Six Republican senators led by Cynthia Lummis and Bill Hagerty sent a joint letter to the Federal Reserve, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation on Friday June 6 arguing that the Basel Committee’s 1,250% risk weight on spot Bitcoin holdings functions as a de facto ban on US bank crypto exposure. The letter, posted to Senator Lummis’s office page, is the most direct legislative push to date for a separate digital-asset capital framework that treats spot Bitcoin holdings like commodity exposure rather than the de-facto-uncapitalized treatment the current rule produces.

The math is the part that gets the policy attention. A 1,250% risk weight means $1 of spot BTC requires $12.50 of…