Basel Bank capital rules create ‘chokepoint’ for crypto — Investment exec

The current capital reserve requirements and rules make holding cryptocurrencies too costly for banks, limiting the sector’s growth.

Capital requirements for banks set by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS), which crafts banking standards, create a “chokepoint,” designed to throttle the growth of the crypto industry, according to Chris Perkins, president of investment firm CoinFund.

The current capital rules lower a bank’s return on equity (ROE), a critical profitability metric in banking, by forcing higher reserve requirements for holding crypto, making crypto-related activities too expensive for banks, Perkins told Cointelegraph.

“It’s a different type of chokepoint, in that it’s not direct. It’s a very nuanced way of suppressing activity by making it so expensive for the bank to do activities that they’re just like, ‘I can't,’” he added.

If I have a certain amount of capital I want to invest, I’m going to invest it in high ROE businesses, not low ROE businesses,” he continued.

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