Top U.S. Banking Regulator Gould Says Crypto Debanking 'Is Real'

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Jonathan Gould, in his opening weeks of running the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, left no uncertainty about his view of the systematic process to drop crypto people and businesses from banking relationships.

"Debanking is real," he told an audience Wednesday at CoinDesk's Policy and Regulation event in Washington, D.C. "It is a real phenomenon," he noted, adding that he was hearing stories as recently as last week about people with corporate accounts being told "we don't want your business here."

In his push to make the U.S. the crypto center of the world, President Donald Trump has appointed digital-assets-friendly regulators such as Gould to enact his executive orders to bolster the industry. Gould said he's been busy at the start of his tenure addressing debanking, reversing "anti-crypto licensing conditions that we imposed" and starting work on new stablecoin regulations.

Earlier this week, Gould's OCC issued a statement saying it had taken actions "to eliminate politicized or unlawful debanking in the federal banking system." While other industries with perceived riskiness or reputational problems have experienced banking difficulties, it was crypto insiders' struggle with banks that brought this issue to a head.

He said he's excited to start the "big undertaking" of writing the rules required under the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act, under which the OCC will be a federal regulator for certain U.S. and all foreign stablecoin issuers whose tokens circulate here. The process by which crypto companies can license or charter as banks will get closer attention, he said, now that he's moved this week to make that function a direct report to his office.

"We have historically — or at least over the last few years — pursued more of a risk-elimination strategy where we wanted to kind of prevent the banks from getting involved in this at all," he said. Gould, a former executive at Bitfury, suggested that period in which the OCC was reluctant to allow banks to engage in crypto business is over.

The traditional banking system has been eyeing the stablecoin law nervously for its potential undermining of its core deposits business, but Gould said those fears are likely overblown, suggesting other deposit-similar products such as money market funds never killed off that mainstay of banking.

Read More: Former Bitfury Exec Gould Confirmed to Take Over U.S. Banking Agency OCC