On Dec. 9, the Workplace of the Comptroller of the Forex put out a press launch with a really direct message for US banks: you might be allowed to take a seat in the midst of crypto trades.
Within the memorably titled Information Launch 2025-121, the OCC printed the by some means even worse-titled Interpretive Letter 1188 and confirmed that nationwide banks might run “riskless principal” crypto-asset transactions as a part of the enterprise of banking, performing as the customer to 1 buyer and vendor to a different, whereas protecting no significant stock of tokens themselves.
A day earlier, Comptroller Jonathan Gould stood earlier than a room of business members and made a special, however intently associated, level.
He stated he noticed no purpose to deal with digital belongings as a separate species in the case of 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 course for the business’s future. The OCC will not be attempting to wall crypto off from the banking system, however attempting to work out which items of that exercise match inside acquainted classes like brokerage, custody, and fiduciary enterprise, and beneath what situations.
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 somewhat than by way of legacy securities depositories.
Who truly 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 Forex (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 international banks.
It earns its dwelling from assessments and charges on the banks it oversees somewhat 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, honest entry to monetary companies, and compliance with banking regulation.
The Comptroller of the Forex sits on the high of this construction. Gould, sworn on this summer time, serves each because the OCC’s chief govt and as a member of our bodies such because the Federal Deposit Insurance coverage Company board and the Monetary Stability Oversight Council, which suggests 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 intently associated entity beneath federal regulation. On the federal stage, the OCC manages these licenses; on the state stage, separate regulators challenge their very own variations.
The OCC’s Licensing Handbook on charters particulars the method completely, from preliminary utility to remaining approval. Organizers should exhibit that their proposed financial institution has adequate capital, a reputable administration group, a marketing strategy able to withstanding stress, and danger controls overlaying the whole lot from primary credit score danger to operational and cyber dangers.
New digital-only banks are anticipated to satisfy 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 necessary area of interest. Federal regulation permits the OCC to constitution a nationwide financial institution whose actions are restricted to these of a belief firm and associated companies, usually targeted on performing as trustee, executor, funding supervisor, or custodian of belongings.
These entities normally do not take deposits within the abnormal 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” beneath the Financial institution Holding Firm Act, which suggests 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 change into the main target 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 industrial banks, a nationwide belief constitution affords three issues directly: a federal supervisor, nationwide attain, and a path that will keep exterior holding-company guidelines.
For conventional banks and their commerce teams, that appears like an uneven taking part in discipline, 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 supposed for establishments “predominantly engaged in belief and fiduciary actions.” On the similar 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 ought 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 practical equal of acknowledged brokerage exercise and a logical extension of current crypto custody companies.
What this implies for crypto custody and buying and selling
The brand new letter does one very speedy factor for US establishments: it tells nationwide banks that they might stand in the midst of buyer crypto trades, as long as they construction these trades as matched principal transactions and handle the dangers with the identical care they’d 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 web publicity past settlement and operational danger.
For tokens that depend as securities, this sits on well-worn floor beneath part 24 of the Nationwide Financial institution Act. For different crypto-assets, the letter walks by way of a four-factor check and concludes that the exercise nonetheless matches inside the “enterprise of banking.”
For big 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 companies that maintain steadiness sheet danger to a minimal, somewhat than dabbling by way of loosely linked associates or leaving the sector fully to exchanges.
It additionally sits atop earlier OCC letters that already described how banks might maintain stablecoin reserves and supply primary custody companies for crypto.
On the constitution aspect, Gould’s refusal to provide BPI the blanket reply it wished might matter much more for the market’s form over the following 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 exams, 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 seems to be 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 aspect 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 data, conflicts of their enterprise fashions, or opaque possession buildings that do not sit effectively with bank-level oversight.
The OCC has broad discretion beneath its constitution guidelines to weigh administration high quality, monetary power, and group advantages, and it may possibly connect bespoke capital or liquidity situations to any belief financial institution approval. Which means the actual filter for crypto corporations will sit in examination groups and supervisory agreements, not simply in headline speeches.
Globally, the course set in Washington tends to echo outward. Massive banks that function throughout continents usually look to US guidelines when deciding the place and the best way to construct new strains of enterprise, and international regulators watch the OCC intently as a result of its selections form the behaviour of a number of the world’s largest steadiness sheets.
If US nationwide banks begin providing riskless principal routing for Bitcoin and Ethereum beneath clear OCC steering, that can affect how international shoppers anticipate these companies to look in London, Frankfurt, or Singapore.
If a handful of crypto corporations safe nationwide belief charters and run massive custody and stablecoin operations beneath 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 huge open, as a result of it hasn’t.
It is as a substitute 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 principle enterprise danger, that type of gradual, line-by-line clarification could be simply as essential as any splashy new regulation.
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 strains.
How shortly each 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 transient entry within the lengthy historical past of regulators testing the place digital belongings match inside current guidelines.
