US Federal Regulator Says Banks Can Conduct Payments Using Stablecoins

The top banking regulator in the U.S. has announced that national banks and savings associations in the country can use public blockchains and stablecoins for payment activities. Experts say this is good for bitcoin and its importance should not be understated. Banks Can Use Public Blockchains and Stablecoins The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) published an interpretive letter on Monday “clarifying national banks’ and federal savings associations’ authority to participate in independent node verification networks (INVN) and use stablecoins to conduct....

Federal Reserve Board Governor Christopher Waller says that stablecoins do not need to be regulated with all the same rules as banks. He disagrees with some of the recommendations on stablecoin regulation by the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets. He explained that while banks should be able to issue stablecoins, not all stablecoin issuers need to be banks. Fed’s Waller Disagrees That Stablecoins Need to Be Regulated With Full Banking Regulation Federal Reserve Board Governor Christopher Waller talked about stablecoin regulation Wednesday during a virtual....

A multi-disciplinary research team from the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, after conducting interviews with “approximately 30 key industry stakeholders, including market infrastructures, financial institutions, other government agencies, technology start-ups, more-established technology firms, and industry consortia,” stated in a recently published paper that, although it is unlikely, the “use of banks to conduct payments could become obsolete,” by the use of blockchain technology. The....

Federal banks in the U.S. see new capacity to provide services to crypto firms, specifically stablecoin operators. Per an interpretive letter from the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency released on Monday, national banks will be free to hold reserve currencies for stablecoins.The new guidance reads, "We conclude that a national bank may hold such stablecoin 'reserves' as a service to bank customers."Alongside the announcement, Acting Comptroller of the Currency Brian Brooks noted that stablecoin services are already a part of many banks' activities: “National banks and federal....

Patrick McHenry implied that the U.S.' regulation of stablecoins with a “single regulator at the federal level” would likely fail. Whether regulations on stablecoins and digital assets should be addressed at the state or federal level was the topic of discussion among at least two U.S. lawmakers in a hearing for the House Committee on Financial Services.Speaking virtually at a Tuesday hearing titled “Digital Assets and the Future of Finance: The President’s Working Group on Financial Markets’ Report on Stablecoins,” North Carolina Representative and ranking committee member Patrick McHenry....