of the Treasury, the OCC, the Federal Reserve and state regulators. 3. Digital Asset Market Structure Legislation. Outside of payment stablecoins, there is markedly less clarity on the future state of market structure regulation across the ecosystem. On July 21, 2025, the Senate Banking Committee circulated its 35-page Clarity Act Discussion Draft, along with a related request for information that included 74 separate inquiries to the industry. The discussion draft was significantly shorter than the 245-page version of the House draft, focusing largely on securities laws with limited attention to the commodities side of the market. Given the volume of industry feedback received and the differences between the House and Senate versions of the Clarity Act, it seems possible that market structure clarity may not occur in 2025. 4. SEC Project Crypto and the CFTC Crypto Sprint. SEC Chair Paul Atkins announced on July 31 in a speech the launch of “Project Crypto,” emphasizing the need for the U.S. financial markets to be at the epicenter of the global crypto ecosystem. More recently, on Aug. 21, CFTC Acting Chairman Caroline D. Pham announced the CFTC’s Crypto Sprint, which has the stated aim of implementing the recommendations outlined in the Digital Asset Working Group’s report. In her words: “The Administration has made it clear that enabling immediate trading of digital assets at the Federal level is a top priority.” The “Business of Banking” in a “Crypto” Era Digital assets have proven to be a technological disruptor to the traditional “business of banking.” However, the legal authority of banks to participate in the crypto-industry has been recognized by the federal banking regulators since as early as 2020, when the OCC issued a trilogy of Interpretive Letters (IL 1170, IL 1172, IL 1174), regarding the types of digital asset services that fall within the statutory sphere of the “business of banking” for national banks. Those activities include directly or indirectly providing cryptocurrency custody services, holding cash deposits to reserve against stablecoin tokens, and acting as nodes on distributed ledgers to verify and facilitate payment transactions. The GENIUS Act further clarified that nothing within the text limits the authority of a depository institution to engage in the following activities: 1. Accepting or receiving deposits or shares and issuing digital assets that represent those deposits or shares (tokenized deposits); 2. Utilizing a distributed ledger for the books and records of the entity and to effect intrabank transfers (private blockchain technologies for intra-bank functions); and 3. Providing custodial services for payment stablecoins, private keys or reserves backing payment stablecoins (custody services). In a more recent Interpretive Letter (IL 1184), the OCC reaffirmed that banks are authorized to provide crypto-asset custody services, both in fiduciary and non-fiduciary capacities, directly and through third-party sub-custodial arrangements. The opinion cites long-standing legal precedent recognizing that, as the powers of national banks have been tested over time, they “must be construed so as to permit the use of new ways of conducting the very old business of banking.” The types of custody-adjacent activities the OCC has previously recognized as authorized for national banks include facilitating fiat exchange and trade transactions, settlement, trade execution, record-keeping, valuation and tax services. The most recent clarification also confirmed Embracing innovation through informed strategy is no longer limited to innovators and early adopters. The time is now to craft a digital asset strategy or risk being left behind. 22 NEBRASKA INDEPENDENT BANKER
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