While FinTechs and even banks rush forward to capture ground across stablecoin infrastructure and issuance, chief financial officers (CFOs) and treasury teams are faced with a more challenging question: how to treat payment stablecoins on their financial statements.
For enterprise back offices, one of the key crypto battlegrounds is whether certain stablecoins qualify as “cash equivalents” under U.S. GAAP, and what the implications are for liquidity, risk disclosure and investor interpretation.
Until recently, they’ve had little help in this area. But with the news Thursday (Oct. 30) that the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) decided in a 6-1 vote to advance to its technical agenda a project that will address accounting for stablecoins and digital assets, teeing up high-profile crypto issues for new rules, including accounting standards for certain digital asset transfers (e.g., crypto lending) and stablecoin payments, it’s clear that rules are clarifying and stablecoin doors might be opening.
Read more: Stablecoin Retail Use Still a Rounding Error as Attention Swings to B2B
Why It Takes a GENIUS (Act) to Understand Stablecoin Accounting
At first glance, the question of whether a stablecoin qualifies as cash or cash equivalent may appear to be a mere taxonomy issue. But for financial reporting the implications are far more material. When an entity includes a token as a cash equivalent, it enhances the liquidity reflected on the balance sheet, boosts perceived immediacy of access, and affects key metrics such as current ratio, cash-flow presentation and working-capital management.
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The backdrop of the GENIUS Act, signed in July 2025, represents the most significant U.S. federal legislation to date addressing stablecoins and has pushed the accounting treatment of digital assets into the foreground of corporate back offices.
Stable Sea CEO Tanner Taddeo told PYMNTS in an interview that stablecoins in enterprise finance promise near-instant settlement, lower costs and global reach.
“Moving $10 [million] to $30 million across borders into exotic corridors typically takes three to five business days. With stablecoins, it can settle in four to eight hours,” Taddeo said.
“Every business has a stablecoin use case,” he added. “Whether it’s internal payroll, contractor payments or capital markets access. Form a tactical SWAT team to identify the right pilot.
But the GENIUS Act by no means resolves the accounting questions around stablecoins and their existence on corporate balance sheets. Per its report, the FASB’s decision to work toward crypto clarity reflected mounting pressure from the regulatory and policy side — including a recommendation from the President’s Working Group on Digital Assets — to bring structure and transparency to the accounting of digital holding.
Read more: Treasury Guidance Charts Compliance Course for CFOs in Crypto
Why CFOs and Treasury Teams Should Sit Up
For CFOs and treasury teams, a few interlocking developments merit attention. First, the asset base of many corporations is shifting. Whether via corporate treasuries holding bitcoin as a reserve asset, embedding stablecoins into payment rails, or participating in crypto-lending markets, digital assets are migrating from the fringes into the mainstream of corporate finance. The lack of clear, consistent accounting guidance has meant that companies either shoe-horn digital assets into existing frameworks or face inconsistent disclosures.
And second, the risk and operational profile of such holdings is evolving. When a token is used as collateral or transferred under a lending agreement, the accounting question becomes not just how it is held, but whether it creates a financial asset, a liability — or neither. The mechanics of blockchain settlement, asset fungibility, counter-party exposure and liquidity risk are exotic in accounting terms, yet increasingly material in practice.
Ultimately, the FASB’s decision to advance this project signals that the age when digital assets could quietly hide in general-purpose treasury or investment ledgers is coming to an end. For CFOs and treasury teams, the message is that accounting is no longer simply about compliance — it’s about strategic readiness. The assets and instruments of crypto-native finance are migrating into mainstream enterprise finance, and the accounting frameworks are not going to sit still.
In many ways, the accounting issue is only the tip of the iceberg; the underlying story is about how blockchain-based assets are entering the corporate balance sheet, treasury operations and strategic planning.
