Breaking: The U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency: Banks can freely trade encryption assets and custody them without prior approval.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) has released its latest Interpretation Letter 1184, which allows the National Bank and the Federal Reserve Association to provide crypto asset custody and enforcement services without prior approval, significantly lowering the regulatory threshold for traditional financial institutions to enter the digital asset market. (Summary: US stablecoin legislation urgent" Democratic Party brakes: GENIUS law has loopholes, crypto-friendly policies become Trump's self-fattening tools) (Background supplement: Learn about 2025 US cryptocurrency ETFs: staking, Solana and the listing frenzy) The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) issued a key explanatory letter 1184 on May 7, 2025, providing clearer guidance for the National Bank of America and the Federal Reserve Association to participate in crypto asset activities. This document continues the discussion basis of previous explanatory letters 1170 and 1183, and its core breakthrough is to make it clear that these federally chartered banks and savings associations can now provide custody and execution services for crypto assets without prior additional regulatory approval or supervisory no-objection. This means that banks have more freedom to build their own cryptocurrency trading systems or outsource services to third parties that meet risk control standards, provided that all activities are carried out in a "banking standard" safe and robust manner and comply with all applicable laws and regulations, including strict due diligence, a comprehensive third-party risk management framework, and robust information security protections. The release of Letter 1184 significantly lowers the regulatory threshold for banks to engage in crypto-asset business. According to the document, banks can provide a wide range of specific services, including buy-sell transactions (execution) at the direction of customers, transaction settlement, necessary record keeping, asset valuation, tax services, customer reporting, and other services related to crypto asset activity in addition to core crypto asset custody. This move has important implications for the entire crypto ecosystem, with the U.S. setting the tone for the banking sector to operate crypto assets freely, and may also attract more institutional investors to enter the market, thereby increasing market liquidity and stability, and promoting the tokenization (RWA) of real-world assets. In addition, the clarification of the interpretation letter also provides clearer regulatory support for banks to deal with stablecoin business, and even allows banks to participate in blockchain verification work under eligible conditions, further expanding the scope of bank participation in the cryptocurrency field. Related reports Yang Jinlong clarified the "truth of the explosion of the Taiwan dollar": the central bank was not instructed by the United States, the market was full of false information to interfere with expectations that AI really began to grab human jobs" Global manufacturers accelerated layoffs, American college students were unemployed after graduation. This article was first published in BlockTempo's "The Most Influential Blockchain News Media".