OCC says banks can hold certain cryptocurrencies to pay gas fees in latest guidance
Banks will pay fuel charges and maintain cryptocurrency wanted to pay these community charges, in keeping with a brand new letter from the Treasury Division’s Workplace of the Comptroller of the Forex.
The OCC, which oversees banks, mentioned banks might should pay community charges as a part of doing enterprise and maintain crypto on stability sheets to pay these charges, in its Interpretive Letter 1186 on Tuesday.
“We affirm that the proposed actions, as described and certified by the Financial institution, are permissible,” the OCC mentioned within the letter.
The OCC referred to Ethereum for example, saying that the Ethereum community requires transactions to be denominated in ETH.
“Such a person must both preserve a separate ETH account, conduct a spot transaction on a crypto-asset trade to acquire ETH previous to the transaction, have interaction with a third-party community fee-provider, or acquire ETH by another technique,” the OCC mentioned. “This course of can add prices and important dangers, together with these associated to operational complexity, asset worth modifications, and delayed transactions.”
Updating crypto steerage
Over the previous 12 months beneath the Trump administration, regulatory businesses, together with the OCC, have shifted their stance towards crypto.
The Federal Reserve has since withdrawn steerage that beforehand discouraged banks from collaborating in crypto.
The central financial institution has additionally, together with the OCC, launched a joint assertion over the summer season setting out how current guidelines apply to banks holding crypto on clients’ behalf, amongst different strikes.
The OCC has additionally clarified that U.S banks can purchase and promote crypto belongings on their behalf. The bureau additionally mentioned it was eradicating references to status threat from its handbooks and steerage, although it famous that it will not change its expectation on how banks deal with dangers.
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