OCC terminates consent order against Anchorage Digital

Bloomberg News

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency Thursday announced its termination of a consent order with crypto trust bank Anchorage Digital, saying the bank had remedied anti-money laundering shortcomings previously identified by the agency in 2022. 

Nathan McCauley, Co-Founder and CEO of Anchorage — currently the only digital asset company with an OCC trust charter — reflected on the progress the company has made as the first federally regulated crypto bank, framing the termination of the enforcement order as proof of the viability of crypto trust banks. 

"We have built what has become the world's most regulated digital asset bank," McCauley said in a statement. "The most recent of those 1,681 days [since we received a federal charter] have been marked by a movement that would have once been unthinkable: A wave of companies following in our footsteps. We welcome the competition. As we've long said, when it comes to crypto, no one bank can go at it alone."

The Sioux Falls, South Dakota based cryptocurrency bank says it has restructured its leadership and expanded its compliance infrastructure to address regulatory shortcomings

since the OCC's consent order. The company says it has also scaled its compliance team, strengthened internal controls, automated certain processes, and invested in building a pipeline of talent.

Anchorage's model is being mimicked by a number of other crypto firms vying for national trust charters. Paxos is the latest nonbank crypto firm to seek a National Trust Charter, following applications by Ripple, which operates altcoin XRP, crypto firm Circle and payment company Wise in June.

That increasing interest in trust charters from crypto firms has stoked concern from the banking industry. Last month, the American Bankers Association sent a letter to the OCC urging the agency to pause its review of these applications pending a broader review of whether these applicants' business plans align with the purpose of the national trust charter. 

Banking advocates worry that the growth of stablecoins could siphon trillions of core deposits from community banks, undermining their ability to fund local lending. An estimate from the Treasury predicts that stablecoins could grow to over $6 trillion in volume, a sea-change in the financial system that banks fear would pull primarily from bank deposits, reducing banks profitability and their ability to stimulate the economy.

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Fintech advocates say that national trust charters don't create loopholes, but instead promote competition. They argue the OCC's trust charter framework provides a legitimate path for new business models that can better serve customers to enter and compete with the banking sector.

Anchorage CEO McCauley in June urged banks to get into the business of digital assets at the Digital Banking Conference, arguing that market conditions and regulatory support have aligned in favor of adoption.

"We've got nothing less than full embrace of bitcoin across the ecosystem," McCauley said at the conference. 

Comptroller of the Currency Jonathan Gould is expected to sustain the OCC's fintech-friendly regulatory posture in the Trump administration. As OCC General Counsel he penned an interpretive letter expanding the kinds of products national trust-chartered institutions could offer, and following his tenure at OCC he joined blockchain firm Bitfury as an executive before returning to government in the second Trump administration.

In his nomination hearing before the Senate Banking Committee, Gould criticized previous regulatory approaches as stifling innovation and warned against deterring banks from working with crypto firms. 

"If banks are to serve their role supporting the U.S. economy, they must be allowed to engage in prudent risk-taking," he said in his opening remarks. "But in the years since 2008, bank regulators have at times tried to eliminate rather than manage risk, frustrating the ability of banks to fulfill their function. This blinkered approach to risk management has implications for the cost and availability of credit, the system's ability to absorb shocks, and its adoption of new technologies and embrace of innovation."