Durbin, Whitehouse, Sanders Join Effort to Revoke OCC Crypto Guidance

SOURCE: American Banker

Three prominent Democratic senators joined an effort to eliminate Trump-era regulatory guidance that cleared national banks to explore digital assets and other crypto-related banking activity. 

In a letter first drafted and circulated last week by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts last week, the lawmaker urged the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to rescind a series of interpretive letters issued during the tenure of the acting comptroller, Brian Brooks. 

On Wednesday, Warren's office announced the letter had been sent to the OCC and that three additional senators had signed on to it: Dick Durbin, D-Ill., Sheldon Whitehouse, D-Rhode Island, and Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. 

Of the quartet, only Warren currently sits on the Senate Banking Committee. But Durbin, Sanders and Whitehouse have all served in the U.S. Senate for more than a decade and hold significant influence on Capitol Hill, and their support for Warren's letter will amplify the pressure on the OCC to further limit banks' crypto aspirations. (Banks, meanwhile, pleaded with the Biden administration this week to let them do more work with digital assets.)