Overview
- Under staff FAQs tied to Staff Letter 26-05, FCMs and DCOs may accept Bitcoin, Ether and payment stablecoins as margin collateral subject to haircuts and minimum capital charges of 20% for BTC/ETH and 2% for payment stablecoins.
- DCOs must set appropriate haircuts for any crypto collateral and evaluate those haircuts at least monthly under stressed market conditions.
- FCMs must file notice before relying on the guidance, operate for three months under limits that restrict collateral to BTC, ETH and payment stablecoins, submit weekly holdings reports, and promptly disclose significant operational or cybersecurity incidents.
- After the initial three-month period, collateral-type limits and incident reporting requirements lapse while weekly reporting continues through the end of the third calendar month following the notice filing; FCMs may deposit only proprietary payment stablecoins as residual interest in segregated customer accounts, not BTC or ETH.
- Crypto assets remain ineligible as margin for uncleared swaps, though registered swap dealers may exchange tokenized forms of otherwise eligible collateral as margin consistent with prior staff guidance; the FAQs constitute staff-level guidance rather than formal rulemaking.