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2026-02-26 09:20:00
The US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) has dropped a 376‑page proposal to implement the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act that looks to settle the ongoing stablecoin yield fight.
The proposal is open to public comment for 60 days from Wednesday’s publication date, and sets out detailed rules for permitted payment stablecoin issuers under the OCC’s jurisdiction.
Supervised entities would be barred from paying any form of interest or yield, whether in cash, tokens, or other consideration, “solely in connection with the holding, use, or retention” of a payment stablecoin, consistent with section 4(a)(11) of the GENIUS Act.
Thania Charmani, partner at global law firm Winston & Strawn, commented on X that the OCC proposed to “resolve the debate on stablecoin yield through rulemaking,” potentially clearing the way for the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act of 2025 (CLARITY) to “proceed without that provision.”
How the OCC proposal implements GENIUS on yield
GENIUS, enacted in July 2025, created a federal framework for payment stablecoins and restricted issuance in the US to licensed permitted issuers such as bank subsidiaries, new federal stablecoin issuers, and certain large state‑regulated firms.
The OCC’s draft rule translates that statutory framework into operational constraints, including tight limits on how GENIUS‑regulated issuers can structure economics around their stablecoins.
The proposal goes a step further, adding a rebuttable presumption that an issuer is violating the ban on paying yield if it has an arrangement to pay yield to an affiliate or “related third party” and that entity then pays yield to holders of the issuer’s payment stablecoin.
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Issuers can try to rebut the presumption by submitting written materials to the OCC, but the agency stresses the “close nexus” between issuer payments and end‑holder yield and frames such structures as “highly likely” attempts to evade the statute.
The proposal also draws two explicit carve‑outs. It “is not intended to prevent” merchants from independently offering discounts for using payment stablecoins, and it does not bar an issuer from sharing profits from the stablecoin with a non‑affiliate partner in a whitelabel arrangement.
What the proposal means for CLARITY and Coinbase
If the OCC’s proposed rule is finalized as drafted, it would have direct implications for the separate CLARITY Act debate over stablecoin rewards.
CLARITY drafts have focused on whether digital asset service providers should be allowed to pay yield or rewards on payment stablecoin balances, a point of contention that has already caused friction between industry stakeholders, such as Coinbase.
By using GENIUS implementation to prohibit yield at the issuer level, the banking side of the framework effectively establishes a no‑yield baseline for GENIUS‑compliant payment stablecoins.
For Coinbase and similar firms that have argued they should be able to offer yield on stablecoin balances while operating within a fully regulated US framework, the message is clear:
Stablecoin yield and GENIUS‑compliant, OCC‑supervised payment stablecoins are being put on opposite sides of a regulatory line.
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