The US Securities and Change Fee (SEC) workers final week clarified that broker-dealers can apply a 2% “haircut” to their stablecoin holdings with out objection from the SEC.
Beforehand, broker-dealers have been unsure whether or not to use a 100% haircut to their dollar-pegged stablecoins, that means that they didn’t rely the tokens towards their web capital beneath current rules.
The clarification got here within the type of a posting by the workers of the SEC’s Division of Buying and selling and Markets as a “Regularly Requested Questions Regarding Crypto Asset Actions and Distributed Ledger Know-how.”
In response, Commissioner Hester Peirce mentioned: For my part, a 100% haircut could be unnecessarily punitive given the underlying reserve belongings that again cost stablecoins.”
The SEC requires broker-dealers to keep up minimal ranges of web capital to satisfy monetary obligations and soak up potential losses from market downturns and volatility, in keeping with the workers’s clarification.
For instance, if a broker-dealer holds $100 million in stablecoins, a 2% haircut permits them to rely $98 million towards their web capital necessities. Celebrating the clarification as constructive for the monetary system, Peirce mentioned:
“Stablecoins are important to transacting on blockchain rails. Utilizing stablecoins will make it possible for broker-dealers to have interaction in a broader vary of enterprise actions regarding tokenized securities and different crypto belongings.”
The clarification means broker-dealers can maintain stablecoins with out worrying about extra web capital necessities, and may deal with the tokens equally to cash market funds, autos that maintain low-risk money equivalents like US Treasurys and certificates of deposit.
In a social media publish over the weekend, Marc Baumann, CEO of crypto intelligence firm 51, referred to as the SEC workers communication “a giant deal,” including that “Wall Road can now truly maintain and use stablecoins with out destroying their capital ratios.”
Associated: SEC leaders search to make clear how tokenized securities work together with current regulation
Stablecoins acquire traction in the US, however not all US officers are satisfied
The stablecoin market cap not too long ago hit a snag, falling by about $6 billion from the December 2025 peak of over $300 billion.
Nevertheless, the market nonetheless has a $295 billion market cap, which has steadily grown since 2023, in keeping with knowledge from RWA.XYZ.
United States President Donald Trump signed the GENIUS stablecoin invoice into legislation in July 2025, which was thought-about a landmark second for the crypto business.
The stablecoin market capitalization was simply north of $252 billion on the time of signing and surged following the passage of the invoice, in keeping with knowledge from RWA.XYZ.
Regardless of the meteoric surge in stablecoins and their implications for US greenback dominance in world monetary markets, Neel Kashkari, president of the Federal Reserve Financial institution of Minneapolis, maintains that stablecoins and crypto haven’t any actual use circumstances.
“I might ship any one among you $5 with Venmo, or PayPal, or Zelle, so what’s it that this magical stablecoin can do? ” he mentioned on Thursday.
Journal: How crypto legal guidelines modified in 2025 — and the way they’ll change in 2026