US, UK Outline Recommendations to Align Stablecoin and Tokenization Rules

The U.S. and UK have laid out a joint roadmap for aligning how they regulate stablecoins, tokenized assets, and digital money, a coordinated push by two of the world's largest financial centres to let blockchain-based finance move more easily across the Atlantic.

The 10 recommendations, published Tuesday by HM Treasury and the U.S. Treasury, come from the Transatlantic Taskforce for Markets of the Future, which Chancellor Rachel Reeves and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent set up during President Trump's UK state visit in September 2025.

Five cover digital assets and the rest address traditional capital markets, though none are binding rules, leaving each country to complete its own regulatory processes under a shared direction.

Stablecoins and tokenization

On the digital-assets side, the taskforce wants regulators, the Bank of England, the FCA, the SEC, and the CFTC, to find common approaches to tokenized assets, including how tokenized securities reach settlement finality and whether stablecoins and tokenized money market funds can serve as collateral at clearing houses. It calls for a private sector-led group to spend a year testing cross-border tokenization use cases, and for a "multi-money ecosystem" in which stablecoins, tokenized bank deposits, and other digital money coexist.

Alongside the recommendations, the two governments are developing a joint statement on stablecoins, backing a dynamic cross-border market and saying payment stablecoins should be fully backed on at least a one-to-one basis by high-quality liquid assets. Those principles echo the U.S. GENIUS Act, the federal stablecoin law signed last year. A fifth recommendation asks both sides to push for a technology-neutral review of how the Basel Committee treats banks' crypto exposures.

The alignment effort lands as both countries build out their own regimes. The U.S. is implementing the GENIUS Act ahead of a 2027 effective date, while the UK's own cryptoasset regime is due to take effect in October 2027. Both are moving to catch the European Union, whose MiCA rules have been fully in force since the end of 2024 and is set to be revised in 2027. The recommendations stop short of mutual recognition, with a stablecoin licensed in one country still having to clear the other's rules to operate there.

Industry reaction

Crypto firms welcomed the direction. Katie Harries, Coinbase's head of policy for Europe, called the recommendations a “critical moment for transatlantic cooperation,” highlighting the opportunity for the two financial centres to "reimagine global capital markets through tokenisation."

For the UK, the recommendations build on an ambition to “minimize frictions” between the two countries, as outlined by Economic Secretary to the Treasury Lucy Rigby in May, when she suggested that it “may well take the form of some forms of recognition or alignment.”

At the time, Rigby said that digital assets carry the potential for a "complete transformation" of the country's markets, as the government advances stablecoin rules, an FCA-run stablecoin sandbox, and a consultation on a single framework for traditional and tokenized payments.