rules

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) has finalized the implementation rules for the GENIUS Act, applicable to licensed stablecoin issuers, foreign issuers under OCC jurisdiction, and certain custodial activities of regulated entities, covering reserve support, redemption, and risk management. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent described the legislation as a "watershed moment for the U.S. financial industry," comparing it to the National Currency Act of 1863.The final rules do not include provisions for the Bank Secrecy Act, anti-money laundering, and OFAC sanctions, which will be addressed through subsequent rules coordinated with the Treasury Department. The GENIUS Act was signed into law in July 2025, and regulators failed to establish rules by the deadline of July 18, 2026; the Federal Reserve proposed two related rules in September 2026. Both the GENIUS Act and the OCC final rules are set to take effect on January 18, 2027, and the OCC has not yet announced the timeline for accepting issuer applications and exemption requests.

The S&P Dow Jones Indices has adjusted the rules for classifying stocks into growth and value categories, incorporating intangible assets, expected earnings, and free cash flow as evaluation factors. The new rules will take effect before the market opens on December 21, potentially forcing funds that track the relevant indices to adjust their holdings. At least $375 billion in passive fund assets are linked to the affected indices.

a16z Frontier founding partner Chris Dixon stated that early Web2 platforms were built on fragile tacit agreements: independent creators, bloggers, news media, and community volunteers contributed high-quality content for free, while platforms provided traffic distribution, audience accumulation, and commercial revenue opportunities.He pointed out that after forming a monopoly through network effects, platforms continuously tightened algorithms, forcing creators to pay for traffic. With the advent of the generative AI era, large model companies collect long-accumulated content from the entire internet through crawlers and directly provide answers in search and Q&A interfaces, no longer diverting traffic to the original websites, thus severing the economic cycle of independent creators.Dixon believes that if this trend continues, high-quality original content may be depleted, and the internet could be flooded with low-quality machine-generated content. He proposed that verifiable data ownership could be established through blockchain protocols, allowing data calls, reasoning, and training to be traceable and automatically receive economic returns. Reshaping this contract is one of the important missions of the Frontier fund.

The American Blockchain Association stated that it has submitted comments on the proposed implementation rules for Section 3 of the GENIUS Act by the U.S. Department of the Treasury. The association recommends clarifying the scope of "digital asset service providers" to exclude self-custody software, validators, and businesses that only trade their own assets; regarding criminal liability for participating in the illegal issuance of stablecoins, it should be based on actual knowledge and substantial assistance coordinated with the issuer.The association also suggested that trading platforms could determine the compliance of foreign stablecoins based on the official issuer list and trading bans, and adjust the criteria for determining user locations in unlicensed agreements.

According to Bloomberg, Hyperliquid Labs co-founder Jeff Yan is seeking the United States to establish rules that can protect its blockchain. He believes that Hyperliquid's regulatory responsibilities should fall on the financial institutions operating markets based on that blockchain, namely the application layer, rather than the blockchain network itself. This regulatory division allows Hyperliquid to enter Wall Street without bearing the full compliance burden of traditional exchanges.Jeff Yan also stated that Hyperliquid is currently not open to U.S. customers, and Hyperliquid prefers to be the underlying trading technology used by traditional financial institutions, rather than replacing existing market participants, positioning itself similarly to how Amazon Web Services (AWS) provides computing infrastructure for businesses.

On October 15, MSCI revised the eligibility rules for constituents of the global investable market index, tightening the definition of "non-operating companies" and subjecting Bitcoin treasury companies to stricter scrutiny. The Strategy led by Michael Saylor has not been removed from the MSCI index.MSCI stated that it will assess whether a company qualifies as a "non-operating" company based on its operational and financial characteristics, and companies holding digital assets may still have genuine operational activities; existing constituents are still subject to a buffering mechanism, and the relevant consequences will need to be clarified further in the November index review.

According to Bloomberg, Jeff Yan, co-founder of Hyperliquid Labs, is seeking the United States to establish rules that can protect its blockchain.He believes that the regulatory responsibilities of Hyperliquid should fall on the financial institutions operating in the market based on that blockchain, namely the application layer, rather than on the blockchain network itself. This regulatory division would allow Hyperliquid to enter Wall Street without having to bear the full compliance burden of traditional exchanges.

On October 16, MSCI announced the formal adoption of the non-operating company index exclusion rules, which will be implemented in the index review in November 2026 and will take effect after the market closes on November 30.The new rules first assess whether a company has substantial operating assets; companies that do not pass the initial screening will undergo five financial ratio tests, and if at least four of these meet the exclusion criteria, they will not qualify for index inclusion.As a result, Bitcoin treasury company Strategy and Metaplanet face potential exclusion, with the final list to be announced on November 11. JPMorgan previously estimated that if Strategy is removed from the MSCI index, it would face approximately $2.8 billion in selling pressure.

Crypto journalist Eleanor Terrett reported that Jonathan Gould, the head of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), stated that the final rules for implementing the GENIUS Act are expected to be released soon, by the end of October.Gould made this statement at the "Building the New Digital Economy" event hosted by the Milken Institute, which coincided with DC Fintech Week.

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has launched a public consultation on proposed capital, custody, and trading requirements for cryptocurrency platforms. The related rules aim to align with the digital asset legislation passed in April and expand regulation of the industry. The proposals include three capital models, restrictions on platforms conducting proprietary trading, and quarterly reporting of wallets holding customer assets.ASIC also intends to allow offshore custody and is seeking opinions on safeguards in the event of the failure of overseas parent companies or affiliates. One of the models requires platforms that do not adopt qualified third-party custody arrangements to hold at least AUD 14 million (approximately USD 9.7 million) in net tangible assets or 10% of average revenue, whichever is higher. Feedback is due by November 27, and ASIC plans to release final standards and guidelines in March 2027. The related laws will take effect on April 8, 2027, and operators must apply for licenses by October 7 of the same year, with the ability to continue operations during the ASIC review period.

The Thailand Securities and Exchange Commission has completed the rule-making for Bitcoin ETFs, and the new regulations will take effect on October 16. Bitcoin has been included as a qualified asset in the first phase.According to the rules, the average net exposure of the relevant funds for each accounting year must reach at least 80% of the net asset value. The custodian must be licensed by the Thailand Securities and Exchange Commission, and fund shares can only be traded on the Thailand Stock Exchange. Securities companies are not allowed to provide margin financing. Thai mutual funds and private funds will be permitted to invest in locally listed cryptocurrency ETFs, but initially, the issuance and provision of depositary receipts related to overseas cryptocurrency ETFs are prohibited.

On September 30, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) released final rules adjusting the quorum requirement to only one commissioner in most cases to constitute a quorum, which took effect on October 2. The SEC stated that this move aims to enhance the flexibility and finality of institutional rule-making. Earlier this month, Commissioner Hester Peirce resigned, leaving only Chairman Paul Atkins and former Acting Chairman Mark Uyeda as the two remaining commissioners, while the agency's statutory seats are five.The leadership vacancy at the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is even more pronounced, as Michael Selig has been the only Senate-confirmed chairman and commissioner since December 2025. Both agencies were originally set to have five commissioners. In terms of rule-making, the SEC proposed in August to provide a safe harbor for tokens not to be classified as "investment contracts," and the CFTC followed up in October, with Selig stating that he would utilize existing statutory authority to advance cryptocurrency regulation through proposed rules regarding exchanges; Atkins also mentioned on October 2 that more regulatory proposals would be forthcoming.On October 5, the Financial Times published a commentary by Robin Wigglesworth, pointing out that with only two commissioners, if one needs to recuse themselves or is unable to perform their duties, a single commissioner can pass formal rules applicable to a securities market worth trillions of dollars. Uyeda subsequently responded in the Financial Times, stating that the SEC's commitment to its mission has not changed, and the rule modification merely clarifies that when all but one commissioner must recuse themselves, the commission can still constitute a quorum.

Hedera, a public blockchain, has launched Agent Accounts, described as programmable, non-custodial spending accounts that allow AI agents to autonomously transact within rules set by users and enforced on-chain. This includes payment APIs, data retrieval, invoice settlement, and purchasing on behalf of users, with private keys remaining in the user's wallet.Agent Accounts are funded from the user's existing Hedera wallet and are created separately for designated agents, rather than handing over the entire account to the agent. Users connect their wallets through a web application, designate agents, and configure total spending limits, daily caps, single transaction limits, and whitelists for merchants and payees. The rules are written into Hedera smart contracts and are not stored on company servers, making them unmodifiable by anyone other than the user. Funds do not leave the user's account before a purchase occurs; agents do not hold balances but send spending requests to the smart contract, which validates and executes them. Users can pause or revoke agent spending with a single click from their wallet.This feature is supported by Agentic Payment Services, including MCP server, REST API, and relayer. Hedera states that any agent capable of using MCP or REST can connect, with payments available in HBAR, USDC, or other Hedera tokens, and compatible with x402. Each strategy, transaction, and agent action is recorded on the Hedera Consensus Service. The timeline aims for a limited partner testnet launch in Q4 2026, a public testnet in Q1 2027, and a target mainnet launch in Q2 2027, depending on security audits and legal agreements.

The blockchain project Tempo released a report indicating that the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) plans to adjust accounting rules for stablecoins, allowing eligible tokens to be classified as cash equivalents on company balance sheets, or reducing accounting barriers for enterprises adopting stablecoins.Under current accounting practices, stablecoins, even if fully backed by U.S. dollars, may not be counted as cash reserves reported by the company, thereby affecting liquidity ratios and loan covenants. The proposed rules allow companies to use stablecoins for payments and settlements but require them to have direct redemption rights with the issuer. Purchasing USDC through exchanges may not necessarily meet the criteria for classification as cash equivalents.In its 2025 annual report, Coinbase classified USDC and other payment-type stablecoins as cash equivalents, based on its redemption arrangement with Circle. The public comment period for the FASB proposed rules will continue until November 19, after which the board will review feedback and determine the final accounting changes and effective date. At the time of this proposal's release, the market size for U.S. dollar stablecoins had exceeded $300 billion.

Caroline Pham, Chief Legal Officer of MoonPay and former Commissioner of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), stated that cryptocurrency regulation does not require congressional legislation and can be advanced solely through rules established by regulatory agencies.She mentioned that the regulatory jurisdiction of the CFTC is nearly all-encompassing, as the Commodity Exchange Act stipulates that almost all items, except onions and movie box office revenues, fall under the category of commodities.

The State Tax Inspectorate of Lithuania has updated the user reporting program for cryptocurrency service providers, clarifying the reporting scope and operational standards through Order VA-63, aligning national regulations with the EU DAC8 and the OECD Crypto Asset Reporting Framework (CARF). The new regulations require regulated cryptocurrency service providers and local crypto operators to enhance customer due diligence, collect user identity, transaction records, and tax residency information, and record customer identification numbers, transaction logs, and account balances. Entities that have completed registration and reporting obligations in other EU member states are exempt from re-reporting in Lithuania.The comprehensive operational reporting across the EU will commence on January 1, 2026, with data collected by the platform in 2027 to be automatically exchanged by member state tax authorities starting mid-2027. The new regulations do not change Lithuania's capital gains tax rate on virtual assets, but relevant institutions must update customer access processes and backend systems. Starting from March 2, certain transactions involving electronic money tokens (EMT) must additionally obtain payment service authorization, including transferring EMT on behalf of customers and operating custodial wallets for third-party transfers; exchanges between EMT and exchanges between EMT and fiat currency do not automatically fall under payment services.

The Cardano Foundation announced that the programmable token standard CIP-0113 has officially launched on the Cardano mainnet, allowing issuers of regulated assets such as stablecoins, tokenized funds, and bonds to directly embed compliance rules such as KYC, anti-money laundering, sanctions screening, asset freezing and confiscation, and transfer restrictions into the tokens, which will be executed by the Cardano ledger during each transfer, minting, and burning.This standard does not require a hard fork, and the tokens remain native assets of Cardano, with issuers able to update the rule modules according to regulatory changes.

According to BitcoinNews, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has proposed a new draft of digital asset custody rules, which aims to allow investment advisors and regulated funds to custody Bitcoin and other crypto assets under specific conditions, and to provide a formal regulatory pathway for state-chartered trust companies to become qualified crypto asset custodians.According to the proposal, when a certain digital asset lacks qualified custodians willing to provide services, investment advisors may self-custody client assets under strict conditions, including written proof that custodians are unavailable, reassessment every three months, implementation of multi-signature transfers, isolation of client wallet addresses, and acceptance of independent audits. SEC Chairman Paul Atkins stated that current custody rules are primarily designed for traditional financial assets and are no longer suitable for the development of the digital asset market.The report points out that Bitcoin may become one of the main beneficiary assets of this proposal, as its institutional custody infrastructure is relatively mature. However, the relevant rules are still in the proposal stage and have not yet officially taken effect.

According to The New York Times, the previous collaboration between NBA superstar LeBron James and the prediction market platform Polymarket, worth $15 million, has drawn attention. However, there is currently no evidence that this collaboration violates NBA rules. LeBron James is merely a spokesperson and not an investor, and the collaboration will focus on non-NBA markets such as soccer, thus it is not similar to the previous salary violation incident involving Kawhi Leonard with the Los Angeles Clippers.However, as the commercial ties between players, teams, investors, and prediction market platforms deepen, sports leagues face new regulatory challenges: how to distinguish between legitimate commercial endorsements and potential conflicts of interest that could affect market fairness.