The final GENIUS Act rule will be finalized by November, said Comptroller of the Currency Jonathan Gould. .Gould made the prediction Aug. 19 during the Wyoming Blockchain Symposium in Jackson Hole. He said having the final rule out by this fall will allow the OCC to start processing new stablecoin applications at the start of next year. “We are witnessing the birth of a new industry in the form of payment stablecoins,” he said. Passed in July 2025, the same month Gould was confirmed by the Senate, the GENIUS Act is the first comprehensive federal regulatory framework for stablecoins. The law requires issuers to keep 100 percent reserve backing on a 1:1 basis with U.S. dollars, short-term Treasuries, or other liquid assets. Gould described the OCC under his watch as being focused on how best to integrate digital asset activities. The OCC has received 40 new bank charter applications over the past 18 months. Of those, 23 have had a business plan including digital assets. Gould said that is an eight-fold increase from the Biden administration. “When I look out further to the pipeline of potential applicants for bank charters, it is becoming an ordinary course to involve and integrate payment stablecoins in the business plans we are now seeing presented to the OCC for consideration,” Gould said. “Crypto is part of the business of banking, and we have been making sure that is the case through our actions, both on the chartering front and through legal interpretations.” Gould criticized the approach the OCC took to digital assets under the Biden administration as short-sighted and detrimental to the banking industry. In November 2021, the OCC issued an interpretive letter requiring national banks and federal savings associations to inform their supervisory office and receive a written non-objection before embarking in crypto asset or stablecoin activities. Banks were also required to demonstrate they had adequate risk-management controls to handle novel threats before offering digital asset services.
