Basel data shows US banks rotating from Bitcoin into Ether and altcoins

The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision released its biannual crypto asset statistics covering the second half of 2025, and the headline shift is compositional rather than volumetric: aggregate prudential exposures across reporting banks were roughly flat compared to the first half of the year, yet the mix inside those exposures changed substantially, particularly in the Americas.

Bitcoin’s share of prudential exposures in the Americas fell from 75.8% to 44.2% between the two halves. Ether absorbed much of that rotation, climbing to a 38.5% share, while Solana accounted for 7.8% and XRP for 5.6%. In the Rest of World category the notable movement was toward stablecoins. The steadiness of total prudential exposure levels over roughly 18 months in both the Americas and Europe suggests that Basel capital requirements may be acting as a practical ceiling on how far banks are willing to push their balance-sheet crypto risk, even as the composition of that risk shifts.

The growth story sits instead in client-facing activity. Americas banks reported a 93% increase in activities conducted on behalf of clients, reaching €6.4 billion, while European banks saw that figure contract by 25% to €1.9 billion. The BCBS itself flags that the reporting population changes across periods, which makes period-on-period comparisons inherently noisy; the directional signals are nonetheless consistent with a market where custody and intermediation are expanding faster than proprietary exposure.