Tokenized securities generally do not need to receive special capital treatment simply because they are issued or transacted using blockchain-based Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT). The OCC, FDIC, and Federal Reserve made this official clarification in their jointly issued FAQs (OCC Bulletin 2026-7).

The OCC said the guidance applies to OCC-supervised banks with exposures to “eligible tokenized securities” that confer identical legal rights to those of their non-tokenized counterparts.

The agencies agreed that those tokenized securities should receive the same regulatory capital treatment as their conventional equivalents, and a derivative referring to such a tokenized security should be treated the same as a conventional derivative.

No haircuts

The agencies also stated that a tokenized security’s use of DLT does not affect whether it can qualify as “financial collateral” under the capital rule, opening a pathway for tokenized securities to be used as eligible collateral without fear that they will require additional “haircuts,” or devaluation, based on risk.

If a bank has a perfected, first-priority security interest in a tokenized security, and it meets the definition of financial collateral, the bank can recognize it as eligible collateral with the same haircuts applied to the non-tokenized version, the FAQs stated.

The bulletin further highlights that use of a permissioned or permissionless blockchain is irrelevant for the capital analysis of tokenized securities.

However, the bank regulators offered a caveat: Banks holding tokenized securities must still apply sound risk management practices and comply with all applicable regulations.