Fed Joins OCC, FDIC in Withdrawing Crypto Warnings for U.S. Banks

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Like the other U.S. bank agencies, the Fed has swept the decks of previous directives to bankers that they get sign-offs from the regulator for crypto activity.

Apr 24, 2025, 10:38 p.m.

The Federal Reserve has joined its fellow U.S. banking regulators in deleting its crypto guidance of previous years, including notices that banks should get pre-approvals before they get involved in crypto activity.

Now, all three agencies — including the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. — have joined in reversing those previous policies, leaving crypto matters at banks in the hands of their managers and compliance executives. In the absence of guidance, the banking industry awaits new laws from Congress to define how the digital assets industry should operate in the U.S.

"These actions ensure the Board's expectations remain aligned with evolving risks and further support innovation in the banking system," the Fed said in the Thursday statement announcing the change.

Banking supervision of its state member banks is one of the multiple roles performed by the Fed, which is better known for its monetary policy work. The agency's move on Thursday will specifically remove four pieces of crypto guidance the board signed onto in 2022 and 2023, highlighting risks to banks posed by the sector.

Fed officials "will instead monitor banks' crypto-asset activities through the normal supervisory process."

Jesse Hamilton

Jesse Hamilton is CoinDesk's deputy managing editor on the Global Policy and Regulation team, based in Washington, D.C. Before joining CoinDesk in 2022, he worked for more than a decade covering Wall Street regulation at Bloomberg News and Businessweek, writing about the early whisperings among federal agencies trying to decide what to do about crypto. He’s won several national honors in his reporting career, including from his time as a war correspondent in Iraq and as a police reporter for newspapers. Jesse is a graduate of Western Washington University, where he studied journalism and history. He has no crypto holdings.