CFTC staff letter opens derivatives margin to stablecoins issued by national trust banks

On Feb. 6, a little-noticed staff letter from the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission added three words to an already technical document: “or national trust bank.”

The change, buried in CFTC Staff Letter No. 26-05, does not alter the basic framework the agency laid out late last year for how futures brokers can handle crypto assets as collateral. But by explicitly blessing stablecoins issued by a new breed of federally chartered “crypto banks,” it moves those tokens closer to the center of the U.S. derivatives system.

The letter, issued by the CFTC’s Market Participants Division, reissues and replaces a December 2025 no-action letter, Staff Letter 25-40. Together, the two letters describe when futures commission merchants, or FCMs, may accept certain “non-securities digital assets,” including so-called payment stablecoins, as customer margin for futures and swaps and as “residual interest” in segregated accounts.

What changed in Staff Letter 26-05

The substantive change in 26-05 is narrow. Before the update, payment stablecoins eligible under the relief had to be issued by a state-regulated money transmitter or trust company. Now, they can also be issued by a national trust bank overseen by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, or OCC.

“During President Trump’s initial term, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency made history by chartering the first national trust banks with authority to custody and issue payment stablecoins,” CFTC Chairman Michael S. Selig said in a statement announcing the move. “These national trust banks continue to play an important role in the payment stablecoin ecosystem… I’m pleased that the CFTC staff is amending its previously issued no-action letter to expand the list of eligible tokenized collateral to include payment stablecoins issued by these institutions.”

For derivatives markets, the staff position offers something many firms have sought for years: a clearer path to treat certain stablecoins and other digital tokens as mainstream margin collateral—under defined risk controls—rather than as exotic assets held at the periphery.

The no-action framework for crypto collateral

Under the Commodity Exchange Act, FCMs act as intermediaries between customers and futures and swaps clearinghouses, holding client funds that must be carefully segregated from their own. CFTC regulations in Parts 1, 22 and 30 spell out detailed rules for how those funds are handled, what forms of collateral are acceptable and how often positions must be valued and re-margined.

Staff Letter 25-40, issued on Dec. 8, 2025 in response to a request from Coinbase Financial Markets Inc., established a conditional no-action position. It said staff would not recommend enforcement against an FCM that accepts certain non-securities digital assets as margin collateral, and counts them in its daily segregation and capital calculations, if the firm meets a series of conditions. It also allowed, under restrictions, the use of an FCM’s own payment stablecoins as residual interest—the firm’s own funds that sit alongside customer property in segregated accounts.

Letter 26-05 keeps those conditions intact while expanding who can issue the stablecoins in question.

Defining “payment stablecoin,” now and under the GENIUS Act

Before a separate federal law on stablecoins takes effect, the staff letters define a payment stablecoin as a U.S. dollar-denominated token that:

• is fully backed by cash, U.S. Treasury securities or overnight Treasury repurchase agreements;
• is issued by a state-regulated money transmitter, a state-regulated trust company or a national trust bank; and
• publishes at least monthly public attestations showing that the fair value of reserves equals the amount of tokens in circulation.

Once that law—the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation in U.S. Stablecoins Act (GENIUS Act)—becomes effective, the definition will shift. At that point, payment stablecoins will have to comply with the statute’s requirements, and issuers will need to qualify as “permitted payment stablecoin issuers” or recognized foreign issuers subject to joint federal and state oversight.

The GENIUS Act, signed by President Donald Trump in July 2025, is the first U.S. statute devoted specifically to payment stablecoins. It requires those tokens to be backed 1-to-1 by cash or short-term Treasury securities, mandates regular public disclosures and audits of reserve pools, and seeks to keep those reserves largely separate from an issuer’s bankruptcy estate. The law’s effective date is the earlier of Jan. 18, 2027, or 120 days after banking regulators issue final implementing rules.

Haircuts and valuation: how FCMs must treat digital assets

Within that emerging legal framework, the CFTC letters turn to the practical question of how much value FCMs can ascribe to digital assets posted as collateral.

If a registered derivatives clearing organization, known as a DCO, or a foreign clearinghouse in a jurisdiction that follows international standards accepts a particular digital asset as collateral, the FCM must value the asset and apply haircuts using that clearinghouse’s methodology. If more than one clearinghouse accepts the asset, the firm must use the most conservative (largest) haircut.

For foreign futures and options accounts governed by CFTC Regulation 30.7, digital assets can be used as collateral if they are accepted by such a clearinghouse, if they are payment stablecoins, or if they are the underlying commodity of a futures contract listed on a CFTC-regulated exchange—again with prescribed haircuts.

Where a digital asset is not accepted by any qualifying clearinghouse, the rules are stricter:

• Payment stablecoins must be valued at fair market value under the FCM’s risk management policies, which must include appropriate discounts for potential price moves and liquidity.
• Other non-securities digital assets may only be counted at a value reduced by at least 20%, mirroring how the Securities and Exchange Commission tells broker-dealers to treat proprietary bitcoin and ether positions for capital purposes.

In addition, FCMs seeking to use digital assets other than bitcoin, ether and payment stablecoins as margin must first submit revised risk management policies to the CFTC staff.

Residual interest: limited use of an FCM’s own stablecoin

The no-action relief also covers a controversial but limited practice: allowing an FCM to deposit its own payment stablecoins as residual interest in segregated customer accounts. Existing rules generally restrict firms from using their own obligations in that way. Under the staff letters, an FCM may do so only if it takes a corresponding capital charge under Regulation 1.17 and incorporates the risk into its formal risk program under Regulation 1.11.

A probation period and new reporting obligations

The letters include a probationary period. Any FCM that wants to rely on the relief must file notice with the CFTC’s Market Participants Division through the agency’s electronic filing system.

For the first three months after it begins relying on the letter:

• the firm may only accept payment stablecoins, bitcoin and ether as digital asset collateral;
• it may only use proprietary payment stablecoins as residual interest;
• it must file weekly reports detailing its digital asset holdings by type and customer account class; and
• it must promptly notify the agency of any significant operational or cybersecurity incidents that affect its use of digital asset collateral.

Why “national trust bank” matters

The change to include national trust banks as permitted issuers of payment stablecoins completes a loop that began at the OCC. In recent years, the banking regulator has chartered or conditionally approved several national trust banks focused on digital assets, including Anchorage Digital Bank, National Association, and entities tied to Circle, Ripple, Paxos, BitGo and Fidelity Digital Assets. Those charters allow the banks to custody crypto assets and, in some cases, to manage or issue stablecoins under federal supervision.

By drawing those institutions explicitly into the definition of acceptable payment stablecoin issuers, the CFTC staff letter effectively aligns derivatives collateral policy with the OCC’s chartering decisions and the GENIUS Act’s framework.

Supporters of the shift say it could make margin and settlement more efficient by enabling 24/7 transfers of high-quality tokenized dollars, reducing some of the frictions in cross-border trading and weekend risk management. Coinbase, in its original request, argued that digital assets used as collateral can “provide greater efficiency and resiliency by reducing settlement risk and allowing real-time movement of value.”

Consumer advocates and some academics have warned that formally integrating stablecoins into core financial market infrastructure could also create new channels for stress. In comment letters opposing national trust charters for certain stablecoin issuers, community groups have likened the instruments to money market funds before the 2008 financial crisis, arguing that they are money-like but lack deposit insurance and might require government support in a crisis despite disclaimers.

For now, Staff Letter 26-05 does not change the underlying law. It represents a statement by the CFTC’s staff that, so long as FCMs follow the specified conditions and continue to meet all other regulatory requirements, the staff will not recommend enforcement actions based solely on their acceptance of defined digital assets as collateral.

Its impact may be broader than its technical language suggests. As the GENIUS Act comes into force and more national trust banks bring regulated stablecoins to market, the three new words in the CFTC’s letter help determine which versions of digital dollars are most likely to sit at the center of America’s risk-management machinery.