The U.S. Treasury on April 1 issued a proposed rule that would let state regulators oversee stablecoin issuers with up to $10 billion in outstanding tokens, provided their state's rules closely match the federal baseline. The notice, published in the Federal Register on April 3 as 91 FR 16844, opens a 60-day comment window that closes June 2.
The $10 billion threshold
The cap applies to corporate groups as well as standalone issuers, meaning a parent company and its subsidiaries can't split issuance to dodge the limit. Treasury's proposal doesn't name which firms would qualify or fail the test, and it doesn't pre-clear any state's framework. That's left for later.
Issuers under the cap can choose state regulation only if their state's rules are deemed 'substantially similar' to the federal baseline. Without that finding, the state pathway is unavailable even for smaller players. The similarity determination is a gate, not a formality.
What 'substantially similar' means
Treasury is proposing a principles-based evaluation rather than a uniform state rulebook. That means each state's regime will be judged on how closely it aligns with federal standards, but the criteria aren't spelled out as a checklist. The agency is asking for public input on how to make that call consistently.
The proposal also doesn't say which states might already meet the bar. That's a deliberate gap, according to the text, which invites commenters to weigh in on how the comparison should work in practice.
The comment period and what's next
Comments are due by June 2, 2026, exactly 60 days after the Federal Register publication. As of July 2026, the rule remains in proposed form, with regulators still soliciting feedback rather than moving to finalize. The Treasury hasn't set a timeline for a final rule, and the comment period is the next concrete step.
After the deadline, the agency will review submissions and decide whether to adjust the threshold, the similarity test, or the overall structure before issuing a final version.
