The US Federal Reserve on September 24, 2026 proposed its first set of rules for issuers of dollar-backed stablecoins, the opening move in turning last year's GENIUS Act from statute into enforceable supervision. The proposals, reported by Reuters and detailed by CoinDesk, cover how issuers must hold reserves, how much capital they must carry, and how banks can participate in the market.
Reserves must sit in short-term government paper
Under the proposal, payment stablecoin issuers supervised by the Fed would have to fully back their tokens with specific reserve assets, such as short-term Treasury bills. That codifies what the largest issuers already claim to do voluntarily, but it removes the discretion. An issuer could no longer quietly hold riskier or longer-dated instruments against the redemption promise printed on every token.
The Fed paired the reserve rule with capital requirements meant to absorb credit and operational risk. Reserves answer the question of what sits behind the token. Capital answers a different one: whether the issuer can survive an operational failure, a fraud loss, or a run without the reserve pool itself taking the hit. For anyone holding a stablecoin as a cash equivalent, those two layers are the difference between a token that redeems at a dollar under stress and one that gaps below it.
Banks get a defined lane
The proposal also draws boundaries for Fed-supervised banks. It would set guidelines for banks that custody reserves on behalf of stablecoin issuers, spell out which stablecoin-related activities those banks can engage in, and create a tailored application process for banks that want to issue their own tokens.
That last point matters for the competitive shape of the market. A defined path for banks to issue stablecoins invites regulated deposit-taking institutions into a business that has been dominated by crypto-native firms. It is the same tension visible elsewhere in policy this year, from the Trump administration's push to spread dollar stablecoins abroad to European regulators pulling lending and DeFi toward existing frameworks. Governments have decided stablecoins are payment infrastructure, and payment infrastructure gets bank-grade rules.
A 60-day window before anything binds
None of this is final. The Fed will take public comment for 60 days after the proposal is published in the Federal Register, and issuers, banks, and industry groups will use that window to argue over reserve definitions, capital ratios, and the scope of permitted bank activity. The details that survive comment are what will actually govern the market, so the headline today is a starting position, not a settled rule.
The market reaction was muted, which fits a proposal rather than an enacted rule. As of September 25, 2026, Bitcoin traded near $84,675, up 0.5% on the day and about 10% over the week, with Ether around $2,691 and the Fear & Greed Index at 73, firmly in greed territory. Stablecoin rulemaking rarely moves spot prices on the day it drops. Its weight shows up over quarters, in which issuers can operate at scale and which get squeezed out by capital they cannot raise.
The layer under your card
Stablecoins are not an abstraction for anyone who spends crypto. They are the settlement rail underneath most cards. When you tap a card funded by USDC or USDT spending, the token you hold is a claim on an issuer's reserves, and the quality of those reserves is exactly what this proposal targets. A rule that forces full backing in Treasury bills makes the balance in a spending wallet safer. A capital requirement that pushes a thinly funded issuer out of the market can also strand users mid-cycle if that issuer is the one behind their card.
For US-based users in particular, the regulatory picture in the United States is shifting from voluntary attestation toward supervised backing. That is a net positive for the reliability of dollar tokens over time, even if it thins the field of who can legally issue them. The practical takeaway for now is narrow: nothing changes for holders today, the rules are a draft, and the 60-day comment period is where the real fight happens.
Overview
The Federal Reserve proposed its first stablecoin rules under the GENIUS Act on September 24, 2026, requiring supervised issuers to fully back tokens with assets like short-term Treasury bills, hold capital against credit and operational risk, and follow a defined process for banks that custody reserves or want to issue their own tokens. A 60-day public comment period opens once the proposal is published in the Federal Register. The rules are a draft, so nothing binds holders yet, but they signal that dollar stablecoins are being pulled toward bank-grade supervision.
