Treasury’s public comment window on its GENIUS Act stablecoin rule closed Monday, October 19, with 123 submissions on the docket, according to The Block.
This is a back-office story for a store owner, not a checkout story. The final rule will decide which stablecoins the companies that move your money can handle, and that sets whether the cheaper stablecoin checkout and overseas supplier payments now being pitched to the owners who read Ecommerce Paradise survive in their current form.
Below: what Treasury proposed, who said what in the filings, which dates matter, and the five moves I’d make this week. For high-ticket owners (my guide to the high-ticket model covers the basics), nothing changes at your checkout yet. The supplier-payment side deserves a cost baseline before you move any money.
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Treasury’s GENIUS Act Stablecoin Rule Drew 123 Comments by Oct. 19
Treasury released its notice of proposed rulemaking on Aug. 17, 2026, according to The Block’s August report. PYMNTS reports the rule appeared in the Federal Register on Aug. 18 and that the comment period closed Monday, Oct. 19.
The proposal implements Section 3 of the GENIUS Act. It spells out when a payment stablecoin counts as issued in the United States, and when an issuer or service provider counts as offering or selling one to a U.S. person. It follows an advance notice Treasury put out in September 2025.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a post on X that “Treasury is moving quickly to implement that framework,” per The Block. Under the proposal, the first transfer by an issuer that gives another person rights to use, transfer or redeem a coin counts as issuance, according to PYMNTS. The rule applies when either the issuer or the recipient is in the U.S., per Crypto Briefing.
Who filed what
The Blockchain Association filed a 26-page letter on the last day, according to The Block. The group backs Treasury’s approach and asks for three fixes. It wants “digital asset service provider” limited to businesses that serve customers, so self-custody software, validators and firms trading their own assets fall outside it. It wants liability for “knowing participation” tied to actual knowledge and substantial assistance. And it opposes “open-ended due diligence” on foreign issuers, proposing that providers rely on regulators’ public prohibition lists instead.
New York’s Department of Financial Services pushed the other way. Per PYMNTS, the agency called the proposal “overly permissive” on secondary U.S. sales of foreign-issued stablecoins and warned that offshore issuance could reach U.S. circulation through an “affiliate, distributor, market maker, platform, or other intermediary.” ANB Bank asked for stronger protection against foreign or unlicensed issuers and warned that stablecoins replacing transaction balances could pull funds from insured deposit institutions that community banks rely on for lending.
Mastercard supported Treasury’s “reasonable belief” approach, under which a foreign issuer can stay outside U.S. rules if it reasonably believes recipients are outside the country and keeps controls against U.S. issuance, according to PYMNTS. Coinbase asked Treasury to confirm that a service provider can use a non-qualifying foreign stablecoin as an intermediate asset in a cross-border payment, as long as the U.S. customer never acquires or holds it. Ripple argued issuer status should require both a redemption obligation and a stable-value representation. Chainalysis backed tying issuance to the first transfer out of issuer-controlled addresses.
The Digital Policy Alert tracker lists the Treasury consultation as open until 19 October 2026. Law firms including Jones Day published client summaries of the proposal in August.
Crypto Briefing counts more than 100 submissions while The Block puts the docket (TREAS-DO-2026-0496) at 123, so the exact number depends on when each outlet looked. Neither report addresses merchants directly, and none of the coverage I read gives a date for a final rule.
GENIUS Act Dates: Jan. 18, 2027 Start and a July 2028 Cutoff
The GENIUS Act became law on July 18, 2025, per Crypto Briefing. The Act takes effect by Jan. 18, 2027, or 120 days after final rules arrive, according to the same report.
The Block adds a second date: July 18, 2028, when digital asset service providers generally cannot offer or sell payment stablecoins to U.S. persons unless the tokens come from a licensed issuer. Service providers also face limits on foreign-issued stablecoins unless the foreign issuer can comply with U.S. legal orders and any reciprocal arrangements.
The industry did not wait for the rulebook. Shopify launched USDC checkout with Coinbase and Stripe on Base in June 2025. Open USD went live on Sept. 30, 2026, with Coinbase, Mastercard, Shopify, Stripe and Visa each holding an equal initial stake, which I covered in my Open USD write-up. Earlier today I broke down the Oct. 15 launches from Visa, Mastercard and Stripe in my stablecoin payments post.
That sequence matters. Products shipped first, and the definitions that decide who can keep selling them are still open. The comment letters split into two camps: crypto firms and card networks asking for lighter foreign-issuer rules, and a state regulator and a community bank asking for tighter ones. A comment period is not a final rule, and a filing is a position, not a prediction.
What the Stablecoin Rule Means for Supplier Payments and Checkout
My read is that this rule reaches a store owner through three doors, and only one of them is your checkout.
The first door is checkout. Reports in June 2026, which I cited in my Open USD post, put stablecoin checkout at about 1.5% versus 2.9% plus $0.30 for cards. That is a reported figure, not a published Open USD price. Hypothetical math: on a $4,000 order, a card costs $116.30 and 1.5% costs $60, a gap of $56.30. Twenty such orders a month is about $1,126.
I would not move a checkout for that. Stablecoin payments cannot be charged back, per the sources behind my earlier reporting, and high-ticket buyers lean on card dispute rights when something goes wrong. The savings are real on paper, and you pay for them by taking dispute and fraud risk onto your own balance sheet. If you test it on Shopify, cap it to a small slice of orders until your processor publishes terms under the final rule.
The second door is supplier payments, and it is where the filings matter most. Coinbase’s ask maps straight onto it: a provider routes your dollars through a stablecoin hop, and your overseas supplier receives local currency without ever holding the coin. If Treasury confirms that structure, providers can keep building cheap cross-border rails. If it tightens, expect coin menus to shrink or prices to rise.
You need a baseline to judge any of this. Shopify Balance charges 0.75% plus $0.10 on most overseas transfers, which my Balance supplier-payments breakdown works out to $37.60 on a $5,000 payment. A stablecoin route has to beat your landed cost, meaning the fee, the exchange margin and the receiving bank’s charge together.
Wise is where I would start benchmarking. My Wise vs PayPal comparison shows how spreads and holds change the real cost. Treat any “from 0.23%” style headline rate as a starting point and ask for the quote on your actual currency pair and amount.
The third door is concentration. Whichever coin or provider you adopt, a rule change or an outage can strand you for days. Revolut cards went down in the Google Cloud London outage that I covered in my outage post. The lesson is the one in my payment processor backup plan: keep a second path ready.
Scenarios, with my own thresholds. If the final rule keeps the “reasonable belief” test for foreign issuers, processors will keep adding coins, and a payout route that beats your baseline by half a percentage point over 90 days deserves a bigger slice of your supplier spend. If the final rule tightens, any provider notice about a delisted coin is your trigger to move balances out within the notice window. Those thresholds are my rules of thumb, not figures from Treasury or any filing.
A distinction helps here. The foreign-issuer fight is about coins issued outside the U.S. A token issued by a U.S. company, like the one Stripe’s Bridge issues for Open USD, does not raise the same questions. The filings I read do not name specific coins, so I cannot tell you which popular coins land on which side of the line. Ask your provider, and ask in writing.
What I would not do: convert operating cash into a coin because a rate looks cheap, rebuild your checkout around a payment type that has no dispute rights, or sign a long contract with a provider whose stablecoin terms depend on a rule nobody has finalized. If you do hold any coin, keep it in a wallet you control; my crypto wallet comparison covers the options.
One more point on who is arguing what. Mastercard and Coinbase, two of the five Open USD founders, asked for the looser foreign-issuer treatment, and Stripe’s Bridge issues the token. Their positions are reasonable, and they also have a commercial stake. Weigh them the way you would weigh the New York regulator’s request: as one side of a negotiation, not a forecast.
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Before the Final Rule: Five Moves for Your Payments Stack
Five moves, in order. None requires you to buy a coin.
- Build a 90-day cost baseline. Pull card processing fees, wire fees and FX margins from the last three months into one sheet. A bookkeeping tool like Finaloop makes this a ten-minute job instead of a weekend.
- Price your top three supplier payments. Ask for a quote on a real $5,000 payment from Airwallex. Get the same quote from Payoneer. My Airwallex setup guide covers the account side.
- Email your processor and bank. Ask which stablecoins they support, what they do if a coin is delisted, and how much notice you get. Save the replies.
- Leave checkout alone. Visa widens its chargeback evidence rules from Oct. 24, per my Visa evidence-rules post, so spend the week on dispute readiness. My chargeback prevention guide is the place to start.
- Check that your entity and address records match across providers. Mismatches slow verification, and verification gets stricter as rules land. If your structure needs cleaning up, read my business formation guide, then book a discovery call if you want a second set of eyes on the whole payments stack.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the GENIUS Act?
It is the federal law, signed July 18, 2025, that sets rules for payment stablecoins, per Crypto Briefing. It takes effect by Jan. 18, 2027, or 120 days after final rules, and my stablecoin payments post shows how fast the industry is moving ahead of it.
Did Treasury finalize the rule?
No. The comment period closed Oct. 19, and the coverage I read gives no date for a final rule.
Does this change my Shopify checkout today?
No. Shopify added USDC checkout in June 2025, and neither report on the new filings says anything about merchant checkout terms. Keep your current setup until your processor emails you a change.
Are stablecoin payments protected by chargebacks?
Per the sources behind my earlier reporting, they are not, because a settled stablecoin payment is final. Card payments keep dispute rights, so high-ticket stores usually keep cards at checkout.
Should I keep business cash in a stablecoin?
I am not a financial advisor, so treat this as reported information only. Open USD reserves are held with BlackRock, Lead Bank and BNY with monthly attestations, per my Open USD reporting. Most owners I would point to keep operating cash in a regular business bank account, and my Mercury account walkthrough shows one way to set that up.
How do I test a stablecoin transfer without risking much?
Start with a small amount through an exchange such as Coinbase. You can compare Kraken on fees before you commit, and send a test amount first so you see the full cost end to end.
I do not have a store yet. Where do I start?
Pick a niche first. My free high-ticket niches list is the lowest-friction place to begin. The longer niches guide explains how I evaluate them.
Want to work through payment changes like this with other store owners and me in one place? Join the Skool community →
The rule is still a draft, and I will cover the final version when Treasury publishes it. Until then, keep your checkout boring and your supplier payments measured. Subscribe to the YouTube channel for daily breakdowns. More breaking news coming through the day.
Related Articles
If this was useful, these go deeper:
- Visa, Mastercard, Stripe Push Stablecoins Into Payments
- Open USD Goes Live With Shopify as a Co-Owner
- Shopify Balance Now Pays Overseas Suppliers
- Wise vs PayPal (2026): Fees, Currency Spreads, Holds and Which Fits a Store Owner
- Your Payment Processor Is a Single Point of Failure: Build a Backup Plan Before You Need One
Trevor Fenner is an ecommerce entrepreneur and the founder of Ecommerce Paradise, a platform focused on helping entrepreneurs build and scale profitable high-ticket ecommerce and dropshipping businesses. With over a decade of hands-on experience, Trevor specializes in high-ticket dropshipping strategy, niche and product selection, supplier recruiting and onboarding, Google & Bing Shopping ads, ecommerce SEO, and systems-driven automation and scaling. Through Ecommerce Paradise, he provides free education via in-depth guides like How to Start High-Ticket Dropshipping, advanced training through the High-Ticket Dropshipping Masterclass, and fully done-for-you turnkey ecommerce services for entrepreneurs who want a faster, more hands-off path to growth. Trevor is known for emphasizing sustainable, real-world ecommerce models over hype-driven tactics, helping store owners build scalable, sellable, and location-independent brands.
