The Basel Committee finalized its prudential standard on Cryptoasset Exposures which has been endorsed by the Committee’s oversight body, the Group of Governors and Heads of Supervision. The document sets out the final standard which the Committee has agreed to implement by 1 January 2025. The text will be incorporated into the consolidated Basel Framework shortly. After final incorporation, the standard will need to be adopted by national-level regulators before being applied to financial institutions. 

The Basel Committee stated that “[t]he standard will provide a robust and prudent global regulatory framework for internationally active banks' exposures to cryptoassets that promotes responsible innovation while preserving financial stability.”

The standard requires financial institutions to classify cryptoassets on an ongoing basis into two groups:

1. Cryptoassets that meet a full set of classification conditions covering tokenized traditional assets and cryptoassets and includes an effective stabilization mechanism;
2. Unbacked cryptoassets and cryptoassets that fail to meet any of the classification conditions and pose additional and higher risk compated with group one, accompanied by a complicated capital treatment.

A copy of the finalized standard can be viewed here.