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US Regulators Weigh Avenues for Banks to Hold Crypto: Report
Comments from a top U.S. regulator demonstrate crypto’s prominent rise this year and a rush to contain particular aspects of the industry.
Updated May 11, 2023, 6:12 p.m. Published Oct 28, 2021, 3:09 p.m.
A team of U.S. bank regulators is devising ways in which banks may hold crypto on their balance sheets, provide custody and facilitate client trading.
In an interview with Reuters reported Monday, Jelena McWilliams, chair of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC), said banks needed to be allowed to get involved with crypto.
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“If we don’t bring this activity inside the banks, it is going to develop outside of the banks,” McWilliams said. “The federal regulators won’t be able to regulate it.”
The FDIC is one of the federal banking regulators in the U.S. and one of two entities that provide deposit insurance to federally regulated institutions.
Comments from a top U.S. regulator demonstrate crypto’s prominent rise this year and a rush to regulate and contain particular aspects of the industry as it relates to the traditional finance sector.
Read more: US FDIC Said to Be Studying Deposit Insurance for Stablecoins
Speaking to the Federalist Society in May, McWilliams said her agency wanted to hear from banks about how they are approaching crypto and what role the regulator should play.
A week later, The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Federal Reserve and the FDIC began exploring an interagency policy team to examine the cryptocurrency sector.
“My goal in this interagency group is to basically provide a path for banks to be able to act as a custodian of these assets, use crypto assets, digital assets as some form of collateral,” McWilliams said as cited by Reuters.
“At some point in time, we’re going to tackle how and under what circumstances banks can hold them on their balance sheet.”
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KuCoin captured a record share of centralised exchange volume in 2025, with more than $1.25tn traded as its volumes grew faster than the wider crypto market.
Yang perlu diketahui:
- KuCoin recorded over $1.25 trillion in total trading volume in 2025, equivalent to an average of roughly $114 billion per month, marking its strongest year on record.
- This performance translated into an all-time high share of centralised exchange volume, as KuCoin’s activity expanded faster than aggregate CEX volumes, which slowed during periods of lower market volatility.
- Spot and derivatives volumes were evenly split, each exceeding $500 billion for the year, signalling broad-based usage rather than reliance on a single product line.
- Altcoins accounted for the majority of trading activity, reinforcing KuCoin’s role as a primary liquidity venue beyond BTC and ETH at a time when majors saw more muted turnover.
- Even as overall crypto volumes softened mid-year, KuCoin maintained elevated baseline activity, indicating structurally higher user engagement rather than short-lived volume spikes.
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A few Republicans have crypto's destiny in their hands at the SEC, CFTC
After holiday leadership shifts, the two U.S. markets regulators — the SEC and CFTC — are now run only by pro-crypto Republicans, with Congress still debating.
Yang perlu diketahui:
- The crypto industry finally has two permanent, crypto-friendly chairmen at the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and they have no Democratic pushback.
- The lack of fully stocked commissions at the market regulators is a big problem in the eyes of Senate Democrats negotiating the crypto market structure bill.
- The lone remaining Democrat, Caroline Crenshaw, left the SEC last week.
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