US and UK Agree on 10 Recommendations for Stablecoins and Tokenization

The U.S. and UK Treasuries published ten joint recommendations on Tuesday to align regulation of stablecoins, tokenized assets, and capital markets. Five points address digital assets directly, while the rest cover traditional financial markets, including securities clearing and cross-listing.

The document comes from the Transatlantic Taskforce for Markets of the Future, set up by Chancellor Rachel Reeves and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent during President Trump's state visit to the UK in September 2025. None of the recommendations are binding. Each country will complete its own regulatory process independently, within the shared direction. Industry trackers estimate the global stablecoin market topped $1.79 trillion for the first time in June, which makes aligning the rules more pressing for both financial centers.

What the recommendations cover

Five digital points concern tokenized assets and money. The taskforce asks regulators, the Bank of England, the FCA, the SEC, and the CFTC, to find common approaches to how tokenized securities reach settlement finality, and whether stablecoins and tokenized money market funds can serve as collateral at clearing houses. Settlement finality matters here. Without it, banks and brokers have to hold extra capital in case a trade doesn't close the way it should. A simple example is a tokenized money market fund that a clearing house accepts instead of cash collateral. The asset can be verified on-chain instantly, and the firm saves on maintaining cash accounts.

A separate point calls for a private-sector group. Over the course of a year it will test cross-border tokenization scenarios, from moving tokenized bonds to settlement between custodians. The document also describes a so-called "multi-money ecosystem," where stablecoins, tokenized bank deposits, and other forms of digital money coexist without conflicting rules. The five recommendations for traditional capital markets mostly cover cross-listing of securities and simplified reporting for companies operating on both sides of the Atlantic.

For banks and exchanges, that mostly means less duplicated paperwork. Instead of filing separate document sets in London and Washington, firms will be able to point to a shared disclosure standard. The taskforce notes separately that none of the recommendations remove existing licensing requirements, they just clear away extra barriers where the two countries' rules already overlap.

A joint statement on stablecoins

Alongside the recommendations, the two governments are drafting a joint statement on stablecoins. It backs a dynamic cross-border market and requires payment stablecoins to be backed at least one-to-one by high-quality liquid assets. These principles echo the U.S. GENIUS Act, the federal stablecoin law signed last year and due to take full effect by 2027. High-quality liquid assets typically include cash, short-term government bonds, and central bank reserves. These are the categories the GENIUS Act defines as acceptable backing for stablecoins.

In practice, the biggest stablecoins on the market already meet that bar, among them Tether (USDT) and USD Coin (USDC) from Circle, both of which undergo regular independent reserve audits. A fifth recommendation urges both sides to push for a technology-neutral review of how the Basel Committee treats banks' crypto exposures, so banks in both countries don't end up facing uneven capital requirements.

The full-backing standard for stablecoins also echoes the EU's approach. Under MiCA, e-money token issuers must likewise hold reserves in liquid assets and report to regulators regularly. The difference is that Brussels already requires this of companies, while Washington and London are only agreeing on shared principles for the future.

Tokenization in practice and networks

Tokenized securities are mostly issued on public networks like Ethereum, where smart contracts automate settlement. The taskforce wants such transactions to be recognized as final in both jurisdictions without extra checks from the other country.

The private sector gets a year for pilot projects. Participants, likely including large banks and custodians, need to show that tokenized bonds, funds, or deposits move between the U.S. and the UK faster than traditional T+1 or T+2 settlement cycles. If the pilot works, regulators would have grounds to write the simplified process into permanent rules rather than leave it as a test.

For investors, the practical effect won't show up right away. Tokenized bonds or funds issued during the pilot will likely stay a niche product for institutional clients rather than retail buyers at first. But if test transactions confirm faster settlement, banks would have an argument for scaling the product to a wider audience under permanent rules.

Different speeds across the U.S., the UK, and the EU

Although the declaration is agreed, implementation timelines in both countries differ. The U.S. is already rolling out the GENIUS Act ahead of its full effective date in 2027, while the UK's own crypto regime won't take effect until October 2027.

Both countries are effectively catching up to the European Union, where MiCA rules have been fully in force since late 2024 and are due for a review in 2027. A gap of nearly three years gives European exchanges and custodians a head start in winning clients while American and British firms wait for their own final rules. The recommendations stop short of mutual recognition, though. A stablecoin licensed in one country will still have to clear the other's separate rules.

Another difference concerns oversight. In the U.S., authority is split between federal and state regulators, in the UK the FCA handles it centrally, while in the EU national authorities supervised by the EBA are responsible.

Industry reaction

Crypto firms welcomed the move. Katie Harries, Coinbase's head of policy for Europe, called the recommendations a critical moment for transatlantic cooperation and pointed to the chance to reimagine global capital markets through tokenization.

"This is a critical moment for transatlantic cooperation."

- Katie Harries, Head of Policy for Europe at Coinbase, from a comment on the recommendations, July 15, 2026

In the UK, the move continues a direction Economic Secretary to the Treasury Lucy Rigby outlined back in May. She spoke of sweeping change across the country's financial markets through an FCA stablecoin sandbox and a consultation on a single framework for traditional and tokenized payments. The initiative also builds on a July event where the UK brought together BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, and JPMorgan for a $44 billion tokenization push. That adds an official intergovernmental framework on top of private-sector efforts.

Analysts at large banks are also cautiously positive. They point out that the joint statement lowers the risk that a firm licensed in one jurisdiction suddenly runs into incompatible requirements in the other, even without formal mutual recognition yet.

What comes next

The next year will test whether voluntary alignment works without binding commitments.

• No mutual recognition yet: a license from one country doesn't clear the bar in the other.
• The private pilot will run for at least a year, with no public interim reports announced so far.
• Mismatched deadlines: the gap between 2027 in the U.S. and UK and MiCA, already two years in force, could complicate the transition.
• Banks and regulators still need to agree on which tokenized assets will count as collateral at clearing houses in both countries.

If the pilots show that tokenized assets genuinely cross borders faster, the next step could be a debate over partial mutual recognition of licenses. For now, neither side is committing to that, and the final shape of the rules in both countries won't be clear until closer to 2027. The market will mainly watch who joins the private pilot first. The more large banks and custodians take part, the more convincing the data will be for a final regulatory decision.