With over a decade tracking the intersection of traditional banking and digital assets, I've observed U.S. regulators increasingly facilitating crypto's integration into the financial system, even as banks mount sustained resistance through comments and lobbying. This dynamic reflects banks' concerns over competitive equity and systemic risks, a tension that has grown since crypto's inception but intensified with recent approvals like spot Bitcoin ETFs and stablecoin frameworks.
Consider the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC)’s recent initiatives. Last week, the comment period closed on a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) clarifying national trust banks’ activities. In December 2025, the OCC conditionally approved five charters for applications of subsidiaries from crypto firms—Ripple, Circle, Paxos, BitGo, and Fidelity—likely focusing on digital asset custody. Anchorage Digital Bank, N.A., chartered in January 2021 as the first federal crypto bank, already provides crypto services such as safekeeping, settlement, staking, and governance for institutions.
The OCC states the NPRM addresses ambiguities in 12 CFR 5.20, aligning with the National Bank Act (12 U.S.C. § 27(a)). It replaces "fiduciary activities" with "operations of a trust company and activities related thereto," confirming trust banks can handle fiduciary and non-fiduciary tasks like custody without core banking functions. The agency notes its trust banks custody nearly $2 trillion, affirming this codifies longstanding practices.
Banking associations have countered forcefully. The Conference of State Bank Supervisors (CSBS) argued in its comment letter that trusts must emphasize fiduciary roles. "Congress did not give the OCC open-ended, 'choose your own adventure’ chartering authority," it stated. In a press release from CSBS, President and CEO Brandon Milhorn said, "The OCC does not have blanket chartering authority, as proven time and again by Congress and the courts." According to Milhorn, the OCC is limited to deposit-taking banks, fiduciary trusts, or bankers' banks, calling crypto versions "Franken-charters": "The OCC cannot create Franken-charters by cobbling together bits and pieces of all three."
The American Bankers Association (ABA) urged prohibiting "bank" in non-traditional applicants’ names to avoid confusion. This ties to broader issues, as Joseph Cox, partner at Oliver Wyman, explains he sees the heart of the issue. Cox explains by obtaining a national trust bank charter through the OCC, firms avoid restrictions on the parent or company that owns the bank, as laid out in the Bank Holding Company Act (BHCA). BHCA requirements apply to larger banks such as Wells Fargo and JP Morgan Chase, but doesn’t apply to these OCC trust bank charters. "If you actually go and look at the Bank Holding Company Act itself, it has tight restrictions on what sorts of trust banks are exempt from the BHCA," Cox said. "So it’s supposed to be that you’re only engaged in fiduciary activities. You’re not placing deposits at an affiliate, and you don’t have payment or borrowing from the Federal Reserve." Cox formerly helped build and lead the Novel Activities Supervision Program at the Federal Reserve, which supervised banks engaged in crypto, distributed ledger technology, and fintech activities.
Cox outlines the intent of the BHCA, which is parent strength and banking-commerce separation. "One concern would be if some of these new trusts are owned by companies taking excessive risks. Another would be if they were using the trust to unfairly subsidize commercial businesses," Cox noted. Yet, with applicants mostly financial, he sees the core dispute as fairness: "It's really a level playing field issue where these trusts are set up to compete with banks but are subject to a different regulatory regime."
What Types of Crypto Offerings are Big Banks Exploring?
Regarding what types of activities in crypto that hold the interest of banks, Cox pointed to Bitcoin ETFs. “The BlackRock Bitcoin ETF is massively successful, and so as a result, there’s interest in related services. If you’re a major bank custodian, you might be interested in being the custodian for an ETF—that’s a pretty traditional activity. Banks already are the custodian for lots of ETFs; they also provide fund administration services,” said Cox.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) looks to align with the OCC in a way that will only accelerate the growth of crypto and stablecoins in the banking and financial system. Specifically, its February 2026 guidance (clarifying December 2025’s guidance to ensure national trust banks would be included) to futures commission merchants to use payment stablecoins from national trust banks as margin collateral, enabling tokenized assets in derivatives. Cox elaborates: "If you look at the December guidance, the CFTC is providing a pathway for a broad set of new collateral in derivatives, including tokenized securities and money funds, stablecoins, and even crypto assets like bitcoin. That could have massive implications for derivatives markets, though the big bank derivatives providers will need to figure out how to manage all of the complexity around enforceability, haircuts, and operational risks."
Cox highlights one area of interest for the banks include tokenized money funds: “We have seen a lot of interest in tokenized money funds in particular, which would provide a yield-bearing asset with limited credit risk. From a financial stability perspective, there could be benefits because one source of strain in money markets during stress is the need to redeem money funds for cash to meet margin calls. If you could post the money fund as collateral without needing to redeem, that could take pressure off of markets. But it could go the other way and cause contagion from money markets to derivatives, if valuation pressures in money funds like we saw in 2008 and 2020 led to margin calls on derivatives.”
As regulators enable crypto in derivatives, custody, and payments, incumbents worry about arbitrage and risks without equivalent safeguards, trying to calibrate how innovations such as crypto and stablecoins will impact the banking and financial landscape in the long-term.