Two separate developments underscored the evolving standardization and regulatory landscape for digital assets on Oct. 21. Kaspa finalized three ecosystem standards for native tokens and covenant applications, while the OCC's final stablecoin rewards rule drew sharp objections from the American Bankers Association.
Kaspa's KCC Coordination Forum announced that KCC-1, KCC-2, and KCC-20 are now final and ready for adoption. The repository distinguishes these conventions from consensus changes: no network participant is required to adopt them, and substantive consensus or core node changes remain in Kaspa Improvement Proposals.
KCC-1 defines common terms, data layouts, and an application binary interface for covenants, covering program entry points, state templates, and multi-input transaction handling. It is authored by Romain Billot, Michael Sutton, and Ori Newman. KCC-2 specifies five standard authorization schemes, including Schnorr and ECDSA public-key signatures, public-key-hash authorization, scripts, and covenant identifiers. KCC-20 sets token transfer and receiving rules. Its “borrowed receive” feature lets a sender use a recipient's existing compatible output as the destination, preserving ownership and extended state without reducing KAS value.
The finalization process under KCC-0 required human-readable and machine-readable test vectors and at least one public implementation passing checks. Kaspa linked an Argent reference implementation with generated SilverScript contracts and Rust conformance tests.
US banks object to final stablecoin rewards rule
The OCC published its final rule implementing the GENIUS Act's ban on payment stablecoin issuers paying interest or yield solely for holding, using, or retaining a token. The rule takes effect Jan. 18, 2027. The OCC removed a proposed rebuttable presumption that would have treated certain affiliate and related third-party reward arrangements as violations unless issuers proved otherwise. The agency said “because payment stablecoins are a nascent market,” such a presumption was not appropriate, and it will review arrangements through licensing and supervision.
The American Bankers Association objected. President and CEO Rob Nichols said the rule contains positive steps but departs from the OCC's original position, arguing issuers can deliver returns economically equivalent to yield while technically staying outside the prohibition. He criticized “attempting to address deposit flight and economic harm after it has occurred.”
Supervisors will now weigh who bears the cost of a reward, whether the issuer has any say over the payment, and what the holder must do to qualify. Direct issuer payments remain prohibited; routing issuer payments through a platform changes nothing; platform-funded rewards from own revenue have no presumption either way. Revenue-sharing arrangements remain case-by-case. Coinbase's 2023 agreement with Circle, under which Coinbase earns a portion of USDC reserve income tied to balances held on its platform, was cited as an existing arrangement that could face scrutiny.
The Blockchain Association supported the OCC's removal, saying it aligns more closely with the statutory text. The Council of Economic Advisers had estimated a yield ban would raise total bank lending by only $2.1 billion, or 0.02%, including about $500 million at community banks, while community bank groups dispute that model and warn reserve deposits may concentrate at large institutions. Further regulatory clarity may emerge from OCC application approvals, FDIC alignment, or potential new legislation.
