US banks just unlocked a loophole to profit from your crypto trades without holding the bag
On Dec. 9, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency put out a press launch with a very direct message for US banks: you’re allowed to sit in the center of crypto trades.
In the memorably titled News Release 2025-121, the OCC published the one way or the other 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 purchaser to one buyer and vendor to one other, whereas maintaining no significant stock of tokens themselves.
A day earlier, Comptroller Jonathan Gould stood earlier than a room of trade individuals and made a completely different, however intently associated, level.
He stated he noticed no cause to deal with digital belongings as a separate species when it comes to custody and safekeeping, and he brushed apart a lobbying push from the Bank Policy Institute, which has urged his company to block a wave of crypto companies from acquiring nationwide belief charters.
BPI’s marketing campaign, specified by an October statement titled “BPI Urges OCC to Preserve the Integrity of National Trust Charters,” argues that candidates like giant exchanges, stablecoin issuers, and fintech platforms need to use belief charters as a again door into bank-like actions without carrying the full load of deposit insurance coverage and holding-company supervision.
Taken collectively, the interpretive letter and Gould’s remarks define a clear path for the trade’s future. The OCC will not 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 underneath what circumstances.
US banks now have express consolation that they’ll match crypto trades for purchasers on a riskless principal foundation, and crypto corporations can see that the door to a nationwide belief constitution is not closed just as a result of their belongings transfer on blockchains reasonably than by way of legacy securities depositories.
Who really runs this a part of the banking system
For anybody outdoors the United States, the alphabet soup of financial institution regulators can really feel like an elaborate puzzle, so it’s value beginning with the fundamentals.
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) is an impartial 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 costs on the banks it oversees reasonably than from annual congressional budgets, which supplies it a diploma 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 Currency sits at the high of this construction. Gould, sworn on this summer season, serves each as the OCC’s chief government and as a member of our bodies comparable to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation board and the Financial Stability Oversight Council, which implies his views attain into broader debates about monetary stability and market plumbing.
His core energy, although, may 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 underneath federal legislation. At the federal stage, the OCC manages these licenses; at the state stage, separate regulators difficulty their very own variations.
The OCC’s Licensing Manual on charters particulars the course of totally, from preliminary software to remaining approval. Organizers should show that their proposed financial institution has adequate capital, a credible administration group, a marketing strategy able to withstanding stress, and threat controls overlaying all the things from fundamental credit score threat to operational and cyber dangers.
New digital-only banks are anticipated to meet the similar requirements, with added scrutiny on expertise and third-party suppliers.
Within that world, a nationwide belief financial institution occupies a slim however necessary 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 targeted on performing as trustee, executor, funding supervisor, or custodian of belongings.
These entities often do not take deposits in the atypical retail sense and sometimes don’t carry FDIC insurance coverage. Because of that construction, many nationwide belief banks don’t meet the definition of a “financial institution” underneath the Bank Holding Company Act, which implies their mum or dad corporations can keep away from the full weight of consolidated holding-company supervision.
That authorized design explains why belief charters have turn out to be the focus of a tug-of-war. For crypto companies that need to maintain prospects’ tokens, handle stablecoin reserves, or sit at the heart of settlement flows without turning into full industrial banks, a nationwide belief constitution affords three issues without delay: a federal supervisor, nationwide attain, and a path that will keep outdoors 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 giant 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.” At the similar time, some digital-asset candidates search to run broader fee and reserve companies.
Gould’s public line has been that expertise 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 similar logic underlies Interpretive Letter 1188, which depends on earlier court docket circumstances 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 providers.
What this implies for crypto custody and buying and selling
The new letter does one very rapid factor for US establishments: it tells nationwide banks that they might stand in the center of buyer crypto trades, as long as they construction these trades as matched principal transactions and handle the dangers with the similar care they might apply to securities.
The financial institution should purchase a digital asset from one buyer and instantly promote it to one other, reserving two offsetting positions that depart it with no internet publicity past settlement and operational threat.
For tokens that rely as securities, this sits on well-worn floor underneath part 24 of the National Bank Act. For different crypto-assets, the letter walks by way of a four-factor check and concludes that the exercise nonetheless suits inside the “enterprise of banking.”
For giant banks which have saved crypto at arm’s size, that represents a sensible opening. It means they’ll construct customer-facing crypto brokerage and routing providers that hold steadiness sheet threat to a minimal, reasonably than dabbling by way of loosely related associates or leaving the discipline solely to exchanges.
It additionally sits atop earlier OCC letters that already described how banks might maintain stablecoin reserves and supply fundamental custody providers for crypto.
On the constitution facet, Gould’s refusal to give BPI the blanket reply it wished might matter much more for the market’s form over the subsequent few years. The OCC’s constitution handbook reminds candidates that any limited-purpose belief financial institution should nonetheless fulfill the similar core requirements of capital, administration, threat management, and group wants as a full nationwide financial institution.
If the company begins approving digital-asset companies that meet these exams, the core of US crypto custody and settlement may migrate into nationwide belief banks that put on OCC supervision on their masthead.
For exchanges, that might create a route to supply institutional purchasers 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 may 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 outdoors the full financial institution framework.
For prime brokers and asset managers, the phrase “OCC-supervised nationwide belief financial institution” on a due diligence guidelines seems 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 similar 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 underneath its constitution guidelines to weigh administration high quality, monetary power, and group advantages, and it will probably connect bespoke capital or liquidity circumstances to any belief financial institution approval. That means the actual filter for crypto companies will sit in examination groups and supervisory agreements, not just in headline speeches.
Globally, the path set in Washington tends to echo outward. Large banks that function throughout continents typically look to US guidelines when deciding the place and the way to construct new traces of enterprise, and international regulators watch the OCC intently as a result of its choices form the behaviour of a few of the world’s largest steadiness sheets.
If US nationwide banks begin providing riskless principal routing for Bitcoin and Ethereum underneath clear OCC steerage, that may affect how international purchasers count on these providers to look in London, Frankfurt, or Singapore.
If a handful of crypto companies safe nationwide belief charters and run giant custody and stablecoin operations underneath federal supervision, that may current a very 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 trade right here is not that the US banking system has thrown the doorways extensive open, as a result of it hasn’t.
It’s as an alternative that the key 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 trendy type of safekeeping, belief charters as a dwelling for fiduciary and reserve exercise.
In a market the place regulatory uncertainty is the essential enterprise threat, that type of gradual, line-by-line clarification could be just as essential as any splashy new legislation.
Crypto companies that need to plug into US institutional cash now have a clearer image of the homework they want to do. Banks that need to transfer past white-label merchandise can see the place their very own supervisors are keen to draw the traces.
How rapidly each side stroll by way of that opening will resolve whether or not OCC Letter 1188 and Gould’s speech mark the begin of a new period of bank-run crypto plumbing or just one other temporary entry in the lengthy historical past of regulators testing the place digital belongings match inside current guidelines.
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