US banks are officially allowed to work with cryptocurrency

The U.S. financial system is making a turn that has been awaited for nearly ten years: the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) has, for the first time, officially allowed American banks to conduct cryptocurrency operations for clients. The decision is historic, as it effectively removes crypto from the semi-shadow zone and places it on the same level as traditional financial products.

What this means in practice:
• Now it will be possible to buy cryptocurrency directly through your bank – without workaround brokers, dubious platforms, and the search for liquidity in the dim corners of the internet.
• Banks receive the right to launch their own crypto services: from custodial solutions to settlement operations and managing clients’ crypto positions.
• Risks for users are significantly reduced – settlements will be conducted within a regulated banking infrastructure where every step is written out, audited, and leaves little room for surprises (well, almost).

How the mechanism works
The OCC described in detail the architecture of bank interaction with the crypto market. The model will be based on an agency principle. This means the bank acts not as a custodian or trader of cryptocurrency, but as an intermediary between the two sides of the transaction.

When a bank’s client wants to buy cryptocurrency, the bank enters into a transaction with that client and simultaneously opens a mirror, compensating position with another market participant. Essentially, the bank becomes a liquidity bridge: it matches supply and demand, ensuring settlement and guaranteeing execution, while not holding cryptocurrency on its own balance sheet.

This approach solves two problems at once:

• • the bank eliminates cryptocurrency volatility for itself and does not risk its own assets,
• • clients receive a regulated and protected way to buy and sell digital assets.

According to the OCC, this initiative will help users move en masse from unregulated crypto exchanges to transparent and fully legal financial instruments. Put simply, the regulator hopes that the fewer people who trade on questionable platforms, the less often it has to investigate why “yesterday there were 3 BTC, and today there is neither BTC nor the platform”.

Restrictions and requirements for banks
The permission comes with an extensive list of requirements:

• • mandatory verification of the legality and economic rationale of each transaction, as well as its compliance with the bank’s charter powers;
• • implementation of procedures to control operational, legal, and compliance risks, including continuous monitoring of client transactions;
  
  
• • proven expertise in managing counterparty default risk and the ability to maintain stability in conditions of increased market volatility.

In other words: if you want to work with crypto, create the infrastructure, train your staff, prove to the regulator that you understand what you are getting into, and only then you will get the green light.

What this means for the market
The OCC’s decision may become a turning point for the U.S. crypto landscape. Access to cryptocurrencies through traditional banks increases retail client trust, accelerates institutional inflows, and strengthens the influence of regulators over a sector that has lived for many years by its own unwritten rules.

In fact, crypto is getting a ticket to the “major financial league” of the United States, and users are gaining a safer, more predictable, and more secure channel for interacting with digital assets.