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Bank Regulators Clarify That Crypto Qualifies as Collateral Under Capital Reserves Rule

By  |  March 6, 2026

Federal regulators on Thursday said banks do not need to hold additional capital against losses when dealing with crypto currencies, calling their capital reserve rules “technology neutral.” In a joint statement issued by the Federal Reserve, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency the agencies clarified that the “technologies used to issue and transact in a security do not generally impact its capital treatment.”

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    Accordingly, the statement added, “an eligible tokenized security should be treated in the same manner as the non-tokenized form of the security would be treated under the capital rule. Similarly, a derivative that references an eligible tokenized security should be treated for capital purposes as a derivative that references the non-tokenized form of the security.”

    The statement came one day before Bitcoin dropped from $72,000 to below $69,000 in response to a Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) report that the U.S. lost 92,000 jobs in February, well below economists’ estimate of a gain of 55,000. The BLS also revised downward its initial estimates of job gains in January and December, fueling new fears of recession.

    The agencies said ​they were issuing the statement due to increasing interest from ​banks in representing ownership rights in tokenized securities. The Trump administration’s strong pro-crypto stance and push for crypto-friendly regulations have encouraged regulated institutions to stick their toes into crypto waters that were previously regarded as off-limits.

    Read more: Trump Takes Sides in Crypto-Bank Showdown, Pushes Congress to Act 

    The statement clarified that the technologies used to confer legal rights to a security “do not impact its ability to meet the definition of ‘financial collateral’ in the capital rule.”

    However, it cautioned, “An eligible tokenized security that satisfies the definition of ‘financial collateral’ would qualify as financial collateral for purposes of the capital rule and may be recognized by the banking organization as a credit risk mitigant if all the other relevant requirements in the capital rule are met. As financial collateral, an eligible tokenized security would be subject to the same haircuts applicable to the non-tokenized form of the security. “

    Finally, the regulators said, the capital rule applies to tokenized securities and crypto currencies regardless of whether the blockchain used to host the tokens is permissioned or permissionless.

    Bitcoin’s price had been falling from its peak of $125,000 in October, dragging down other crypto currencies with it as liquidations increased, undercutting the value of crypto holdings, including tokenized assets used as capital reserves. The majority of liquidations came from long positions rather than short-term trading positions, with roughly half coming from Bitcoin, according to analytics platform CoinGlass.

    But prices had seemed to stabilize this week and had risen slightly the day before the BLS data were released, fueling hopes that a recovery could be underway. Those hopes could now fizzle in the wake of the disappointing economic news.