Global Financial Markets Association and peer trade bodies urge Basel Committee to pause and recalibrate cryptoasset capital standard SCO60

The Global Financial Markets Association, as part of a coalition of financial trade associations known as the Joint Trades, issued a letter to the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision calling for a pause in the implementation of the Cryptoasset Exposures Standard (SCO60) and a targeted consultation to redesign key elements ahead of its planned January 2026 effective date. The coalition also published a companion report on the adoption of distributed ledger technology (DLT) and tokenization in capital markets. The letter argues that SCO60’s capital treatment for cryptoassets is excessively conservative and overly punitive, misaligned with actual risk profiles and inconsistent with current market risk management practices, and it asks for revisions intended to support responsible innovation within the regulatory perimeter. The report, “The Impact of DLT in Capital Markets: Ready for Adoption, Time to Act,” sets out live use cases across securities issuance, collateral management and fund operations, and contends that the growing size and significance of the cryptoasset market has left key premises of the Basel standard outdated. It identifies six priority areas for ecosystem development, including clarifying legal foundations and regulatory alignment, establishing interoperability, addressing integration gaps, and enabling scalable settlement using tokenized money and stable payment instruments. The coalition’s requested next step is a BCBS pause on SCO60 implementation to allow a targeted consultation and recalibration before the January 2026 effective date.