Bank of England’s Big Stablecoin Move: 2026 Rules and a Few Surprises!

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The United Kingdom’s central bank is officially diving into the world of stablecoins (yes, they’re real, and no, they’re not as exciting as your last TikTok dance). The Bank of England (BoE) has just released a consultation paper outlining a shiny new framework for regulating these super stable digital tokens that are basically just waiting to mess with financial stability. 🙄

On Monday, the BoE rolled out its proposal to regulate sterling-denominated “systemic stablecoins”-basically, tokens so popular in payments they could crash the financial party. Think of them as that one cousin who shows up uninvited but has to be dealt with because everyone else invited them. 🙃

According to the plan, stablecoin issuers will have to stash away at least 40% of their liabilities in unremunerated deposits at the BoE (because nothing says “financial security” like unproductive deposits). Of course, there’s a silver lining: they’re allowed to hold up to 60% in short-term UK government debt-yay, government bonds! 🎉

The BoE is giving us all a chance to weigh in on this proposal until February 10, 2026-plenty of time for you to think of ways to ruin a perfectly good dinner party with stablecoin discussions. After that, they’ll finalize the rules by the second half of 2026. Yep, no rush. 🙄

Holding Limits, Backing and Supervision: Oh My!

In this thrilling saga, the BoE wants to cap how much stablecoin an individual can hold at 20,000 British pounds (or about $26,300). So, if you’re hoarding your stablecoins like they’re rare Pokémon cards, you might be in for a rude awakening. 🛑

For businesses, the BoE says, “Hey, we get it, you might need more room to breathe,” so they can hold up to 10 million pounds in stablecoins-lucky them! Exemptions are available if you need to stack higher for “normal” operations. (Is your business really that normal, though?) 🧐

As for backing, the BoE is planning to let systemically important issuers hold up to 95% of their backing in UK government debt securities as they grow-because nothing says we’re serious like a pile of British bonds. But when the stablecoin gets big enough to cause real chaos, that percentage drops to 60%. (You know, just to keep things balanced.) ⚖️

The BoE also reminded everyone that His Majesty’s Treasury gets to decide which stablecoin systems are “systemically important”-basically, if you get this label, you’re under their watchful eye, which sounds super fun. 😏

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2025-11-10 13:30