According to the source, the OCC chief warned that banks that block crypto custody risk irrelevance to clients seeking digital-asset services, aligning with existing OCC guidance that permits national banks to offer crypto custody (source: the source post; source: OCC Interpretive Letter 1170, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, July 2020). OCC letters 1172 and 1174 further permit banks to hold stablecoin issuer reserves and to use independent node verification networks and stablecoins for payments, outlining clear pathways for bank participation in digital assets (source: OCC Interpretive Letter 1172, OCC, Sept 2020; source: OCC Interpretive Letter 1174, OCC, Jan 2021). Banks must still obtain supervisory nonobjection before engaging in these activities and address accounting treatment under SEC Staff Accounting Bulletin 121, both of which have constrained some large banks’ crypto custody offerings (source: OCC Chief Counsel Interpretive Letter 1179, OCC, Nov 2021; source: SEC Staff Accounting Bulletin No. 121, U.S. SEC, Mar 31, 2022). For traders, confirmation of bank-led custody or stablecoin reserve services would expand qualified custodial options for institutions and enable mandate-compliant participation in BTC and ETH markets because banks are qualified custodians under the SEC Custody Rule (source: 17 CFR 275.206(4)-2, SEC Custody Rule; source: OCC Interpretive Letter 1170, OCC, July 2020). Monitor regulatory filings and bank disclosures for new crypto custody launches and for updates from U.S. banking regulators that could accelerate or slow institutional adoption (source: Federal Reserve, FDIC, and OCC Joint Statement on Crypto-Asset Risks to Banking Organizations, Jan 3, 2023).

According to @LexSokolin, the target state for finance is decentralized, automated, AI-powered and broadly accessible, but near-term resistance is concentrated in regulation, custody capital costs, AML enforcement, smart contract risk and AI governance, which directly shape venue liquidity, listings and event risk for BTC and ETH. Source: Lex Sokolin on X Custody capital rules deter banks from scaling crypto services because SEC Staff Accounting Bulletin No. 121 requires customer crypto assets to be carried on balance sheet, and President Biden vetoed a 2024 resolution to repeal it, keeping constraints in place for U.S. incumbents and limiting spot liquidity bridges. Source: SEC SAB 121; White House Veto Message May 2024 In the EU, MiCA’s stablecoin provisions entered into application in 2024 and the Crypto-Asset Service Provider regime starts from December 2024 with national transitions into 2025, steering exchange authorization, stablecoin issuance, and cross-border flows that traders must track for order book depth and euro liquidity pairs. Source: Regulation (EU) 2023/1114 MiCA; ESMA and EBA MiCA implementation updates 2024 Global AML requirements such as the FATF Travel Rule are still unevenly implemented across jurisdictions, prompting exchanges and brokers to harden withdrawals and counterparty checks, which can fragment liquidity and lengthen settlement paths for arbitrage between on-chain DeFi and centralized venues. Source: FATF Targeted Update on Virtual Assets and VASPs, 2023 and 2024 Institutional adoption of automated DeFi is slowed by oracle risk, governance concentration and smart contract exploit history, keeping higher risk premia on DeFi yields versus equivalent TradFi credit and affecting pricing of governance tokens and LP returns. Source: BIS The crypto ecosystem: key elements and risks 2023; IOSCO Policy Recommendations for Decentralised Finance 2023 AI-driven trading and advice face pending guardrails, as the SEC proposed rules on predictive data analytics for brokers and advisers and the EU adopted the AI Act, implying added model governance and disclosure for AI-enabled execution, which raises vendor risk and time-to-market for AI trading tools in crypto. Source: SEC July 2023 PDA conflicts proposal; European Parliament adoption of the AI Act 2024 Access remains a policy priority given 1.4 billion adults were unbanked in 2021, but onramps still require KYC and consumer protections, delaying universal access and keeping fiat rails as the binding constraint for retail crypto participation. Source: World Bank Global Findex 2021