The U.S. Treasury closed the public comment window on its proposed payment-stablecoin rule on October 19, starting a 91-day countdown to the January 18, 2027 effective date of the GENIUS Act. No final rule has been published by the Treasury, OCC, FDIC, or Federal Reserve. The proposal, docket TREAS-DO-2026-0496 and RIN 1505-AC95, implements Section 3 of the GENIUS Act, enacted July 18, 2025, and would create a new 12 CFR Part 1523 governing who may issue, offer, or sell a payment stablecoin in the United States.
Under the proposal, a payment stablecoin is defined as a digital asset designed to be used as a means of payment or settlement, where the issuer is obligated to convert, redeem, or repurchase it for a fixed amount of monetary value. The rule would apply extraterritorially to foreign issuers selling into the U.S. market. Section 3(a) makes unlawful issuance by non-permitted issuers punishable by up to $1 million per violation, up to five years in prison, or both. Downstream restrictions are split into two clocks: digital asset service providers have until July 18, 2028 to list only permitted-issuer stablecoins, while the foreign-issued payment stablecoin prohibition starts on January 18, 2027 unless the issuer registers with the OCC or obtains a waiver. For dominant payment stablecoins such as USDT and USDC, the rule will determine whether foreign issuers can continue U.S. access and how exchanges treat their listings.
Because the final rule has not been published, issuers and platforms face a compliance gap with statutory obligations already running. The proposal includes limited relief: a 12-month waiver window under Section 5(f) for qualifying subsidiaries of insured depository institutions and pending federal qualified issuers, de minimis volume safe harbors, unusual and exigent circumstances provisions, and carve-outs for person-to-person transfers, self-custody wallet activity, and transfers between a person’s own U.S. and foreign accounts.
Separately, the Hyperliquid Policy Center filed an SEC comment letter supporting proposed Regulation Crypto Assets and asking for five revisions: codifying the SEC’s airdrop interpretation, granting secondary-trading exemptions, protecting token developers, distinguishing automated buybacks from discretionary ones, and making state-law preemption permanent. The buyback request directly touches Hyperliquid’s HYPE token, which is repurchased with trading fees. The center wants the final rule to adopt the SEC staff’s September 28 FAQ position that buyback announcements are not promises of managerial effort where the system is functional and has no central party. The request also matters because Bitwise’s CIO previously argued HYPE was mispriced at roughly 10 to 14 times an annual buyback stream estimated at $800 million to $1 billion.
The SEC comment window closes on October 20, the same day the industry is digesting the stablecoin rule’s 91-day countdown. Treasury’s final rule, the OCC’s final issuer-licensing rule, and the SEC’s parallel rulemaking remain the next observable milestones. The GENIUS Act’s statutory deadlines do not pause while regulators complete final text.
