UK finalizes crypto rulebook with a lighter stablecoin capital floor than the EU

The United Kingdom's Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) published its final crypto framework, bringing exchanges, custodians, staking services, and qualifying stablecoin issuers into a full authorization regime. The most consequential detail is a deliberate loosening. The regulator lowered the minimum capital coefficient for non-systemic stablecoin issuers from a proposed two percent to one percent of issued tokens, following industry consultation and the Bank of England's earlier reversal on holding limits.

Firms face a phased timeline, with applications opening on 30 September 2026 and running to 28 February 2027, and the regime expected to take effect in late 2027. The FCA described the package as mandatory licensing paired with custody standards, market-abuse rules, and disclosure requirements, which Cointelegraph summarized as "simplified capital requirements for stablecoin issuers," and which Watcher Guru described as the UK cutting issuer buffers outright.

The contrast with the European Union is the point. The bloc's Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regime imposes heavier prudential demands, and it has now issued 244 licenses to crypto-asset service providers, with Germany leading at 57 and France at 26. Britain is calculating that a lighter capital standard will attract issuers that find MiCA's requirements costly, a choice to compete on regulation rather than align with it.

The sound-money reading is cautious. A lower capital floor reduces the loss-absorbing buffer behind tokens that promise redemption at face value, and that buffer is exactly what matters when many holders try to redeem at once. Lighter rules may draw issuers to London, but they also shift more of the failure risk onto holders if the assets backing a token turn out to be smaller than advertised.