#我在Gate广场过新年 SEC's 2% Investment Declaration: How Wall Street Brokers Are Devouring DeFi with 'Discount Rates'

This past Friday (February 20, 2026), while most of Wall Street was watching Michael Saylor's reckless issuance of preferred shares to fill the Bitcoin plunge gap, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) quietly updated a line on its website FAQ page, which is not only poorly designed but also long ignored. No press conference, no Gary Gensler’s signature paternal video speech, not even a tweet. The line was as dull as a photocopier repair manual, but it actually served as an "investment declaration" from the SEC to Wall Street: when calculating net capital reserves, broker-dealers' holdings of stablecoins—mainly USDC and USDT—have their Haircut (discount rate) reduced from 100% to 2%. If you don’t understand the absurdity and huge profits behind this, you won’t grasp why Goldman Sachs and Robinhood’s compliance departments are celebrating with champagne tonight.
From “Worthless” to “Almost Money”: Asset Alchemy
In Wall Street’s context, “Haircut” is a life-and-death term. According to the famous SEC 15c3-1 net capital rule, broker-dealers must always maintain sufficient liquid assets to manage risks. Before yesterday, if a regulated broker-dealer held $100 million in USDC on paper, under the old rules, the “Haircut” for this money was 100%. This meant that, in the eyes of regulators, this $100 million was equivalent to air, or a pile of dead, illiquid wood in your backyard.
To stay compliant, broker-dealers had to set aside another $100 million in real cash as collateral. This was a slaughter of capital efficiency—any sane CFO wouldn’t allow such double occupancy, which is why traditional financial institutions have avoided on-chain settlement for years—it's too expensive, too unjustifiable. However, SEC’s recent “2%” adjustment instantly performed a kind of asset-liability alchemy. Now, the same $100 million USDC only needs a 2% risk reserve deduction, leaving $98 million that can be directly counted as net capital. This change elevates the legal status of stablecoins from “high-risk crypto assets” to a level comparable with “money market funds.” It’s not just regulatory easing; it’s a recognition of reality: they finally realize, or are forced to admit, that these digital tokens issued by Circle or Tether are no longer fundamentally different from dollars in liquidity terms. For brokers who have long coveted the DeFi market, this is like unlocking the heavy chains on their hands and feet—billions of idle dollars can now flow into on-chain settlement layers without any additional costly compliance.
Gary Gensler’s “Silent Trojan Horse”
Don’t be naive to think this is SEC suddenly showing mercy or being influenced by crypto punk idealism. On the contrary, it’s a highly cunning political calculation. By modifying the FAQ instead of formal legislation, the SEC is playing a clever “attack and retreat” game. Informal guidance lacks the rigidity of legal statutes, meaning that if market turbulence occurs or a certain algorithmic stablecoin crashes again, regulators can revoke this “passport” at any time and shift all responsibility onto others. The cunning of this “informal policy” lies in providing Wall Street with a long-desired liquidity gateway without giving the crypto industry any clear legal standing. Even more deeply ironic, this opening of the door is less about promoting DeFi’s prosperity and more about saving the shrinking profit margins of traditional finance. Just look at HSBC next door, which announced yesterday it laid off 10% of its US debt capital markets team. Traditional banking is shrinking, while on-chain trading volume is exploding. SEC’s reduction of the discount rate effectively allows traditional brokers to become gatekeepers of the crypto world. They no longer need to build decentralized protocols; they only need to leverage this 2% low-cost advantage to monopolize the fiat-to-crypto channel. It’s a Trojan horse—on the surface, a victory for crypto, but in reality, a dimensionality reduction of Wall Street’s formal forces into the DeFi space. Originally designed to decentralize, blockchain technology is now becoming the most efficient settlement backend in the hands of these top intermediaries.
Billions of Dollars in the Hunting Grounds Officially Open
This 2% discount rate is the starting gun. What we are about to witness is a dramatic restructuring of broker-dealer business models. Since holding stablecoins’ capital costs are now nearly negligible, Robinhood, Charles Schwab, and even JPMorgan’s trading departments have no reason to refuse 24/7 on-chain settlement. The old T+1 or T+2 settlement cycles will seem like relics in the face of real-time atomic swaps at T+0. These institutions no longer need complex bank transfers to allocate funds; they can directly stockpile hundreds of millions in USDC on their balance sheets for instant client clearing and cross-border arbitrage. This also explains why the market remains eerily calm. True hunters don’t make loud noises before the hunt. While you’re still arguing on social media about the rise and fall of some meme coin, Wall Street’s actuaries are recalculating leverage ratios on their balance sheets. The liquidity released isn’t just numbers; it’s fuel that changes the game. DeFi protocols have long suffered from a lack of “sticky” institutional funds, but now, the final gate is opening. However, these inflows won’t carry the warmth of “community consensus,” but rather Wall Street’s cold efficiency and greed for yields. Stablecoins are no longer just toys in the crypto world—they’ve officially become chips on Wall Street’s gambling table, and this 2% entry fee marks the beginning of their takeover.