The U.S. accounting board has told corporate treasurers when a dollar token can sit next to Treasury bills on the cash line. On 18 August the Financial Accounting Standards Board issued a proposed Accounting Standards Update, Cash Equivalents, Disclosure Enhancement and Evaluation of Certain Digital Assets. Comments close 19 November. The Master Glossary definition of cash equivalents would not change. What would change is how that definition is illustrated for stablecoins, and what every company must disclose about the mix inside its cash-equivalent pile.
Three tests sit in the examples. A qualifying digital asset would need an on-demand contractual redemption right, a direct claim on the issuer for a known amount of cash, and segregated reserves held at least one-to-one in short-term, highly liquid assets such as cash and Treasury bills with maturities of three months or less. Secondary-market liquidity would not be enough. That last point matters: a token that trades tightly on an exchange but cannot be redeemed from the issuer would stay off the cash-equivalent line.
The disclosure that hits every balance sheet
Separately, all entities that present cash equivalents would have to disclose, annually, the significant components and the amount of each: U.S. Treasury bills, commercial paper, money market funds, stablecoins, and the rest. That requirement applies whether or not the company holds any digital asset. FASB says it would align U.S. GAAP more closely with a similar IFRS disclosure and give investors a cleaner view of liquidity. For treasurers already parking working capital in tokenized T-bills, see our note on on-chain Treasuries crossing $9 billion.
How this sits next to GENIUS
The GENIUS Act, signed in July 2025, already requires permitted payment-stablecoin issuers to hold one-to-one reserves in dollars and short-term Treasurys, publish monthly reserve details, and set redemption procedures. Non-compliant coins are, in practice, barred from this accounting treatment. FASB also wants entities to consider compliance with relevant law when they write the policy that decides which assets qualify. The board has posed seven questions covering operability of the examples, whether the disclosure is useful, transition, effective date, and cost versus benefit. CFOs who want qualifying coins on the cash line should file by 19 November. For the parallel U.S. perimeter fight, see the GENIUS Act comment letters.