The US Treasury has taken the next procedural step on landmark stablecoin regulations, according to a Proactive Investors Australia report published this week, moving the federal framework from legislative passage toward operational enforcement.

What did the Treasury actually do?

The department advanced implementation guidance tied to the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act, the 2025 statute that created the first federal payment-stablecoin regime in the United States. Treasury's move signals that rulemaking under the act has progressed past the drafting phase into interagency review, a transitional step that typically precedes publication in the Federal Register.

Under the act, the Treasury Secretary holds the primary rulemaking authority for payment stablecoins, working alongside the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and the Federal Reserve. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has framed stablecoin oversight as a competitiveness issue, arguing that clear federal rules would keep dollar-linked issuance inside the US regulatory perimeter.

Which stablecoins fall under the new regime?

The statute applies to payment stablecoins issued by permitted entities, including:

• Subsidiary issuers chartered by the OCC with Federal Reserve master accounts
• State-regulated money transmitter issuers below a $75 billion issuance threshold
• Foreign issuers serving US persons through registered subsidiaries

Algorithmic stablecoins, meaning tokens without one-to-one reserve backing, remain prohibited from issuance within the framework, a carve-out that removes Terra-style designs from the legal US market.

What are issuers being required to do?

The rules under development mandate monthly reserve attestations from qualified auditors, daily redemption at par for holders, and segregation of reserve assets from issuer operating funds. Acceptable reserves include US dollars, short-dated Treasuries, and central bank repurchase agreements, a narrow asset menu that prevents yield-bearing corporate paper from backing tokens.

Issuers must also comply with Bank Secrecy Act obligations, including sanctions screening and suspicious-activity reporting tied to wallet-level transactions. The Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) holds concurrent authority over the anti-money-laundering perimeter.

How are exchanges and custodians affected?

Secondary-market venues that list compliant stablecoins must obtain written attestation from each issuer confirming federal or qualifying state status. The requirement effectively segregates GENIUS-compliant tokens from offshore or algorithmic alternatives on US-accessible platforms, reshaping exchange listing decisions across Coinbase, Kraken, Robinhood and institutional venues such as Falcon X and Cumberland.

Custodians face new segregation and bankruptcy-remote structuring rules, designed to prevent commingling of customer stablecoin balances with custodial operating capital during insolvency.

What is the industry saying?

Circle, issuer of USDC, has publicly supported the legislative framework. Tether, whose USDT remains the largest stablecoin by circulation but is not licensed under the act, has not filed for a US subsidiary charter. Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire has described the framework as a path to "dollar dominance in digital form," language he has used repeatedly in 2025 congressional testimony.

Bank lobbying groups, including the Bank Policy Institute, have pressed Treasury to tighten the foreign-issuer pathway, citing concerns about regulatory arbitrage through non-US affiliates.

What's the timeline from here?

Treasury rulemaking under the act proceeds on a 180-day statutory clock from the act's enactment, with the deadline falling in mid-2026. Federal Register publication would trigger a public comment window of typically 60 to 90 days before final adoption.

The next observable milestones will be publication of the implementing regulations and subsequent supervisory guidance from the OCC, Federal Reserve, and FinCEN, all of which will determine whether the US payment-stablecoin market consolidates around a narrow set of federally chartered issuers or retains room for state-level competitors beneath the $75 billion threshold.