U.S. Treasury Signals Banks May Hold Crypto for Specific Use Cases

By Matt Brienen

Published: 2025-11-19T19:00:51+00:00

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), a key regulator under the United States Department of the Treasury, has issued guidance indicating that national banks may hold cryptocurrency on their balance sheets in narrowly defined circumstances. Specifically, banks are permitted to acquire and hold digital assets when doing so supports “otherwise permissible” banking activities — such as paying blockchain network transaction (gas) fees or testing crypto-related platforms.

This marks a shift from earlier guidance, which generally required banks to obtain prior regulatory approval before engaging in many crypto activities. The new stance effectively authorizes banks to internalize certain crypto operations instead of outsourcing those activities entirely to third-party providers. According to OCC counsel Adam Cohen, allowing banks to hold crypto under these conditions enables them to expand existing permissible functions without taking on unnecessary operational or counterparty risk.

That said, the permission is limited and does not imply unrestricted crypto holdings by banks. The guidance emphasizes that crypto-asset holdings must be tied to approved activities and compliant with existing risk, compliance and regulatory frameworks. From a broader perspective, this development moves the U.S. banking sector one step closer to integrating blockchain infrastructure, allowing incumbents to explore on-chain settlement and payments inside regulated banking entities.

For crypto markets and institutional participants, the message is clear: regulated banks are beginning to gain clearer pathways for engaging with digital assets—not just as intermediaries or custodians, but as active users in support of blockchain-based operations. As banks explore those opportunities, the industry should watch how these holdings are accounted for, how risk-management frameworks evolve, and how much this shifts the infrastructure of traditional finance toward on-chain rails.

If you like, I can pull together how this contrasts with banking-crypto rules in other jurisdictions and what it could mean for upcoming bank balance-sheet disclosures.