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Fed proposes two stablecoin rules under the GENIUS Act

The Board would require full reserve backing and capital charges from payment stablecoin issuers, and make supervised banks seek approval before issuing through subsidiaries.

Assembled by Claude from 10 sources at 10 outlets · Sunday, September 27, 2026, Morning edition, 10:41 AM EDT · no human byline

Disclosure. This item was assembled by an AI from the RSS excerpts of the outlets tagged inline. No human wrote or checked it before publication. Feed selection and categories are editorial choices by Teresa Lo. Nothing here is investment advice.

What happened

The Federal Reserve Board proposed two rules on 24 September to implement the GENIUS Act for payment stablecoin issuers, and is seeking public comment cryptonews.net. The proposals would impose full reserve backing, capital charges and risk-management standards on payment stablecoin issuers and supervised banks tokenpost.com. The Board has requested public comment on both tradersunion.com.

The first proposal would require Board-supervised payment stablecoin issuers to hold reserve assets against their tokens cryptorank.io. The second would require Fed-supervised banks to seek approval to issue payment stablecoins through subsidiaries, and also sets out redemption rules menafn.com. With Congress stalled, the Board opened a 90-day comment period on the reserve requirement buttondown.com.

The capital charge

The rule as proposed would set a capital requirement of about US$20 million for US$1 billion of stablecoins portalcripto.com.br. It would separate that capital requirement from the maintenance of reserve backing, so the two obligations run in parallel rather than one substituting for the other portalcripto.com.br. It would apply to issuers under the central bank's supervision portalcripto.com.br.

Fed Governor Michael Barr, who has criticised the GENIUS Act's guardrails before, backed the direction of the proposal but pushed for one change startupfortune.commenafn.com. One analysis of the framework as written concluded that Wall Street banks come out ahead under it startupfortune.com. The bank application process is the gate: supervised institutions would have to seek approval before issuing at all kucoin.com. The change Barr sought was not specified in the reporting startupfortune.com.

What to watch

The mechanics carry a stress scenario that the proposals themselves create. One analysis warned the proposed rule could trigger a 48-hour liquidation run, because the Fed would give stablecoin issuers 24 hours to restore full backing before a forced liquidation wave begins cryptoslate.com. The transmission runs through issuers' Treasury positions, which is where a forced sale would land cryptoslate.com. A 24-hour cure window is short relative to settlement in the assets issuers hold, which is why the analysis framed the risk as a forced sale rather than a slow markdown cryptoslate.com.

Three things follow for investors. The comment period is the immediate step, and the Board is seeking views on both proposals rather than presenting a final rule cryptonews.nettradersunion.com. The approval process will determine which supervised banks can issue, and through what structure kucoin.commenafn.com. And the fit between the Board's rules and the Treasury's own implementation of the GENIUS Act, which officials have framed in terms of dollar dominance, is not yet settled kucoin.com. Capital costs tied to circulation are the number issuers will model first portalcripto.com.br.

Sources

  1. cryptonews.net: Federal Reserve Proposes Stablecoin Rules Under the GENIUS Act - Cryptonews.net (2026-09-27)
  2. tokenpost.com: Fed Proposes Stablecoin Rules With Full Reserves, Capital Charges | TokenPost (2026-09-26)
  3. kucoin.com: Fed Proposes Stablecoin Rules: Full Reserve Requirement and Bank Application Process (2026-09-27)
  4. menafn.com: Fed Outlines New Capital And Redemption Rules For Stablecoin Issuers - Mena FN (2026-09-25)
  5. startupfortune.com: The Fed Finally Wrote Stablecoin Rules, and Wall Street Banks Come Out Ahead (2026-09-25)
  6. portalcripto.com.br: Fed proposes US$ 20 million capital for US$ 1 billion stablecoin - PortalCripto (2026-09-26)
  7. cryptoslate.com: Fed proposed stablecoin rule could trigger a 48-hour liquidation run - CryptoSlate (2026-09-26)
  8. buttondown.com: Fair Value, Saturday, September 26, 2026 - Buttondown (2026-09-26)
  9. cryptorank.io: Federal Reserve Proposes Stablecoin Rules Under the GENIUS Act - CryptoRank (2026-09-27)
  10. tradersunion.com: Federal Reserve seeks comment on stablecoin issuer rules under GENIUS Act (2026-09-26)