Recent regulatory transparency provided by the US banking regulator, The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, or OCC, may give interested institutions the confidence to enter the crypto industry.
“For those of us who have been building this ecosystem for years, it is a great validation of those efforts,” Diogo Monica, president of the Anchorage crypto custody service, told Cointelegraph on July 23, referring to the OCC’s actions.
He added:
“But the real importance here is for the types of institutional actors that may have been on the sidelines in the absence of clear normative guidance. The OCC that comes out and says that more traditional financial institutions can hold crypto effectively erases that concern. ”
OCC move is a victory for the crypto industry
On July 22, the OCC proclaimed custody of digital assets by authorized federal banks as permitted activity. The move provided transparency without changing current guidelines, Morgan Creek Digital co-founder Anthony Pompliano said in a recent YouTube video.
“Yesterday’s OCC letter is a great victory for crypto,” said Monica. “Not only does it bring the necessary regulatory clarity to the digital asset space in the United States, but it also signals to skeptics and the market in general that this asset class is here to stay.”
More banks can enter the industry
Will all banks offer crypto custody in the future? “It’s not so much about whether they will do it, but how they will do it,” Monica said. Holding digital assets for clients currently requires specific technical tools and dexterity, something banks may not currently have, he explained. Blockchain activity and interaction, like stakeout, also brings more complications and requirements.
“Particularly when those shares generate returns, it will be imperative that the trust banks support them through partnerships or sub-custodian relationships with a financial services platform like Anchorage,” he added.
Anchorage, a promising crypto custody team, raised $ 40 million from various companies, including Visa, announced in mid-2019. Since then, the startup has released a series of new developments.
