Accounting Board Needs to Define Stablecoins, Clarify AI in 2026

The Financial Accounting Standards Board had a busy year in 2025, issuing 12 accounting standards updates, the most since 2019, covering topics from government grants to simplifying applications for expected credit losses, while finalizing its review process for lease accounting.

These updates focused on improving and modernizing previously issued guidance. This year, FASB will likely be looking to provide guidance that addresses the intersection of accounting and decentralized finance by continuing two priorities already on their technical agenda—and starting one that isn’t there yet.

FASB responded to an evolving DeFi landscape by issuing cryptocurrency guidance in 2023. Now it needs to complete the projects it added to its technical agenda by addressing the balance sheet classification of stablecoins and the scope of the digital asset guidance to determine if it includes wrapped tokens and receipt tokens. It also should address accounting challenges presented by artificial intelligence proliferation and the circular deals between AI firms and chipmakers.

These three technical accounting areas, if left unsettled, represent heightened risks to investors at a time when cryptocurrencies and AI-aligned companies are volatile and difficult to understand for those outside DeFi companies or industry. They are areas where common nomenclature doesn’t match the fundamentals.

For instance, we call Bitcoin cryptocurrency, but FASB rightfully determined it isn’t currency. What investors hear isn’t always what they see in the financial statements. FASB should close that gap in 2026.

That gap was exacerbated in 2025 when the US enacted the GENIUS Act, which established federal guidelines and reporting frameworks for payment stablecoins—essentially blockchain-based assets meant to mirror the value of fiat currency or some other commodity.

Stablecoins shouldn’t be confused with wrapped tokens—another project on FASB’s technical agenda—which allow a user to create a token that mirrors an asset on one blockchain so that it can be used in transactions on another blockchain.

Both derivative assets derive their value from another asset, either a fiat currency like the US dollar in the case of stablecoins or a wallet-holding bitcoin that wants to transact on the Ethereum blockchain in the case of wrapped tokens. And both asset classes currently fall outside of FASB’s authoritative guidance.

FASB must determine if wrapped tokens fall within its 2023 cryptocurrency guidance. I predict they will rule as such. For stablecoins, FASB must find where on the balance sheet they belong. For certified public accountants and investors, that classification is less clear.

In a way that seems to limit the Securities and Exchange Commission or Commodity Futures Trading Commission from regulating the digital assets, the GENIUS Act explicitly states that stablecoins aren’t commodities and they aren’t securities. So what are they? Stablecoins under existing US generally accepted accounting principles could reasonably meet the definition of an intangible asset carried at fair value, a financial instrument separate from intangible assets, or other intangible assets subject to impairment.

To further complicate their accounting, under IRS guidance, they are treated as property. Users treat them as digital cash. Enrolled agents treat them as property. CPAs treat them as either intangibles or financial instruments. But no standard setters or regulators treat them as cash or cash equivalents, possibly due to recent frauds in their creation and holding.

If FASB reads the guidance in the GENIUS Act loosely and considers stablecoins as cash equivalents alongside US Treasury bills, we would have clear guidance on stablecoins, but that guidance would be detrimental to investors. Treasury bills and dollar bills are liquid—stablecoins may not be. FASB must grapple with the political realities and the economic risks of these policies.

The other emerging challenge not (yet) on FASB’s technical agenda is updating disclosure guidance to address the growing circular nature of revenue-producing transactions between AI companies and chipmakers, where the chipmakers invest in the AI companies who then purchase chips back from the AI companies.

While existing FASB guidance for revenue recognition should be enough to ensure accurate accounting for such arrangements, disclosure requirements around these transactions and the leasing of data centers likely need enhancements.

Deeper explanations of arm’s-length transactions between these entities need to be added to disclosure notes alongside the risks to the bottom line of such transactions not continuing. Right now, investors are left to sift through the detailed and complex transactions themselves.

For years, FASB delayed formal guidance for cryptocurrencies despite calls from the crypto industry and CPAs to clarify the guidance. For 2026, they’re already showing flexibility and are quickly responding to DeFi risks by addressing the accounting for the complex instruments that digital asset companies create and monetize.

From stablecoins to AI, FASB will have to weigh standards that match politics against ones that match economic reality and risks. Investors should hope they choose the latter for 2026 and beyond.

This article does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Bloomberg Industry Group, Inc., the publisher of Bloomberg Law, Bloomberg Tax, and Bloomberg Government, or its owners.

Author Information

Jack Castonguay is a CPA, associate professor of accounting at Hofstra University, and vice president of content development at KnowFully Learning Group.

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