According to a new study published by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision – the supranational organization responsible for setting standards for bank capital, liquidity and finance – 19 of the 182 global banks it oversees report holding digital assets. Together, their total cryptocurrency exposure is estimated at €9.4 billion ($9.38 billion).
In context, this represents 0.14% of the total risk-weighted asset mix of the 19 banks surveyed that own crypto. When viewed overall, cryptocurrencies make up only about 0.01% of the total risk-weighted assets of all 182 banks under the supervision of the Basel Committee. Two banks accounted for more than half of the total exposure to cryptocurrency groups, while four other banks accounted for about 40% of the remaining exposure. Of the 19 banks that provided crypto data, 10 were from America, seven from Europe and two from the rest of the world.
The reported digital exposures consisted primarily of Bitcoin (BTC) (31%), Ether (ETH) (22%) and derivatives linked to Bitcoin or Ether (35%). Other notable mentions are Polkadot Point (2%), XRP (2%), Cardano’s ADA (1%), Solana’s SOL (1%), Litecoin (LTC) (0.4%) and Stellar Lumen (XLM) (0, 4%). )) ). Of the digital assets owned by banks, 50.2% were for custody, wallet, or insurance. Another 45.7% was held for clearing and market making purposes. Finally, an estimated 4.2% of the cryptocurrencies in this category were used for loans and borrowing.
The Basel Committee said the findings should be “interpreted with some caution” due to the difficulty in determining whether some banks have under-reported or over-reported their exposure to crypto-assets. Previously, the Basel Committee recommended that banks limit their exposure to volatile cryptocurrencies to just 1% of Tier 1 capital with a risk premium of 1,250%.
