Treasury Publishes the First GENIUS Act Rule on Who May Issue Stablecoins

The Treasury Department published its first proposed rule under the GENIUS Act on Monday 17 August, and it goes at the statute's most basic questions. The notice of proposed rulemaking, announced in Treasury release SB0605, would define what it means to "issue a payment stablecoin in the United States" and what counts as an "offer or sell" to US persons. The first definition decides who must hold a license. The second decides whose coins may circulate in the country at all. Comments are open for 60 days from the rule's Federal Register publication, filed through the federal e-rulemaking portal.

One aggregator digest carried Monday's news as the GENIUS Act "finalized." It is not. The document is a proposal implementing section 3 of the Act, and nothing in it binds anyone until a final rule follows the comment round. Treasury's own release and same-day reports from CoinDesk and The Block agree on that status.

Two definitions carry the regime

The issuance definition is the licensing trigger. Whoever "issues a payment stablecoin in the United States" under the final version of this text will need a federal or state license to keep doing it. The offer-or-sell definition reaches the distribution side, meaning the exchanges, brokers and apps that put a coin in front of US persons. Foreign-issued stablecoins get a test of their own. The issuer must be capable of complying with lawful US orders, and its home jurisdiction must offer reciprocal treatment. For offshore issuers, that pair of conditions is the whole game.

The rule aims to "provide the regulatory certainty businesses need to innovate and grow in America," Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in the release.

The dates were never in question

The proposal restates two deadlines Congress fixed in the statute. From 18 January 2027, issuing a payment stablecoin domestically requires a federal or state license; the state route is the one Circle tested in July when it took an NYDFS trust charter. A second cutoff lands on 18 July 2028, after which any stablecoin offered or sold in the US must come from a licensed issuer. Those dates were set by the Act itself. What Monday's rule adds is the map of exactly who they catch.

A rulemaking running behind its statute

The Act gave regulators one year to finish implementing rules, and that year ran out on 18 July 2026. Only proposals were public by then, among them the OCC's anti-money-laundering package from June and a five-agency customer-identification proposal whose comments are due 21 August. Monday's NPRM is Treasury's first piece of that overdue set. It is also the most consequential piece, since it draws the perimeter every other rule sits inside.

Licensing regimes elsewhere are already producing product. Hong Kong's issuer framework put a regulated HKD stablecoin into circulation just last week. The US timetable is slower, but as of Monday it is measurably in motion.

Sixty days to argue about the perimeter

The comment window is where these definitions get contested. Domestic issuers will push on where "in the United States" begins and ends. Offshore issuers will read the reciprocity clause closely, because the July 2028 sale cutoff leaves less runway than it appears once licensing lead times are counted back from it. Treasury must then digest the comments before any final text can publish. That makes a settled definition before 2027 look tight. Issuers planning against the January licensing date will be doing much of that planning while the legal meaning of "issuer" is still in draft.