OCC rule leaves stablecoin rewards to case-by-case review

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency’s new stablecoin rule keeps the ban on issuers paying interest to coin holders, but leaves room for crypto platforms to offer rewards under case-by-case review. The Associated Press report says exchanges such as Coinbase and Robinhood can pass along earnings from stablecoins as interest-like rewards. The rule was published October 23 and takes effect January 18, 2027.

The mechanism starts with a stablecoin issuer, such as Circle, holding assets that back its tokens. Those reserves can include bank deposits and U.S. Treasuries, which earn interest. An exchange holds or trades the tokens for customers and may pay them a reward tied to those holdings. The issuer and the exchange are separate moving parts, and the law’s yield ban applies directly to the issuer.

What does the OCC rule prohibit?

The GENIUS Act bars a permitted payment stablecoin issuer from paying interest or yield to a holder solely because they hold, use or retain the coin. The OCC’s final rule implements that ban for issuers under its jurisdiction. It does not define “interest” or “yield,” and it does not give rewards programs a general safe harbor.

The OCC had proposed a rebuttable presumption that would have treated some payments through affiliates or related third parties as issuer payments. In the final rule, it dropped that presumption. Instead, the agency says it will assess arrangements against the statutory language and their facts and circumstances. That leaves the path open for platform rewards, but does not establish that every program is permitted.

Why can exchanges still offer rewards?

The rule distinguishes the issuer’s prohibited payment from a platform’s separate reward, while reserving the OCC’s ability to examine whether an arrangement is an indirect issuer payment or an attempt to evade the ban. The agency says it will assess arrangements individually. It also declined to exempt rewards programs that existed before the GENIUS Act was enacted.

The OCC’s final rule in the Federal Register followed a proposal that drew about 328 comments. Banks have argued that stablecoin rewards could pull deposits away from lenders and reduce their capacity to make loans, according to AP. The new rule does not settle that dispute. It sets the issuer prohibition, but leaves the treatment of specific platform programs for future review.

Sources

• Associated Press report — apnews.com
• OCC’s final rule in the Federal Register — federalregister.gov