2026 attestation, covering the quarter ended June 30 was prepared and released by BDO on July 31. It reported total reserves of $187.75 billion against roughly $184.6 billion of USDT outstanding. The attestation is not an audit. It disclosed that excess reserves fell from roughly $8.23 billion to roughly $4.11 billion quarter over quarter, and that non-cash reserve assets included roughly 146.2 tonnes of gold (valued at approximately $18.83 billion) and roughly 98,933 BTC (valued at approximately $5.80 billion).
The Regulatory Stack
The NPRM is one layer of a regulatory stack that is not yet complete. The OCC’s GENIUS Act implementation proposal runs to a reported 376 pages and has been out for comment since February 2026. Comptroller Jonathan Gould said on August 19 at SALT that the OCC was “intent on moving quickly” and targeted a final OCC rule by November 2026 so that applications could be processed “within the new year.” The Federal Reserve Board’s GENIUS Act rule remained outstanding as of August 20.
The GENIUS Act was signed July 18, 2025. Implementing rules were statutorily due July 18, 2026 — a deadline that passed. The Act’s core effective date is January 18, 2027.
In December 2025, the OCC issued conditional national trust bank approvals to BitGo, Fidelity Digital Assets, Paxos, and Circle. Pending applicants include Bridge National Trust Bank, Laser Digital National Trust Bank (a Nomura affiliate), and Morgan Stanley Digital Trust. Again: a national trust bank charter is not the same thing as permitted payment stablecoin issuer status under the GENIUS Act.
The Senate did not vote on the CLARITY Act before its summer recess; action is expected when it returns in September 2026. A Tillis–Alsobrooks compromise on stablecoin rewards was reported in May 2026.
Key dates to track:
- September 2026 — Senate returns; CLARITY Act action expected
- October 19, 2026 — Treasury NPRM comment deadline (Federal Register DATES section governs)
- November 2026 — Comptroller Gould’s OCC final-rule target
- November 19, 2026 — FASB exposure draft comment deadline
- January 18, 2027 — GENIUS Act issuer licensing effective date
- July 18, 2028 — §1523.3 distributor prohibition effective date
The question the NPRM’s 43 questions don’t fully answer is the operational one: when July 2028 arrives, exactly how an exchange is supposed to confirm that a token’s issuer is a permitted issuer — and what happens to the roughly $183 billion in USDT if Tether isn’t one.
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