Gobal banks’ exposure to crypto is around 0.01%

Global banking regulation standard Basel Committee’s latest report estimates the global bank exposure to crypto to be at 0.01%, as the 19 largest financial institutions hold €9.4 billion worth of crypto, which equates to 0.14% exposure.

The report took the crypto asset data from 16 Group 1 banks and three Group 2 banks. Ten of these banks were from the Americas, seven were from Europe, and the remaining two were from the rest of the world.

Considering these financial institutions’ size and expansion level, the report estimates that the global crypto exposure would turn out to be around 0.01% after the Group 3 banks are included.

With that being said, the report also acknowledges crypto’s exponential growth rate and reminds us that it is difficult to estimate the real exposure rate. It states:

“As the cryptoasset market is fast evolving, it is difficult to ascertain whether some banks have under- or over-reported their exposures to cryptoassets, and the extent to which they have consistently applied the same approach to classifying any exposures.”

Exposure distributions

Cryptoassets belonging to the ten Americas banks comprise around one-third of the total €9.4 billion. The distribution amongst these banks is not even either.

Two institutions make up more than half of total crypto exposure, while four make up around 40%. The remaining 10% is shared amongst 13 banks.

Token distribution

According to the data, Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) are the most held assets. Amongst all 19 institutions, Bitcoin exposure is at 31%, while Ethereum’s is at 22%. Tokens that have Bitcoin or Ethereum as underlying assets follow as the third and fourth most held assets. Bitcoin-based tokens make up 25%, while Ethereum-based ones make up 10%.

When the amount of Bitcoin and Bitcoin-based tokens are calculated together, exposure to Bitcoin stood at 56.1%, while Ethereum’s was 32.8%.