Analysis: Hong Kong plans to implement the Basel capital requirements for crypto assets on January 1, 2026, which may affect stablecoins

ChainCatcher news, according to Caixin, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority recently issued a circular confirming that starting from January 1, 2026, Hong Kong will fully implement new banking capital regulations based on the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision's standards for cryptocurrency regulation. This includes not only Bitcoin and Ethereum, which are classified as cryptocurrencies by the Basel Committee, but also RWA, stablecoins, and others.

Industry insiders point out that Ethereum is a typical representative of permissionless blockchain technology, and almost all mainstream stablecoins and an increasing number of RWAs are generally issued on public chains. With the expectation that the new regulations will be implemented as scheduled, the willingness of the Hong Kong banking system to hold such stablecoins or RWAs will inevitably be affected.

However, both the Basel Committee and the Hong Kong Monetary Authority have made it clear that the Basel cryptocurrency regulatory standards generally will not impose credit risk or market risk capital requirements on banks for the cryptocurrency assets held in custody for clients, provided that the clients' cryptocurrency assets are segregated from the bank's own assets.