Jonathan Gould, head of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), said companies seeking a U.S. federal bank charter for crypto activities should be judged by the same standards as other financial institutions. Speaking at a blockchain conference, Gould noted that custody and safekeeping functions have been handled electronically for decades and argued there is no basis for treating digital assets differently.
Gould warned against confining banks to legacy technologies or business models, saying the banking system can ‘evolve from the telegraph to the blockchain.’ He highlighted that the OCC has seen a surge in interest: 14 applications to start new banks so far this year include entities involved in novel or digital-asset activities, a volume nearly equal to similar applications received over the previous four years.
According to Gould, chartering provides a framework that helps the banking system adapt to financial innovation and supports the modern economy. That framework, he said, should offer a clear pathway for firms working with digital assets and other new technologies to become federally supervised banks.
He acknowledged concerns from existing banks and trade groups about crypto firms obtaining charters and questioned the OCC’s capacity to supervise them. But Gould cautioned that resisting these changes risks undoing innovations that could benefit customers and local economies. He pointed out the OCC’s practical experience supervising a crypto-native national trust bank and said the agency regularly hears from national banks developing their own innovative products and services.
Drawing on that experience and ongoing industry engagement, Gould expressed confidence in the OCC’s ability to supervise both new entrants and the evolving activities of established banks in a fair and even-handed way. To date, only two crypto firms have OCC-related charters: Anchorage Digital, chartered in 2021, and Erebor, which received a preliminary national trust charter in October.
