The Wall Street Journal's CFO Journal wrote a piece recently titled, "Companies Would Need to Disclose Stablecoin Holdings Under FASB Proposal." It tells us, "The Financial Accounting Standards Board wants to require companies to disclose significant stablecoin holdings as part of a broader move to have companies break out their different types of cash equivalents. The accounting standard-setter voted [last] Wednesday to propose that all companies must annually disclose the dollar amounts of the significant components of their cash equivalents. These components include investments with maturities of three months or less, like money-market funds, Treasury bills, commercial paper and possibly, stablecoins, for which there are no specific accounting rules at present. Equivalents are highly liquid, short-term but low-risk investments."
The article explains, "The FASB has been researching whether some cryptocurrency assets qualify as cash equivalents as opposed to financial instruments or other asset classifications. In particular, companies in the industry have been seeking more clarity on booking stablecoins, a popular asset typically pegged to a government currency, such as the U.S. dollar. The board decided to widen the scope to include any companies with cash equivalents on their balance sheet."
It continues, "Under the plan, if companies include a significant amount of stablecoins in their cash equivalents, those must be disclosed as a specific class alongside traditional equivalents like commercial paper or money-market funds.... The board also said it would propose clarifying how companies account for stablecoins. Under its thinking, a stablecoin would qualify as a cash equivalent if it is backed by sufficient liquid reserves and the holder has a contractual right to a known amount of cash directly from the issuer."
They quote FASB Boardmember Christine Botosan, "We can't turn a blind eye to the fact that stablecoins are a new asset class. They exist in evolving regulatory environments. In light of that, it is perfectly reasonable for investors to say that they need to understand whether stablecoins are included among the companies' cash equivalents."
CFO Journal writes, "Coinbase Global, in its latest annual filing in February, said it changed the way it accounted for 'payment stablecoins' -- digital assets used to pay a settlement -- to classify them as cash equivalents instead of financial instruments. The retroactive change increased the company's total cash and cash equivalents in 2024, to $9.3 billion from $8.5 billion. Coinbase reported $11.3 billion in cash and cash equivalents for 2025."
They add, "The FASB said it plans to issue a formal proposal and ask the public for feedback over a 90-day period. The FASB added the cash-equivalent issue to its agenda in October with a focus on some stablecoins. The issue -- among the first of more than 70 the FASB is considering adding to its agenda -- came in response to an 'agenda consultation' in which companies, investors and others submitted letters last year on what they want the standard-setter to prioritize." (See FASB's "Current Projects: Cash Equivalents -- Disclosure Enhancement and Classification of Certain Digital Assets" for more.)
In other news, Crane Data published its latest Weekly Money Fund Portfolio Holdings statistics Tuesday, which track a shifting subset of our monthly Portfolio Holdings collection. The most recent cut (with data as of April 17) includes Holdings information from 62 money funds (up 12 from two weeks ago), or $4.135 trillion (up from $3.364 trillion) of the $8.063 trillion in total money fund assets (or 51.3%) tracked by Crane Data. (Note: Our Weekly MFPH are e-mail only and aren't available on the website. See our latest Monthly Money Fund Portfolio Holdings here and our April 13 News, "April MF Portfolio Holdings: T-Bills Inch Higher, Repo Falls, Agencies Flat.")
Our latest Weekly MFPH Composition summary shows Government assets dominating the holdings list with Treasuries totaling $1.904 trillion (up from $1.627 trillion two weeks ago), or 46.0%; Repurchase Agreements (Repo) totaling $1.482 trillion (up from $1.161 trillion two weeks ago), or 35.8%, and Government Agency securities totaling $409.0 billion (up from $318.0 billion two weeks ago), or 9.9%. Commercial Paper (CP) totaled $149.3 billion (up from $112.9 billion two weeks ago), or 3.6%. Certificates of Deposit (CDs) totaled $77.3 billion (up from $66.0 billion two weeks ago), or 1.9%. The Other category accounted for $74.0 billion or 1.8%, while VRDNs accounted for $39.8 billion or 1.0%.
The Ten Largest Issuers in our Weekly Holdings product include: the US Treasury with $1.904 trillion, Fixed Income Clearing Corp with $495.3B, the Federal Home Loan Bank with $239.8B, JP Morgan with $158.5B, Citi with $112.4B, RBC with $103.6B, Federal Farm Credit Bank with $102.7B, BNP Paribas with $94.9B, Wells Fargo with $78.0B and Bank of America with $56.9B.
The Ten Largest Funds tracked in our latest Weekly include: JPMorgan US Govt MM ($322.0B), JPMorgan 100% US Trs MM ($309.5B), Goldman Sachs FS Govt ($274.3B), Fidelity Inv MM: Govt Port ($260.1B), Morgan Stanley Inst Liq Govt ($213.7B), State Street Inst US Govt ($204.4B), BlackRock Lq FedFund ($181.7B), BlackRock Lq Treas Tr ($175.7B), Fidelity Inv MM: MM Port ($165.5B) and Dreyfus Govt Cash Mgmt ($157.5B). (Let us know if you'd like to see our latest domestic U.S. and/or "offshore" Weekly Portfolio Holdings collection and summary.)
