Blockchain Legal Resource

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) issued Interpretive Letter 1174 on January 4, 2021, clarifying the authority of national banks and federal savings associations to buy, sell, and issue stablecoins and participate in independent node verification networks (INVNs) in order to conduct payment activities and other bank-permissible functions.

Wyoming recently awarded its second special-purpose depository institution (SPDI) charter to Avanti Bank. Kraken was the first institution to receive the newly created SPDI charter in September. As Wyoming had likely hoped when it passed a flurry of blockchain legislation, it appears that it is starting to take hold as a digital-asset-friendly banking state. The state has now chartered two new banks in less than two months; before September, the last newly chartered bank in Wyoming was approved over a decade ago.

On Monday, September 21, 2020, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (“OCC”) issued an interpretive letter on the authority of national banks and federal savings associations to hold stablecoin reserves (the “OCC Interpretive Letter”). That same day, the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Strategic Hub for Innovation and Financial Technology (“FinHub”) issued a statement on the OCC’s interpretive letter. While not an official joint statement, the federal agencies were clearly aligned as FinHub’s statement on the OCC Interpretive Letter was posted on its website before the OCC published its letter.

On Wednesday, September 16, 2020, the cryptocurrency exchange Kraken Financial became the first crypto company to obtain a bank charter. The Wyoming Division of Banking approved Kraken’s application for a special-purpose depository institution (SPDI) charter, which is a new type of bank charter that Wyoming specifically designed for crypto businesses. This makes Kraken the first de novo bank chartered in the state since 2006.