On Dec. 9, the Workplace of the Comptroller of the Foreign money put out a press launch with a really direct message for US banks: you’re allowed to take a seat in the course of crypto trades.
Within the memorably titled Information Launch 2025-121, the OCC printed the in some way even worse-titled Interpretive Letter 1188 and confirmed that nationwide banks could run “riskless principal” crypto-asset transactions as a part of the enterprise of banking, appearing as the client to at least one buyer and vendor to a different, whereas preserving no significant stock of tokens themselves.
A day earlier, Comptroller Jonathan Gould stood earlier than a room of business contributors and made a unique, however carefully associated, level.
He stated he noticed no cause to deal with digital belongings as a separate species in relation to custody and safekeeping, and he brushed apart a lobbying push from the Financial institution Coverage Institute, which has urged his company to dam a wave of crypto corporations from acquiring nationwide belief charters.
BPI’s marketing campaign, specified by an October assertion titled “BPI Urges OCC to Protect the Integrity of Nationwide Belief Charters,” argues that candidates like massive exchanges, stablecoin issuers, and fintech platforms wish to use belief charters as a again door into bank-like actions with out carrying the total load of deposit insurance coverage and holding-company supervision.
Taken collectively, the interpretive letter and Gould’s remarks define a transparent route for the business’s future. The OCC shouldn’t be making an attempt to wall crypto off from the banking system, however making an attempt to work out which items of that exercise match inside acquainted classes like brokerage, custody, and fiduciary enterprise, and below what circumstances.
US banks now have specific consolation that they will match crypto trades for shoppers on a riskless principal foundation, and crypto corporations can see that the door to a nationwide belief constitution is not closed simply because their belongings transfer on blockchains slightly than by way of legacy securities depositories.
Who really runs this a part of the banking system
For anybody exterior america, the alphabet soup of financial institution regulators can really feel like an elaborate puzzle, so it’s value beginning with the fundamentals.
The Workplace of the Comptroller of the Foreign money (OCC) is an unbiased bureau inside the US Treasury that charters, regulates, and supervises nationwide banks and federal financial savings associations, in addition to the federal branches and companies of overseas banks.
It earns its residing from assessments and charges on the banks it oversees slightly than from annual congressional budgets, which provides it a level of insulation from short-term political fights over funding. Its mandate runs by way of security, truthful entry to monetary providers, and compliance with banking legislation.
The Comptroller of the Foreign money sits on the prime of this construction. Gould, sworn on this summer season, serves each because the OCC’s chief government and as a member of our bodies such because the Federal Deposit Insurance coverage Company board and the Monetary Stability Oversight Council, which implies his views attain into broader debates about monetary stability and market plumbing.
His core energy, although, could be very particular: he leads the company that grants nationwide financial institution charters.
A financial institution constitution on this context is actually a enterprise license that allows an establishment to function as a financial institution or a carefully associated entity below federal legislation. On the federal degree, the OCC manages these licenses; on the state degree, separate regulators subject their very own variations.
The OCC’s Licensing Guide on charters particulars the method completely, from preliminary software to closing approval. Organizers should reveal that their proposed financial institution has ample capital, a reputable administration group, a marketing strategy able to withstanding stress, and danger controls protecting every little thing from primary credit score danger to operational and cyber dangers.
New digital-only banks are anticipated to fulfill the identical requirements, with added scrutiny on know-how and third-party suppliers.
Inside that world, a nationwide belief financial institution occupies a slim however vital area of interest. Federal legislation permits the OCC to constitution a nationwide financial institution whose actions are restricted to these of a belief firm and associated providers, usually centered on appearing as trustee, executor, funding supervisor, or custodian of belongings.
These entities often do not take deposits within the bizarre retail sense and infrequently don’t carry FDIC insurance coverage. Due to that construction, many nationwide belief banks don’t meet the definition of a “financial institution” below the Financial institution Holding Firm Act, which implies their father or mother corporations can keep away from the total weight of consolidated holding-company supervision.
That authorized design explains why belief charters have develop into the main focus of a tug-of-war. For crypto corporations that wish to maintain clients’ tokens, handle stablecoin reserves, or sit on the heart of settlement flows with out changing into full business banks, a nationwide belief constitution provides three issues directly: a federal supervisor, nationwide attain, and a path which will keep exterior holding-company guidelines.
For conventional banks and their commerce teams, that appears like an uneven enjoying subject, particularly if new entrants can deal with massive volumes of funds and reserves with a narrower licence.
BPI’s letters to the OCC spell out precisely this fear, warning that belief charters had been traditionally meant for establishments “predominantly engaged in belief and fiduciary actions.” On the identical time, some digital-asset candidates search to run broader fee and reserve companies.
Gould’s public line has been that know-how should not be the dividing line. He factors again to a long time of digital custody and book-entry securities. He asks why holding cryptographic claims on a distributed ledger needs to be handled as alien to the banking enterprise.
That very same logic underlies Interpretive Letter 1188, which depends on earlier courtroom instances and OCC opinions to argue that riskless principal crypto-asset trades are each the useful equal of acknowledged brokerage exercise and a logical extension of present crypto custody providers.
What this implies for crypto custody and buying and selling
The brand new letter does one very quick factor for US establishments: it tells nationwide banks that they might stand in the course of buyer crypto trades, as long as they construction these trades as matched principal transactions and handle the dangers with the identical care they might apply to securities.
The financial institution can purchase a digital asset from one buyer and instantly promote it to a different, reserving two offsetting positions that go away it with no internet publicity past settlement and operational danger.
For tokens that depend as securities, this sits on well-worn floor below part 24 of the Nationwide Financial institution Act. For different crypto-assets, the letter walks by way of a four-factor take a look at and concludes that the exercise nonetheless matches inside the “enterprise of banking.”
For giant banks which have saved crypto at arm’s size, that represents a sensible opening. It means they will construct customer-facing crypto brokerage and routing providers that preserve steadiness sheet danger to a minimal, slightly than dabbling by way of loosely linked associates or leaving the sphere completely to exchanges.
It additionally sits atop earlier OCC letters that already described how banks could maintain stablecoin reserves and supply primary custody providers for crypto.
On the constitution facet, Gould’s refusal to provide BPI the blanket reply it wished could matter much more for the market’s form over the subsequent few years. The OCC’s constitution guide reminds candidates that any limited-purpose belief financial institution should nonetheless fulfill the identical core requirements of capital, administration, danger management, and group wants as a full nationwide financial institution.
If the company begins approving digital-asset corporations that meet these checks, the core of US crypto custody and settlement might migrate into nationwide belief banks that put on OCC supervision on their masthead.
For exchanges, that will create a route to supply institutional shoppers a vertically built-in stack: buying and selling, fiat settlement, and on-chain custody, all wrapped inside a federally supervised entity.
For stablecoin issuers, a nationwide belief financial institution might maintain reserves in an OCC-regulated steadiness sheet and run fee flows by way of Fed-connected correspondent networks, even when the issuer itself stays exterior the entire financial institution framework.
For prime brokers and asset managers, the phrase “OCC-supervised nationwide belief financial institution” on a due diligence guidelines appears very completely different from “state-chartered belief firm” or “non-US custodian,” particularly when US securities guidelines push them towards “certified custodians” for digital belongings in the identical manner they do for shares and bonds.
The flip facet is that belief charters won’t be a simple win
BPI and different commenters have been busy feeding detailed objections into the OCC’s docket for particular candidates, arguing that some crypto platforms have skinny consumer-protection information, conflicts of their enterprise fashions, or opaque possession buildings that do not sit nicely with bank-level oversight.
The OCC has broad discretion below its constitution guidelines to weigh administration high quality, monetary energy, and group advantages, and it could actually connect bespoke capital or liquidity circumstances to any belief financial institution approval. Meaning the actual filter for crypto corporations will sit in examination groups and supervisory agreements, not simply in headline speeches.
Globally, the route set in Washington tends to echo outward. Giant banks that function throughout continents usually look to US guidelines when deciding the place and the right way to construct new traces of enterprise, and overseas regulators watch the OCC carefully as a result of its choices form the behaviour of among the world’s largest steadiness sheets.
If US nationwide banks begin providing riskless principal routing for Bitcoin and Ethereum below clear OCC steerage, that can affect how international shoppers count on these providers to look in London, Frankfurt, or Singapore.
If a handful of crypto corporations safe nationwide belief charters and run massive custody and stablecoin operations below federal supervision, that can current a really completely different mannequin from the offshore exchange-and-local-payment-partner method that has outlined a lot of the previous decade.
The message for the crypto business right here is not that the US banking system has thrown the doorways vast open, as a result of it hasn’t.
It is as an alternative that the important thing regulator for nationwide banks has begun to pin elements of the crypto enterprise to concrete regulatory hooks: brokerage-like buying and selling as riskless principal, custody as a contemporary type of safekeeping, belief charters as a house for fiduciary and reserve exercise.
In a market the place regulatory uncertainty is the primary enterprise danger, that type of gradual, line-by-line clarification might be simply as essential as any splashy new legislation.
Crypto corporations that wish to plug into US institutional cash now have a clearer image of the homework they should do. Banks that wish to transfer past white-label merchandise can see the place their very own supervisors are prepared to attract the traces.
How rapidly either side stroll by way of that opening will determine whether or not OCC Letter 1188 and Gould’s speech mark the beginning of a brand new period of bank-run crypto plumbing or simply one other temporary entry within the lengthy historical past of regulators testing the place digital belongings match inside present guidelines.