U.S. GENIUS Act rulemaking deadline arrives with key stablecoin rules unfinished

The one-year deadline for regulators to promulgate implementing regulations under the U.S. GENIUS Act arrived on July 18, 2026, with key payment-stablecoin rules still unfinished.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency continued to list its core stablecoin framework and related compliance measures as proposed rules. At the same time, the OCC’s register of final issuances for 2026 showed no finalized GENIUS Act regulations.

The missed milestone matters because the implementing rules are expected to clarify central requirements for payment-stablecoin issuers, including capital, reserves, redemption, licensing and compliance. Until those provisions are finalized, issuers and other market participants face continued uncertainty about how the U.S. framework will operate in practice.

What is confirmed is that the statutory one-year rulemaking date has arrived and that the OCC’s relevant measures remained proposed, with no GENIUS Act regulations appearing in its 2026 final-issuance register. What remains uncertain is when the outstanding rules will be completed and what requirements the final versions will impose.

The unresolved framework is relevant to the U.S. stablecoin market, including instruments such as USDC and USDT, although the available information does not establish token-specific regulatory outcomes.