2026-10-22 02:21

France’s National Assembly voted 38 to 37, with 25 abstentions, to end the tax deferral that crypto investors currently enjoy when swapping cryptocurrency for stablecoins, adopting amendment I-3898 to the 2027 budget on 16 October, according to the official roll-call record. Gains on such swaps would fall under France’s 31.4% capital gains levy for transactions from 1 January 2027. Stablecoins stop being a parking spot Under current French rules, exchanges between cryptocurrencies without an additional cash payment generally defer tax until disposal into fiat, and the official tax administration guidance spells out how investors declare gains on digital asset disposals under those rules. The amendment removes that deferral when investors receive e-money tokens, the MiCA (Markets in Crypto-Assets) category covering stablecoins pegged to a single fiat currency. The practical effect is that a French investor moving bitcoin into a euro stablecoin would realise a taxable gain at the moment of the swap, rather than only when converting back to cash. The text would also replace France’s portfolio-wide capital-gains calculation with a method based on the acquisition cost of the assets actually sold, using a weighted average for units of the same cryptocurrency bought at different prices. That change matters for anyone rebalancing into stablecoins frequently, since the taxable value of each swap will follow the cost of the specific coins disposed of. A narrow vote, and the government is split The margin shows how contested the measure is. Public Accounts Minister David Amiel asked for the amendment to be withdrawn, telling the Assembly: “We first need to define stablecoins, then ensure our ability to monitor and trace reallocations within a portfolio of assets” . Philippe Juvin, the finance committee’s rapporteur general, said he favoured keeping the deferral given crypto’s volatility. Francois Volpoet of Chainalysis has reportedly warned that the levy could push French investors toward decentralised finance platforms, peer-to-peer transactions and offshore exchanges outside international tax-reporting arrangements. For exchanges and euro stablecoin issuers, France is a key market and the move would remove the main tax reason traders park positions in stablecoins between trades. The change arrives amid a broader tightening of EU stablecoin rules. The European Banking Authority’s designation of USDC as the EU’s first ‘significant’ e-money token under MiCA showed how closely regulators watch the category, and supervisors have already set a January 2027 deadline for firms to unwind non-compliant stablecoin exposure. The measure is not law yet. It remains subject to the budget’s remaining parliamentary stages, where it could still be amended or removed, before the changes would apply to transactions from 1 January 2027. https://www.forexcrunch.com/blog/2026/10/22/france-stablecoin-tax-deferral-vote/

2026-10-21 01:45

Tether’s wallet freezes cut Iran-linked stablecoin volumes by 94%, chief executive Paolo Ardoino said in a post on X on 19 October, rejecting a Senate report that accused the stablecoin issuer of aiding Iran’s shadow banking network. Ardoino said in the post that since 2023 Tether has frozen flagged addresses on average four weeks before the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) and Israel’s National Bureau for Counter Terror Financing (NBCTF) issue their designations, and before the blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis labelled them 99% of the time. “Tether actions led to Iran-linked stablecoin volumes declining by 94%. The reality shows that Tether acts fast on new threats thanks to its law enforcement partnerships,” he wrote. What the Senate report said Democrats on the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations published their report on 28 September, led by the panel’s top Democrat, Senator Richard Blumenthal. It accused Tether of providing “a significant financial lifeline within Iran’s shadow banking network”. The report examined 846 sanctioned wallets with Iranian links and found that 84% predominantly used Tether’s USDT, and it concentrated in part on the period before 2024, when it said Tether did not comprehensively freeze flagged wallets. Tether has not disputed that finding on wallet dominance. It points instead to the freezes, the dollar totals and the four-week lead as evidence that its controls work, and the company’s rebuttal statistics start in 2023, so they only partly cover the years the report criticised. The company figures Tether says it blocked approximately $550 million in USDT linked to Iran during 2026, with freezes in April and July together accounting for more than $470 million of that total. Ardoino also spoke remotely at DC Fintech Week on 13 October, where he criticised the report’s release to the media before Tether could review it. “I believe it’s important for the public also to hear our side of the story,” he said. Independent figures point in the same direction, though they measure something different. Data from TRM Labs shows USDT’s share of on-chain volume in Iran-attributed wallets fell from 67% in 2025 to 14% in August 2026. A falling share does not by itself confirm Tether’s 94% volume claim, which carries no published methodology. The rebuttal lands as European regulators press for tighter treatment of non-compliant stablecoins, and as a BIS paper argues that banks can slow stablecoin growth by paying savers more. Blumenthal is separately probing the relationship between Tether and its US financial partner Cantor Fitzgerald, which has close ties to the Trump administration. Tether named Bo Hines, Trump’s former White House crypto adviser, as chief executive of its US division last autumn. For traders in USDT pairs, the dispute is a headline risk rather than an immediate supply event, since the freezes target sanctioned addresses. https://www.forexcrunch.com/blog/2026/10/21/tether-says-iran-linked-usdt-volumes-fell-94-percent-after-freezes/

2026-10-20 01:25

The European Banking Authority said in its press release that it has classified Circle’s USDC as the European Union’s first ‘significant’ e-money token under the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA), with a new supervisory arrangement taking effect on 12 November 2026. What the EBA announced The regulator said in its press release that USDC, issued in the EU by Circle Internet Financial Europe SAS, is the first of the 45 e-money tokens notified in the bloc to meet the significance threshold. Under MiCA Articles 43 and 56, the EBA assesses annually whether notified tokens cross the indicators set out in Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2024/1506, with the procedure fixed in EBA Decision EBA/DC/558. The supervisory split from November 12 From 12 November 2026, direct supervisory responsibility for USDC’s own funds, reserve assets, liquidity requirements and recovery and redemption plans moves from France’s Autorité de Contrôle Prudentiel et de Résolution (ACPR) to the EBA. The ACPR keeps governance duties, qualifying holdings, fit and proper assessments, outsourcing and conflicts of interest. Until that date, the current arrangement stands. For significant e-money tokens, MiCA’s Article 117 sets this dual model: EU-level oversight of the reserves and liquidity side, shared with the national authority. Issuers of significant asset-referenced tokens, by contrast, come under EBA supervision alone. This is the first time the significance framework has been applied to an e-money token, and the annual reassessment keeps both USDC’s status and the other 44 notified tokens under review. Scale and the cross-border piece USDC is the second-largest stablecoin, with a supply of nearly $73 billion as of mid-October 2026, against $184 billion for Tether USDt and a $294 billion total for dollar-pegged stablecoins. To support supervision of cross-border stablecoin activity, the EBA has signed a memorandum of understanding with the New York State Department of Financial Services (NYDFS), which oversees Circle’s New York-regulated operations. Circle has not commented publicly on the classification, and whether the designation touches EURC or only USDC is not stated in the EBA’s announcement. https://www.forexcrunch.com/blog/2026/10/20/eba-usdc-first-significant-e-money-token-mica/

2026-10-19 01:00

A working paper from the Bank for International Settlements finds that the gap between what banks pay depositors and what stablecoins offer is the clearest driver of money moving into tokens, meaning banks that lift deposit rates can hold that money in place. Published as BIS Working Paper 1382, the study (the paper itself) examines whether stablecoins and bank deposits behave as substitutes, and concludes that the relationship hinges on interest rates: when rates paid on deposits are low, flows into stablecoins rise; when deposit rates climb, those flows ease. Rates, not regulation, at the centre For FX and macro traders, the framing matters because it puts deposit pricing, not rulemaking, at the centre of the stablecoin question. The paper suggests competition on yield, rather than bans or capital rules, is the lever banks control directly. A Federal Reserve staff note makes the same point about plumbing: money placed in stablecoins flows back to banks as deposits held by the issuers, so the composition of bank funding shifts even where the total does not. The BIS authors are explicit about the limits of what they can claim: the work does not establish losses of deposits or lending, and its sample covers a single high-rate episode, so the findings describe one rate cycle rather than a law of the market. The deposit-outflow warning on record The scale of the potential substitution has been flagged before. Brian Moynihan, Bank of America’s chief executive, said in January that as much as $6 trillion of deposits could migrate into stablecoins and related products that offer returns. Against that warning, the paper’s message is that the outcome is not fixed. If deposit rates track the yield available on tokenised cash products, the incentive to switch shrinks. If banks hold rates down while stablecoin issuers pass on money-market yields, the gap does the marketing for them. What to watch The next datapoint for this trade is the deposit-rate response: how quickly banks in major markets reprice savings products as policy rates shift, and whether stablecoin issuer yields widen or narrow the gap. The paper covers one high-rate window; a lower-rate cycle would test its central claim from the other direction. https://www.forexcrunch.com/blog/2026/10/19/bis-paper-banks-slow-stablecoin-growth-deposit-rates-2/

2026-10-18 00:40

MSCI adopts rules that could drop Strategy and Metaplanet from its indexes MSCI has adopted new eligibility rules that could remove Strategy (MSTR) and Japan’s Metaplanet from its global equity indexes, with the final list of affected companies due on 11 November. The index provider announced on 15 October that companies it classifies as non-operating, those whose assets are held mainly for investment rather than used in a business, will be ineligible for its Global Investable Market Indexes. The change takes effect at the close of 30 November. The methodology screens a company first on whether it holds substantial operating assets, then on five financial ratios covering expenses, cash flow, asset value changes and reliance on outside financing. Failing the operating asset test plus four or more of the five ratios makes a company ineligible. Removal is not automatic Existing constituents will generally be removed only if they fail the screen in each of their two most recent annual filing periods, and MSCI said it may use the most recent interim filing where one is available. “To reduce index turnover, buffers will apply to both the eligibility thresholds of the financial ratios and the timing of index inclusion and removal,” MSCI wrote in the announcement. A simulation run on May 2026 data flagged Strategy, Metaplanet and UK uranium investment firm Yellow Cake as potential deletions from the MSCI ACWI Investable Market Index. Approval of the rules does not confirm removal of any of them; the final list on 11 November settles that. The full list will appear on MSCI’s index announcements page. How much passive money is at stake JPMorgan analysts have estimated that an index exclusion could trigger roughly $2.8 billion of outflows from MSTR shares, though the estimate was tied to MSCI’s earlier digital asset proposal rather than the rules adopted this month. Strategy put its own figure on the exposure in August, saying funds tracking the Global Investable Market Indexes hold about 13 million of its shares, 3.1% of basic shares outstanding, less than a day’s trading volume. The company pushed back hard during the consultation. In a September letter it wrote: “If adopted, the proposal would have no meaningful impact on Strategy’s business, but it would profoundly harm MSCI’s reputation as a reliable and neutral index provider.” Executive chairman Michael Saylor and chief executive Phong Le have previously called MSCI’s approach discriminatory against digital asset treasuries. The company still sells business intelligence software to clients including Coca-Cola and Porsche, and funds its bitcoin buying through preferred share sales such as STRC and STRK. Any selling that followed a removal would come from index-tracking funds adjusting portfolios, not from Strategy selling its bitcoin. The company holds 848,250 BTC worth about $69.67 billion as of mid-October, according to Bitcoin Treasuries. The new rules also replace interim restrictions MSCI imposed in October 2025 on companies with digital assets worth 50% or more of total assets. MSTR closed at $151.29 on 15 October, down about 72% from its record high of $543 set in November 2024. https://www.forexcrunch.com/blog/2026/10/18/msci-rules-could-drop-strategy-and-metaplanet-from-indexes-from-30-november/

2026-10-17 04:15

MUFG, Mizuho and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC) have completed the first joint trial of a jointly issued yen stablecoin for cross-border payments, the banks announced on 16 October 2026. MUFG’s announcement says the trial ran from 17 to 23 July 2026 inside a closed project supervised by Japan’s Financial Services Agency (FSA). The project was selected in November 2025 under the regulator’s FinTech PoC Hub and Payment Innovation Project. SMBC issued a parallel announcement of the same result. A trust-based structure, three joint issuers The stablecoin is structured as a specified trust beneficiary right under Japan’s Payment Services Act, with bank deposits as the underlying assets. The three banks act as joint settlors commissioning the issuance together, with Mitsubishi UFJ Trust and Banking Corporation as trustee and TISI Inc. as technology provider. The test case was cross-border settlement between Mitsubishi Corporation’s Japanese headquarters and its overseas offices. The participants verified the full cycle of issuance, transfer and redemption into fiat, and tested how multiple institutions coordinate on joint issuance, including anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing compliance. Circulation in the pilot was limited to KYC-verified customers of the three banks, with no preset circulation cap. What comes before real transactions No live transactions have run yet. The banks say the next stage addresses governance, regulatory compliance, cybersecurity and system stability before commercial deployment, with real transactions targeted within fiscal 2026, the Japanese fiscal year running April 2026 to March 2027. For FX traders, the significance is structural rather than immediate. A deposit-backed yen stablecoin issued jointly by the three banks that dominate Japan’s banking system would sit inside a supervised, bank-led regulatory perimeter, a contrast with the market-driven dollar stablecoin model. If the Payment Services Act trust structure holds at commercial scale, it becomes a template other Japanese issuers could copy, and a regulated settlement rail for yen-denominated cross-border corporate flows. The banks first unveiled the plan in June 2026, when they announced a basic agreement and a joint council for governance and operations. The three are also pursuing related blockchain work through TradeWaltz, covering asset trading, ownership transfers and trade settlement. https://www.forexcrunch.com/blog/2026/10/17/japans-megabanks-complete-first-joint-yen-stablecoin-payment-test/