Broker-dealers regulated by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) may treat their stablecoin holdings as regulatory capital, according to a change made this week to a frequently asked questions document maintained by the agency.
This is a sweeping change proposed as a minor addition to the SEC’s “Financial Responsibilities of Brokers and Dealers” FAQ. It’s a mark for a regulator that has made a steady series of changes to its crypto approach through informal guidance, industry correspondence and staff statements since its crypto task force began work during President Donald Trump’s administration.
In this case, a new question #5 was added about what type of “haircut” a company should take on its stablecoin holdings – dollar-pegged tokens such as Circle’s USDC and Tether’s USDT. The answer was 2%, meaning that instead of previously understanding that these assets were not considered measurable against a broker’s capital (100% cut), firms will be able to account for 98% of these holdings.
“While this guidance does not create new rules, it helps reduce uncertainty for companies seeking to operate in compliance with current securities laws,” said Cody Carbone, CEO of the Digital Chamber.
This puts stablecoins on the same footing as other financial products.
“This means that stablecoins are now treated like money market funds on a company’s balance sheet,” Tonya Evans, a former professor who now runs a crypto education company and serves on the board of Digital Currency Group, wrote in a post on the social media site
Previously, the SEC’s stricter limits meant that these firms – companies registered with the SEC to handle clients’ securities transactions and also trade securities for their own account – were not easily able to hold tokenized securities or act as an intermediary for trades. Now, companies that follow this agency direction will be able to more easily provide liquidity, assist with settlement, and advance token financing.
“Everywhere from Robinhood to Goldman Sachs uses these calculations,” wrote Larry Florio, deputy general counsel at Ethena Labs, in an explanation posted on LinkedIn. Stablecoins now provide working capital, he said.
SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce is leading the agency’s task force and issued a statement on the change, saying the use of stablecoins “will enable broker-dealers to engage in a broader range of trading activities related to tokenized securities and other crypto assets.” And she said she wants to think about how existing SEC rules “could be modified to account for payment stablecoins.”
That’s the downside of informal personnel policies: They’re as easy to overturn as they are to issue, and they don’t have the weight (and legal protections) of a rule.
The SEC has been working on some crypto rules in recent months, but they have not yet been developed and the process typically takes several months or even years. Even a formal rule can still be overturned by new agency leadership, which is why crypto advocates are pushing for Congress to pass more laws that would enshrine the government’s approach to digital assets, like last year’s Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for American Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act.
UPDATE (February 20, 2026, 10:23 p.m. UTC): Adds a comment from the CEO of Digital Chamber.
