Week 42, 5–11 October 2026

Europe has moved from writing crypto rules to enforcing them. The EU markets regulator has restricted dealings with stablecoins without a license, while France and Greece are introducing new crypto taxes. Meanwhile, states themselves are shifting money onto ledgers: from ECB reserves and British government debt to the digital ruble and the tenge. In the US, the picture is the opposite: regulators are drafting rules, although the head of one of them admits that without Congress they lack the authority. The chairman of the relevant House committee is demanding legislation, and the prediction market gives the bill a 5% chance.

In the EU, crypto rules are turning into refusals, bans, and taxes. Oversight in the EU is tightening on three fronts. On 8 October, the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) gave crypto companies three months to exit stablecoins outside the EU Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA): they may not hold them for clients, only close positions. ESMA did not name the tokens, but Coinbase identifies USDT and PYUSD as falling into this group. German regulators denied Bitcoin.de a MiCA license, Bitcoin Group said on 6 October: trading for 1.1 million users has not resumed. France’s National Assembly finance committee approved a tax on exchanges of cryptoassets into stablecoins from 1 January 2027, as well as an exit tax for portfolios above €800,000 ($896,000). On 7 October, Greece’s finance ministry proposed a 10% capital gains tax on crypto.

Central bank money and government debt are moving onto blockchain. Central banks and treasuries are transferring payments and government debt to distributed ledgers. ECB Executive Board member Isabel Schnabel presented three models for central bank money settlement on blockchain: direct issuance of reserves, linking the gross settlement system with a distributed ledger, and private tokens backed by reserves at the ECB. On 6 October, the UK Treasury appointed Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds, Morgan Stanley, NatWest, and RBC Capital Markets to lead the pilot of digital government bonds in Q1 2027. 220,000 digital ruble accounts were opened in the first month, compared with 60,000 that the Bank of Russia had expected by year-end, deputy governor Zulfia Kahrumanova said on 6 October. On 7 October, Kazakhstan’s central bank signed a memorandum with Tether to prepare a pilot of a tenge stablecoin and tokenization through the Hadron platform.

The US crypto regime is being written by agencies, while Congress demands a law. US regulators are building a crypto framework without legislation and admitting its limits themselves. On 5 October, the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) proposed a federal regime for retail crypto trading with leverage as a voluntary alternative to state licenses. Unlike CLARITY, the regime does not require cryptoassets to be traded on CFTC-registered venues: commission chair Michael Selig said the agency lacks that authority without a congressional decision. On 7 October, House Financial Services Committee Chairman French Hill said the actions of the CFTC and the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) are insufficient: congressional legislation is the priority, and he expects CLARITY to pass this year. Polymarket puts the odds at 5%.