Stockbrokers regulated by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) can treat their stablecoin holdings as regulatory capital, according to an adjustment this week to a frequently asked questions document maintained by the agency.
It’s a seismic shift, offered in the form of a small addition to the SEC’s “Financial Responsibilities of Stockbrokers” FAQ. It’s on brand 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 number 5 was added about what kind 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 the previous understanding that such assets were not considered measurable against a broker’s capital (100% haircut), firms will be able to count 98% of those holdings.
“While this guidance does not create new rules, it helps reduce uncertainty for companies seeking to operate under current securities laws,” said Cody Carbone, CEO of Digital Chamber.
This puts stablecoins on equal footing with other financial products.
“That means stablecoins are now treated like money market funds on a company’s balance sheet,” wrote Tonya Evans, a former professor who now runs a crypto education business and sits on the board of directors of Digital Currency Group, in a post on the social media site
Previously, the SEC’s stricter limits meant that such firms (firms registered with the SEC to handle clients’ securities transactions and also trade securities on their own behalf) could not easily custody tokenized securities or act as intermediaries for trading. Now, companies that follow this agency direction will be able to more easily provide liquidity, relief settlement, and token advanced financing.
“Everywhere from Robinhood to Goldman Sachs uses these calculations,” Larry Florio, deputy general counsel at Ethena Labs, wrote in an explanation posted on LinkedIn. Stablecoins are now working capital, he said.
SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce leads the agency’s task force and issued a statement on the change, maintaining that the use of stablecoins “will make it feasible for broker-dealers to engage in a broader range of trading activities related to tokenized securities and other crypto assets.” And he said he wants to consider how existing SEC rules “could be modified to account for payment stablecoins.”
That’s the downside to informal personnel policies: They’re as easy to reverse as they are to issue, and they don’t have the weight (or legal protections) of a rule.
The SEC has been working on some crypto rules in recent months, but they have not yet been drawn up and the process typically takes several months, sometimes years. Even a formal rule can still be overturned by new leadership at the agency, which is why cryptocurrency advocates are pushing for Congress to issue more legislation that turns the government’s digital asset approach into law, like last year’s Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act.
UPDATE (February 20, 2026, 22:23 UTC): Add a comment from the CEO of the Digital Camera.
