U.S., UK move to align rules for tokenized finance across world’s largest financial markets

• The U.S. and U.K. released a 10-point roadmap to coordinate oversight of tokenized assets, stablecoins and digital financial markets.
• Regulators will explore common rules for tokenized securities, cross-border stablecoin activity and industry-led tokenization pilots.
• The recommendations also seek to make cross-border capital raising easier and strengthen cooperation between U.S. and UK financial regulators.

The United States and the United Kingdom have laid out a plan to make it easier for tokenized financial products to move between their markets, signaling that both governments want blockchain-based finance to become a bigger part of mainstream capital markets.

Released Tuesday by the U.S. Department of the Treasury and HM Treasury, the recommendations from the Transatlantic Taskforce for Markets of the Future focus on reducing regulatory friction that could slow the growth of tokenized securities, stablecoins and other digital assets operating across both countries.

The report sets out 10 recommendations covering digital assets and traditional capital markets.

On the digital asset side, governments propose creating an industry-led working group to test cross-border tokenization projects, coordinate the regulation of tokenized securities, and support the development of cross-border stablecoins. They also want to review global banking standards for cryptoassets and build policy frameworks that allow stablecoins, tokenized bank deposits and other forms of digital money to coexist.

The two governments also issued a joint statement backing cross-border stablecoin activity, stating that the private sector will play a central role in developing digital money and payment systems.