Stablecoin Issuance
The GENIUS Act created a new federal licensing category for stablecoin issuers. PPSI defines who can issue, what reserves they must hold, and how the OCC examines them. This is the reference site for the institutions navigating it.
Legislative Framework
The Act defines a payment stablecoin as a digital asset pegged to a fixed monetary value, issued by a PPSI, and redeemable at par on demand. Algorithmic stablecoins are explicitly excluded.
Issuers above $10B in outstanding stablecoins must obtain a federal charter from the OCC. Below $10B, state-chartered issuers operate under state regulatory frameworks with federal backstop provisions.
PPSIs must maintain 1:1 reserve backing in high-quality liquid assets: US Treasury securities, Treasury repo, insured deposits, and central bank reserves. The specific composition tiers vary by charter size and type.
The OCC conducts safety and soundness examinations of federally chartered PPSIs, including reserve audits, operational risk assessments, and consumer protection compliance reviews.
Market Landscape
$75B+ in circulation. Already operates under state money transmitter licenses. Federal charter would consolidate regulatory posture and enable Arc L1 integration as a PPSI-compliant settlement chain.
NY DFS-regulated trust company. Issues USDP and operates PayPal's PYUSD infrastructure. Federal charter aligns with existing bank-grade compliance posture.
Acquired by Stripe for $1.1B (2024). Stripe's stablecoin infrastructure play. Tempo L1 launch positions Bridge as both issuer and settlement chain operator.
JPMorgan (Kinexys deposit tokens), BNY Mellon, and potentially one or more regional banks. The GENIUS Act explicitly enables national banks to issue payment stablecoins under existing OCC authority.
Reference Architecture
Interactive reference architecture diagram — reserve composition tiers,
attestation workflows, and OCC examination checkpoints.
BUILDING — SVG + interactive version coming
Cloud Reference Architecture
Reference deployment topology: reserve attestation Workers, KV-backed compliance state,
D1 for audit trails, R2 for document storage. Cloud-agnostic conceptual architecture alongside.
BUILDING — Cloudflare-native + cloud-agnostic diagrams coming