A consortium of industry bodies and law firm Baker McKenzie Wong & Leow has launched Project Pigeon, a working group developing governance frameworks for financial institutions using permissionless blockchains across Asia Pacific. The coalition includes banks, crypto native firms and digital asset exchanges.
The Basel Committee’s rules for crypto treat digital securities issued on permissionless blockchains as equivalent to cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin for risk treatment. This is prohibitive in terms of capital requirements, although the Committee is revisiting the rules, announcing an expedited review in November 2025. Several jurisdictions are not waiting for Basel to act.
US banking regulators have explicitly said that institutions can use public chains without penalty, provided the digital security has the same legal treatment as a conventional one. For stablecoin issuance in Hong Kong, provided the issuer has been approved by the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA), the use of permissionless chains is allowed. Meanwhile, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) delayed its bank crypto rulemaking and launched a consultation. Earlier this year the Global Blockchain Business Council (GBBC) and Oliver Wyman published a risk mitigation framework for public blockchain adoption with input from DTCC, Euroclear, Ripple and the World Bank.
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