US Banks Got a Green Light for Crypto and Tokenized Assets?
This spring, U.S. banking regulators took two steps that could make tokenized assets easier for banks to hold, issue, and use as collateral. Two separate but related moves from federal banking regulators have begun to reshape the legal landscape for tokenized real-world assets, and the market is still underestimating what this means.
In this article, Aleksandr Hebultivskiy, COO at Sabai Protocol, explains what actually happened and why it matters for the future of tokenization.
Banks Get Clearer Capital Treatment for Tokenized Securities
The first move came on March 5, when the OCC, Federal Reserve, and FDIC jointly published a document clarifying the capital treatment of tokenized securities.
The core principle is technology neutrality. If the legal rights are the same, the technology used to issue or transfer the security should not generally change its capital treatment.
In plain terms: if a tokenized security confers the same legal rights as its traditional counterpart, banks must treat it the same way for capital purposes. No additional risk weights. No regulatory premium for using blockchain. An eligible tokenized security should be treated in the same manner as the non-tokenized form of the security would be treated under the capital rule.
The regulators also addressed collateral directly. The technologies used to confer legal rights to a security do not impact its ability to meet the definition of “financial collateral” in the capital rule. If a tokenized security meets the standard definition of financial collateral, it qualifies.
And for anyone wondering whether permissioned enterprise blockchains have an edge over public networks: the capital rule does not provide a different treatment based on the use of permissioned or permissionless blockchains.
This is a quiet but meaningful shift. Until now, banks had structural incentives to avoid tokenized assets — uncertainty around capital treatment created friction even when the underlying economics were identical. That uncertainty just got formally resolved.
Tokenized Deposits Are Still Deposits
The second move came on April 10, when the FDIC published a notice of proposed rulemaking implementing the GENIUS Act. Alongside the stablecoin framework, the proposal contains a key clarification on tokenized deposits.
The proposed rule would clarify the treatment of tokenized deposits under the FDI Act. The FDIC explicitly includes tokenized deposits within the standard definition of “deposit” — subject to the same regulatory treatment as any other bank deposit. The proposal also draws a clear line: a tokenized deposit recorded using distributed ledger technology is explicitly excluded from the definition of “payment stablecoin.” These are legally different things, and the FDIC wants that distinction unambiguous.
Stablecoins and tokenized deposits may look similar on the surface — both digital, both dollar-denominated — but their regulatory treatment has been murky. The proposed rule formalizes what many practitioners have argued: if a bank issues a tokenized deposit, it’s still a bank deposit, with all the rights and protections that implies, including potential eligibility for FDIC insurance, where applicable.
Worth noting: this is still a proposed rule, not finalized law. The final shape of these requirements could change.
What This Actually Means for RWA Markets
The main signal is simple: U.S. regulators are moving toward a technology-neutral view of tokenized assets. The ledger does not change the legal nature of the asset.
These two developments aren’t independent — they’re part of a coordinated regulatory direction of travel.
The March guidance removes the capital penalty for holding eligible tokenized securities. The April proposal establishes that tokenized deposits should be treated as traditional deposits rather than payment stablecoins. Together, they point to the same principle: regulation should follow the legal substance of the asset, not the technology used to record it.
Once that principle is formally embedded in U.S. regulation, the compounding effect is significant. Banks now have clearer permission to engage with tokenized instruments — both as holders and as issuers. That changes the demand side for RWA infrastructure in ways I don’t think the market has fully priced.
A few things I expect to follow.
First, the conversation inside banks shifts from “can we hold this?” to “how do we hold this?” — a much more productive question that opens the door to evaluating custody and compliance infrastructure for tokenized assets.
Second, permissionless blockchain issuance just got an institutional green light. The explicit confirmation that capital treatment doesn’t depend on chain type is significant for public-chain RWA issuance.
Third, cross-border issuance infrastructure becomes more valuable as U.S. banks enter this space.
The regulatory tailwind is real. But to be precise: these are proposed rules and clarifications, not finalized legislation. The GENIUS Act framework is still being implemented.
What I’m confident about is the direction. U.S. regulators are no longer treating blockchain as an exotic risk to be managed around — they’re treating it as a recording mechanism that doesn’t change the underlying legal reality of an asset.
For the RWA market, that is the foundation on which custody, compliance, issuance, and distribution infrastructure can scale.
As regulation becomes clearer, more businesses will explore tokenization as a serious capital and distribution tool. If you want to understand whether your business is ready for tokenization, book a free diagnostic call with Sabai Protocol to assess your current structure, identify key gaps, and define the next steps.
