At the inaugural White House Crypto Summit Friday, President Trump said that he was “ending Operation Choke Point 2.0,” referring to an alleged broad effort by the Biden administration to debank cryptocurrency companies.
Some industry insiders have gone so far as to argue that alleged coordination between federal bank regulators the FDIC, Federal Reserve Board, and OCC violated federal law. Unchained reported in October that bank regulators had told several banks to limit deposits from crypto companies to 15% of the banks’ total deposits and had also treated real-time payment platforms favored by crypto companies with intense scrutiny.
New Crypto Guidance for Banks
Shortly after the summit the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency issued updated guidance for financial institutions serving cryptocurrency companies which told banks to now use their own risk mitigation tools to assess how to service the industry.
“The OCC expects banks to have the same strong risk management controls in place to support novel bank activities as they do for traditional ones,” said Acting Comptroller of the Currency Rodney E. Hood in a press release issued shortly after the summit. “Today’s action will reduce the burden on banks to engage in crypto-related activities and ensure that these bank activities are treated consistently by the OCC, regardless of the underlying technology. I will continue to work diligently to ensure regulations are effective and not excessive, while maintaining a strong federal banking system.”
Friday’s updated OCC guidance repeals a requirement from a previous OCC Interpretive Letter, #1179, from November 2021 that required banks under its supervision to get pre-approval for the regulator to engage in activities like custodying crypto or processing payments using stablecoins or distributed ledgers.
Now, banks will be able to make those decisions on their own.
The Crypto Glitterati
The first-of-its kind summit convened approximately 20 cryptocurrency executives including Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, Gemini co-founders Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, and Strategy CEO Michael Saylor.
Several federal officials were present including AI and Crypto Czar David Sacks, Executive Director of the Presidential Council of Advisers for Digital Assets Bo Hines, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Small Business Administration Administrator Kelly Loeffler, Acting CFTC Chair Caroline Pham and SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce.
Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent also made several promises at the White House summit. In addition to pledging to “end the regulatory weaponization against digital assets,” he also said that the Treasury would use stablecoins to keep the US dollar the world’s reserve currency and, in collaboration with the Internal Revenue Service, “rescind and amend all applicable previous guidance.”
Today’s summit occurred one day after Trump signed an executive order creating the first Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and Digital Asset Stockpile for the U.S.
This article will be updated with further information from the crypto summit.
