U.S. banking groups have urged regulators to clearly extend anti-money laundering rules for stablecoins beyond issuance to secondary market trading. The crypto industry has pushed back, warning that imposing responsibility for transactions issuers cannot control could shrink the DeFi ecosystem. The debate centres on who should monitor transfers after issuance, including movements between exchanges, DeFi protocols and private wallets, and how far regulatory responsibility should reach.

BlackRock has urged the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to withdraw a provision that would cap tokenised assets at 20 percent of stablecoin reserve assets, saying the limit is unnecessary. It said reserve-asset risk should be judged by liquidity, maturity and credit quality, not whether assets are tokenised. BlackRock also asked for clarity on what qualifies as eligible reserves, including whether Treasury ETFs qualify, and proposed adjustments to diversification options in the draft rules.