This week, global banking regulators edged closer to public blockchains. The Basel Committee now admits its crypto capital rules need rethinking (more below). Meanwhile, the OCC issued a letter confirming that banks can hold and use native tokens—for gas fees and testing purposes.

The OCC went even further, giving banks the green light to run public blockchain nodes and validate transactions, officially classifying it as an extension of existing payment and settlement activities.

Add to that the Fed’s announcement, made the same day, to ease crypto oversight, and you can call CW47 the week Operation Choke Point 2.0 got dialed back.

Today, we’ll also talk about:

• Exclusive: ECB weighs building its own ledger for CBDC

• European banks present sandbox for multi-bank tokenized deposit solution

Exclusive: ECB Weighs Building Its Own Ledger For CBDC as Market Solutions Fall Short

Europe’s search for sovereign infrastructure: For several months, the ECB and the Eurosystem have been assessing which technological foundations could support a potential wholesale CBDC while preserving monetary sovereignty. According to internal notes reviewed by Blockstories, progress on market-led options has been limited, leading the ECB to increasingly examine the possibility of providing its own infrastructure rather than relying exclusively on private-sector solutions.

• The strategic question: At Sibos in late September, ECB Executive Board member Piero Cipollone captured the dilemma directly: “Should we have one big ledger with central bank money, commercial bank money, tokenized deposits, stablecoins, and assets, or an ecosystem of interoperable ledgers? […] Those are very fundamental questions, because we will stay in this new world for a long time. So we’d better not mess it up from the beginning.”

• Why it matters: The ECB fears that without a credible European-built foundation, foreign private-sector networks could become the default rails for European participants, raising long-term concerns over financial and monetary sovereignty.

The market-led vision: To avoid this, the ECB initially encouraged European private actors to propose permissioned DLTs, aiming for a competitive landscape rather than dependence on a single vendor. These ledgers could host a wholesale CBDC if they met stringent oversight, security and governance requirements ensuring the Eurosystem retains control of the underlying infrastructure.

• “From a governance standpoint, all options are on the table, including taking equity stakes in the entities operating these ledgers, as part of a broader ambition to explore a deeper public-private partnership,” says a source familiar with the matter.

Early private-sector contenders: One example of this market-driven approach is SWIAT, the German start-up developing “The Regulated Layer 1” together with ABN AMRO, DekaBank, DZ BANK, Natixis CIB and other banks.

The ECB’s fallback option: Yet the number of credible, production-ready initiatives remains limited, and the expected plurality of options has not emerged. As a result, the ECB is now increasingly considering taking back the lead by proposing its own infrastructure, although “for now, the ECB doesn’t even want to raise the idea, fearing it would deter the market from developing its own solutions,” a source says.

The unified-ledger scenario: In this approach, the ECB and the Eurosystem would provide a unified infrastructure for market participants. The design remains unclear. As one source notes, “building a Layer 1 from scratch is extremely difficult today,” leaving open how such a platform could realistically be engineered.

Leveraging public networks: Against this backdrop, internal discussions have intensified around the possibility of building an ECB-led solution by leveraging existing public networks rather than creating a fully proprietary stack.

• “The benefit would be achieving seamless interoperability with the ecosystem that is currently the most active in terms of liquidity and technological progress. Bringing DeFi startups into the process could also help stimulate innovation needed to develop a sovereign infrastructure,” said one person close to the matter.

Basel Committee Reopens Crypto Capital Rules

Basel signals a rethink: Yesterday, Erik Thedéen, Chair of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS), told the Financial Times that the Committee will revisit its crypto-asset capital rules. He suggested that the rapid rise of stablecoins “calls for a different approach,” acknowledging that the 2022 framework was built in a Bitcoin-centric era.

Why it matters: As the leading global setter of prudential standards for banks, the Basel Committee’s rules carry enormous weight. Its current crypto framework assigns a 1,250% risk weight to most crypto-assets — including stablecoins on permissionless blockchains — effectively requiring banks to hold a dollar of capital for every dollar of exposure, making proprietary crypto services economically impractical for them.

• Limited exceptions: While the framework includes a “Group 1b” category for stablecoins that meet strict criteria, most tokens, especially those issued or transacting on public blockchains, fall into the more punitive Group 2 bucket.

Implementation gap: Although the rules are scheduled to take effect on 1 January 2026, no major jurisdiction is prepared to implement the framework exactly as drafted. The U.K. has publicly signaled they will not adopt the punitive treatment for stablecoins on permissionless blockchains, while the EU and Hong Kong are moving ahead only with partial elements of the framework.

U.S. pushback: The most explicit national pushback came from Washington. In August, the White House noted in its Crypto Report that the Basel Committee “does not possess any formal supranational authority, and its decisions do not have legal force.” Instead, the report recommends modernizing the Committee’s crypto standards.

• “In the U.S., the regulatory landscape has tilted the playing field toward fintechs and non-banks that are not subject to prudential capital requirements. This places traditional banks at a disadvantage, and they’re now pushing back, pressuring lawmakers and regulators to level the field and secure the ability to engage in crypto activities on equal terms,” explained Anja von Rosenstiel, Lecturer at Boston University School of Law.

Pressure from industry: It is not only national regulators pressing for change. In May and August, multiple banking associations sent formal letters urging the Basel Committee to revisit its framework, arguing that the current calibration would make it impossible for banks to participate meaningfully in onchain financial activities.

What comes next: The Basel Committee has committed to revisiting its crypto asset standard, with Thedéen stressing that it needs to move “fairly quick” in reassessing its approach. The review will proceed through consultations with member jurisdictions and stakeholders before the Committee sets out its scope and next steps.

On Friday, the Commercial Bank Money Token (CBMT) working group — including DZ Bank, Commerzbank, and UniCredit — launched its sandbox, opening a shared environment to test multi-bank tokenized deposits.

Yesterday, the group demoed some use cases in Frankfurt. We spoke with Commerzbank’s Roberto Pagliari about how the model works and what comes next as CBMT moves toward pilots and regulatory approval.

1. Stablecoins & Tokenised Deposits in UK Banking (Fireblocks) — A paper examining the technical and regulatory development of stablecoins and tokenized deposits in the United Kingdom.

2. Operationalising Tokenised Funds (MAS) — A report explaining how tokenized funds can scale across public and private chains, covering legal models and lessons from live implementations by Franklin Templeton, Citi, Fidelity, Deutsche Bank and Phillip Securities.

→ Want more? Visit Blockstories Library for a curated selection of 120+ reports on digital assets.