OCC GENIUS Act Rule: What 'Solely' Means for Stablecoin Rewards

Just as I promised last year, the Genius Act creates a clear and simple regulatory framework to establish and unleash the immense promise of dollar-backed stablecoins. This could be perhaps the greatest revolution in financial technology since the birth of the internet itself.

Clear and simple. Now, that was July 2025 when America's stablecoin law, the Genius Act, was signed. It's taken 15 months for the rule book behind it turn up. And on Wednesday, the 21st of October, the regulator that hands out national bank charters, the OCC, published its final rule. All right, the first from federal bank regulator.

So, if you're holding XRP, you should care about this because it's already given Ripple conditional approval for a bank of its own. Now, most people saw the headline and thought, "Great. Stablecoin rewards are safe." But, it's not that simple, right? One word One word decides whether the rewards you're getting on your stablecoins survive. The regulator has said it won't assume any of the existing reward programs are allowed.

The banks already lining up to fight it, and I'm going to show you that word, all right? The line almost nobody quoted, and what it meant for Ripple. Now, if you've got stablecoins on an exchange next to XRP, this one lands on you. And there's a link in the description, the first one. It changed how a lot of people handle the big calls on coins like this.

I'm going to tell you why before we're 5 minutes in, because this comes down to one question, right? If you hold XRP or stablecoins or both, who actually gets to change the rules on your coins? Well, the regulator, the banks, the exchanges you use, or you? By the end of this, guys, you'll know what the rule really says, who's still fighting over it, and the three decisions it leaves you with. Now, the rule kicks in on the 18th of January 2027, the same day the law itself takes effect.

And the man in charge, Comptroller Jonathan Gold, called it a clear, practical framework. But, some commenters wanted the regulator to wait for Congress to settle the rewards fight in first. That was In August, Gold was asked about that fight and the Clarity Act. And I've actually got a clip for you showing exactly what he said. Check this out.

What we have is the Genius Act. That's been law for over a year now, and we need to execute on that. So, from from the OCC's perspective, from my perspective, that question was addressed in law, in the genius act, and that is what we are intent on implementing. So, you guys are going to stay focused on the genius act implementing if Congress makes a decision that's separate,

[clears throat]

you'll have to consider that. Of course, I mean we we just can't Congress gave us an instruct an instruction, we need to carry it out, we need to carry out expeditiously.

Congress gave us an instruction, so for now this rule is the rule book. Now, here's the plain version. A stablecoin is a coin that's meant to stay on $1 backed by cash and short-term government debt. Now, that backing earns interest, right? The law says the company that issues the coin can't pass that interest straight to you for just holding it.

Now, that's the yield ban. Now, what it doesn't say clearly is what happens when an exchange pays you a reward on the coin instead. Now, back in February the regulator's first draft leaned towards the banks on that. It actually said certain deals between the issue and the partners would be presumed to break the ban unless they could prove otherwise, right? And the final rule dropped that.

Now, every reward program gets looked on as its own facts case by case. And that sounds like news for bank is, but if you're actually part of bags earning on an exchange, then this is the rule that decides whether it keeps earning, right? So, it does affect us. And guys, I want to get deep into this, but I want you to know this is only my opinion, all right? I'm not a financial advisor.

I'm going to give you all the sides in this because you can't make a proper call with your own money if you only get half the story, which is what most people do, not me. So, let's roll the intro, let's get deep into it.

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Now, picture this, right? You got a decent bag, some of it's XLM, some of it's staked in stablecoins on an exchange earning a bit while you wait. And then one morning you open the app and the rewards line's gone. Or worse, a button you used yesterday is grayed out and there's a polite message saying it's for your protection. Well, somebody else changed the rules and you find out afterwards.

And to be honest, it's hard to keep up on your own. The banks have lobbyists, the exchanges have lawyers, and the regulatory had hundreds of comment letters. And most people holding a bag have a terms and conditions page that they've never read, and that's exactly why the first link is there in the description, guys. Instead of finding out after the rules change, you've got a team reading this stuff every single week and it starts with a short video and exactly what your plan is if the rule changes. So, I'll tell you properly at the end, but if this is already hitting home, guys, take a quick look at that link.

So, you're asking, and people are, why are banks and crypto funds fighting so hard over this? Well, here's Coinbase's chief legal officer, Paul Grewal, on CNBC last October, putting crypto's side. Check this out.

If you have a basic checking account or savings account, you're lucky if you get maybe a quarter of a percent. You know, that's not real um economic value for consumers. And in contrast, as you point out, on Coinbase and on other platforms, you can enjoy uh well in excess of 4% uh for uh the stable coins that you hold.

You're lucky if you get maybe a quarter of a percent. Now, that's what you just heard, right? Rates have moved since then, but the gap hasn't gone away. And to be honest, the day the rule came out, the Associated Press put Coinbase up to 3 and 1/2% on USDC for some customers. The average savings account, less than 1/2 of a percent.

So, that's the bull case. Ordinary people get a share of the interest that dollars earn. And here's the other side. This is Jamie Dimon, who runs JPMorgan on Fox Business in June. He asked about the Clarity Act.

Check this out.

Are you happy with the way the Clarity Act is turning out?

No. No, because it it it it allows them to effectively pay interest on deposits, stable coins, or something like that without the protection that they should have. And it doesn't do anything for AML/BSA. It has almost no legal protections. So, no, it's the banks will not accept it that way.

Uh they want to keep

the ABA, the small banks, the credit unions, not just the big guys.

Not just big guys. Well, in other words, it's not only the giant banks worried, it's small banks and credit unions, too. That's their worry, right? If people can get a few percent on a stable coin, why leave money in a bank paying next to nothing? Well, banks lend out deposits, and that's how a lot of mortgages and business loans get paid for.

The same day the rule came out, Rob Nichols, who runs the American Bankers Association, said it would preserve the status quo for crypto platforms. He didn't mean that as a compliment, right? He said the banks will keep working on it. So, where does an exchange rule actually come from? Well, mostly the issuer, Circle, right?

Which issued USDC. Says it's spent $819 million on its distribution partners and transaction costs in the first half of this year. Now, a lot of that is interest, and that's on the reserves, shared out. And that's the money the banks wanted caught by the ban. Congress could still change all of this in the final rule says in writing, "Until Congress passes a new law, the regulator has to apply the ban as written." The new legislation would be the Clarity Act, the bigger crypto bill, and it failed to get through a key Senate vote last month.

And the banks wanted the regulator to tighten. So, not after it's watched the market for a while, right? Nicholas said, "Attempting to address deposits, fight and economic harm after it was occurred as the wrong approach." Well, who's the regulator listen to? Gold again at the same event in August, check this out.

And I would note importantly, my job is not about incumbent protection. My job is about the integrity of the banking system as a whole and making sure that it remains relevant over time.

So, in other words, his job isn't protecting the banks. That's the big thing for a bank regulator to say out loud. But here's what I want you to hold on to. Whether the banks win or crypto wins or they meet in the middle, none of this is your decision. The rules about your coins can change and the people changing them are not you.

And they're definitely not asking you first. Now, to be fair, there's a real bear case here for XRP holders, right? Ripple's own stable coin XRP USD is small next to the giants. It was worth about $2.4 billion on the 18th of October against about 72 billion for USDC. And this rule doesn't move the price of XRP by itself, it's plumbing.

And that's a fair point. The answer is that plumbing is what big institutions check before they touch anything. And Ripple being a lot and being the regulated option, but it'll only be proven by what actually gets used. And consumer groups have a point too, right? A stable coin on an exchange is not a bank account and there's no government deposit insurance on it.

Which is one more reason to know where you sit. And we've all seen what that looks like when a platform changes the rules mid-game. Now, on Thursday, the 28th of January 2021 at the height of the GameStop frenzy, Robinhood stopped its customers buying GameStop and a handful of other stocks. They could sell, but they couldn't buy. All right, so 3 weeks later, its boss, Vlad Tenev, was in front of Congress.

Let's watch this.

Why did Robinhood restrict the buying, but not the selling of GameStop? And why did folks get locked out on the buy side only?

Ranking member McHenry, uh I appreciate the opportunity to address that. Uh the reason that Robinhood, first of all, let me say Robinhood is always committed to providing access. It's in our name. It's in everything that we do. Uh the decision to restrict GameStop and other securities was driven purely by deposit and collateral requirements imposed by our clearing houses.

Locked out by the side. Well, that was shares, not crypto, but the lesson's the same. Now, I'm not saying any exchange is about to do that with your stable coins, right? Ten of gave his reason and that's his account. Now, the point is simpler.

When your money sits on someone else's platform, their rules and their precious become your problem, often overnight. So, who's right? The banks or the crypto firms? Both have every reason to talk up their own side and you're the one holding the coins. The honest way to answer it is to read what the rules actually say.

It's not either side's spin on it. So, let's do it. So, here's what almost every headline skipped. The law bans yield paid solely in connection with the holding, use, or retention of a stablecoin. Solely, meaning only.

That one word is doing the heavy lifting. If a reward is paid purely off holding and using the coin, then it's trouble. If it's paid at least partly for something else, then the regulator has hinted it could fall outside the ban. The regulator, right? Declines to presume that rewards programs that predated the genius act comply with the genius act.

Now, in plain English, the rewards you're getting now haven't been given a free pass. They just haven't been banned. Now, they'll be judged at one time and how they're actually set up and that's the ABA's own banking journal noted the regulator expects to propose a clarifying rule later. So, this isn't the last word and that's a very different thing if part of your plan is earning on those coins. Now, here's one for free and it does take about 5 minutes, right?

Open whatever app holds your stable coins or your XRP, find the rewards terms, and look for the line that says they can change or end the program anytime. Then, ask yourself one thing. If they switch it off tomorrow or they change the rules overnight, the way Robinhood did with that buy button, then could I move my coins out the same day to a wallet where I hold the keys? And that's the one thing I'd be checking and one plain thing while we're on it. Coins in your wallet are still yours to report and pay tax on.

Holding them yourself is about who has the keys, nothing more. All right, the rest, like how much to keep on an exchange or how to earn on it without handing over control, that all depends on your own bag and that's the bit the team goes through with its members. So, here's where XRP comes in. Ripple launched RLYSD in December 2024 under the New York regulator. Then on the 12th of December last year, the OCC gave Ripple conditional approval for a national trust bank.

That bank would look after the reserve behind RLYSD with the federal regulator watching over it as well as New York. Conditional means there are still boxes to tick before it opens. So, this is the federal rulebook Ripple's stablecoin business would be measured against and if that bank gets its final sign-off, this is Brad Garlinghouse on CNBC last year on why Ripple wants that.

Certainly getting an OCC license, for those that have said that the crypto world wants to be unregulated, whatever, the opposite is true. You know, I'm here in Washington in part as as you referenced, uh there's a Senate Banking Committee hearing today. We are advocating as an industry to be regulated and those that like Ripple who have stepped forward and said we want to get an OCC license in addition to the licenses we have with the New York Department of Financial Services.

The opposite is true. In other words, Ripple's pitch is that it wants to be regulated, it's not avoided and a clear federal rulebook is what that pitch needs. And RLYSD runs on the XRP ledger as well as Ethereum. So, more regulated RLYSD use means more activity on the network that XRP was built for. So, what happens next?

Well, the Federal Reserve, the FDIC and the Treasury still have their own versions to finish and the banks will keep pushing in Congress. And that's the sort of thing the research team keeps an eye on for members and by the way, so some of you are going fair enough, but I'll just leave my stablecoins on the exchange, take the rewards while they last. Well, you can, but remember Robinhood in January 2021, the customers didn't get a vote and they didn't get a warning. So, if you can't move your coins the same day, the rewards aren't really the point. Now, my honest take, the rule is good.

It's very good news for crypto, right? And quietly useful for Ripple, but it's not the end of the fight and it's not the guarantee for any single rewards program. What it changes is how carefully we check where our coins sit. If you're going to check those terms, pop XRP in the comments. Now, quick recap, right?

The rulebook for American stablecoins is final, it goes live on the 18th of January. Rewards aren't banned, but they haven't been cleared either and one word solely decides a lot. The banks are still fighting it. Ripple's bank is approved, but only conditionally. And a lot of coins sit on apps whose terms say they can change the program at any time.

Now, that leaves you with three decisions. First, where do your coins actually sit? Could you move them the same day if the rules change? Second is what you're holding earning anything and do you know who's paying it? And third, at what point would you move in or out?

Because if you haven't decided, then the next rule change will decide for you. So, for me, the time to get a plan sorted is before the 18th of January. It's not after. And here's what all of this really shows. The rules around crypto are being written right in front of us and the people writing them have lobbyists and lawyers.

And most of us have left coins on an app because it was easy, right? And never once read what the app could do with them. Not because we're daft, but because nobody ever actually sat us down and showed us exactly where the risks is. If I'm wrong, let me know, but I definitely didn't get shown. Now, I'm not going to tell you what to do with your bag in a video because that depends on what you're holding and your situation.

But, you don't have to work it out on your own, guys. The thing is, it's not that hard to fix. I did it myself. Our private intelligence network, down below in that first link, guys, is what most of us need. Most of what I bring you on this channel comes from inside it.

And there it goes a lot deeper than I can in one video. Basically, the research team digs into where this is heading. Members hear it first and they'll help you get it on your own keys, so no banker exchange can freeze it or change the rules on you overnight. They'll show you how to get what you're holding earning instead of just sat there. And every single week there's a call where the team is going to walk you through exactly how they're reading it and when they're buying and taking profit themselves.

So, you're not guessing and everyone is there holding a decent bag. And they're also in it for the long haul, same as me. So, if that's you, honestly, get involved. I'd be a lot further on myself if I started Altcoin Pro sooner. And if I opened that app earlier and realized you could get coins out the same day, then it's exactly what this call would change your life about.

All right. So, when the rules keep moving, it helps to have someone in your corner who will actually explain them. Now, one of our members, Julio, actually found that this is a real review, guys, by the way. You can actually check it. It's unprompted on Trustpilot.

He says that coaches all specialize in different areas and work together in the program. And the one-to-one coaching is where it really comes together. His coach is Shawn, all right? And Shawn will answer the same question in a different way until it clicks. Even in the evenings and the weekends while Julio's running his business.

So, results like Julio's are exceptional. and they didn't happen by sitting still, right? Be exceptional yourself and take that leap. Guys, I'm not going to go too much on about it, but it's changed my life. You can see it's changed Julia's. It's changed a lot of people's lives.

So, if you'd rather just get on a try for 15 minutes for free to see if what I'm saying is true, make sure you do that. As always, hit that subscribe button, guys, and stay bullish.

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