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Welcome to the US Crypto News Morning Briefing—your essential rundown of the most important developments in crypto for the day ahead. Grab a coffee for today’s read, as Standard Chartered adjusts its plumbing, focusing on how it structures exposure, where it places risk, and which assets it believes will matter most when the next institutional wave arrives. Sponsored Sponsored Crypto News of the Day: Standard Chartered’s Crypto Bet Could Outsmart Basel III Capital Rules Standard Chartered’s reported plans to establish a crypto prime brokerage may reveal more than a renewed push into digital assets. By housing the initiative within its venture arm, SC Ventures, the bank appears to be engineering a way into institutional crypto markets while sidestepping one of the sector’s biggest barriers: Basel III’s punitive capital treatment. Citing people familiar with the matter, Bloomberg reported that the London-based lender is exploring a crypto prime brokerage offering, which would provide financing, custody, and trading services to institutional clients. The business is expected to sit outside the bank’s core corporate and investment banking division, instead operating under SC Ventures. That structural decision could materially reduce the capital burden associated with crypto exposure. Under Basel III rules finalized in late 2022, banks face a 1,250% risk weighting for “permissionless” crypto assets such as Bitcoin and Ether. Because this charge is far higher than the 400% applied to some venture capital investments, it effectively discourages banks from holding crypto on their balance sheets. By routing crypto activities through a venture-style unit, Standard Chartered may be positioning itself closer to a capital-light framework while remaining within regulatory boundaries. The move aligns with the bank’s broader crypto strategy. Standard Chartered backs institutional platforms, including Zodia Custody and Zodia Markets, and became the first global systemically important bank to offer spot crypto trading to institutional…

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Filed under: News - @ January 12, 2026 5:28 pm