SEC cuts payment stablecoin haircuts to 2%, boosting on‑chain settlement economics for broker‑dealers.
Summary
- New SEC FAQ says staff “would not object” if broker‑dealers apply a 2% capital haircut to qualifying payment stablecoins, versus the prior de facto 100% deduction.
- The shift follows the GENIUS Act, aligning compliant stablecoins with conservative money market funds and enabling $100 of tokens to count as $98 toward net capital.
- BTC trades near $68.1k on ~$33B volume, ETH around $1.96k on ~$18B, while USDT holds $1 with roughly $57B–$68B in 24h turnover as the largest dollar‑linked stablecoin.
The Securities and Exchange Commission has quietly delivered one of its most market-friendly crypto moves to date, slashing the capital “haircut” on qualifying payment stablecoins for broker-dealers from 100% to just 2%. In practice, that means $100 of approved stablecoins can now count as $98 toward a firm’s net capital, putting them on par with conservative money market funds.
In a new FAQ from the Division of Trading and Markets, the agency said staff “would not object if a broker-dealer were to apply a 2% haircut on proprietary positions in a payment stablecoin when calculating its net capital.” SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce, who has been pushing for more workable rules around tokenization and settlement, framed the shift as a long-overdue correction to a punitive regime that had effectively rendered stablecoin balances “worthless for net capital purposes.” Until now, many firms assumed a 100% deduction, a stance that made on-chain settlement uneconomic for regulated dealers and limited the use of stablecoins in securities workflows.
Market lawyers and trading desks see the move as a direct follow-through on last year’s GENIUS Act, which established reserve and oversight standards for payment stablecoin issuers and signaled that compliant tokens would be treated more like cash equivalents than exotic derivatives. “This is a big deal,” wrote Prof. Tonya Evans on X, noting that “stablecoins are now treated like money market funds on a firm’s balance sheet.” Others argue the guidance, combined with the SEC’s updated crypto FAQ clarifying that exchanges and ATSs can pair crypto asset securities with non-securities such as bitcoin, sets the stage for deeper integration between traditional market structure and on-chain liquidity.
Major cryptocurrencies trade sideways
The timing lands squarely in a maturing macro backdrop for digital assets. Bitcoin (BTC) trades near $68,100, with a 24‑hour range of roughly $65,600–$68,300 on about $33B in turnover. Ethereum (ETH) changes hands around $1,960, after a 24‑hour low near $1,914 and high close to $1,980, with roughly $18B in volume. Tether (USDT) holds its peg near $1.00, posting about $57B–$68B in 24‑hour trading volume as the largest dollar-linked stablecoin by market depth. This parabolic move comes as digital assets continue to trade as the purest expression of macro risk appetite.
Policy watchers now expect the haircut decision to feed into upcoming debates over broader crypto market-structure legislation, including the CLARITY Act and parallel efforts flagged as “two big crypto regulations” that could land as early as this summer. For broker-dealers, the signal is blunt: the SEC is finally willing to let stablecoins sit inside the regulated plumbing, rather than forcing them to orbit it from the outside.
