On March 5, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), Federal Reserve Board, and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) (collectively, the agencies) jointly issued FAQs clarifying how tokenized securities are treated under the federal regulatory capital rules.
On January 29, the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry (AG Committee), led by Chairman John Boozman (R‑AR), advanced S. 3755, the Digital Commodity Intermediaries Act (DCIA), on a party-line vote. The DCIA builds on the bipartisan, House-passed CLARITY Act to create a federal registration and compliance regime for key digital asset intermediaries. The DCIA also would provide a clear legal definition of “digital commodities” and establish a spot market digital commodity intermediary regulatory regime with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). In the press release, Chairman Boozman framed the vote as “a critical step toward creating clear rules for digital asset markets” that protect consumers while allowing innovation to thrive.
In 2025, the U.S. digital asset landscape evolved more dramatically than in any year since the industry’s inception. A pro‑innovation White House, an active Congress, and key regulators — including the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), the Department of
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) has issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking aimed at clarifying the permissible activities of national trust banks. The proposal seeks to amend chartering regulations to explicitly state that national trust companies may engage in nonfiduciary activities, such as asset custody, without being required to obtain a full-service national bank charter. However, the proposed rule does not address what specific nonfiduciary activities are permissible, nor does it indicate whether a national trust company must engage in a minimum level of fiduciary activities.
This article was republished in Law360 on March 13, 2026.
On December 16, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) proposed a new rule that would create a formal, bank‑centric process for issuing payment stablecoins. The rule is designed to implement the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins Act (the GENIUS Act) and would apply to FDIC‑supervised institutions, state nonmember banks and state savings associations, that want to issue payment stablecoins through a subsidiary. With this proposed rule, the FDIC is seeking to “evaluate the safety and soundness of an applicant’s proposed activities based on consideration of statutory factors and support the responsible growth and use of digital assets and related technologies while minimizing the regulatory burden on applicants.”
On December 16, the Federal Reserve Board issued a Request for Information on a new special‑purpose “Payment Account” prototype, which is essentially a stripped‑down Federal Reserve Bank account designed for institutions focused on payments innovation. The goal with this specialized or “skinny” access is to give legally eligible, payments‑centric institutions a more predictable and lower‑risk path to access key Federal Reserve payment services, without changing who is legally eligible for Federal Reserve master accounts.
On November 20, U.S. Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman John Boozman (R‑AR) and Senator Cory Booker (D‑NJ) released a new bipartisan discussion draft to create a federal spot‑market regime for “digital commodities” under the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). The proposal, which expands upon the CLARITY Act approved by the House in July, would give the CFTC exclusive jurisdiction over cash and spot trading in covered non‑security crypto tokens, establish registration frameworks for exchanges, brokers, and dealers, impose listing and public‑information standards, require qualified custody and strict segregation of customer assets, enhance retail protections, and clarify bankruptcy treatment of customer property.
Federal banking regulators previewed near-term rulemaking plans that will shape the fintech landscape. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) expects to issue a stablecoin licensing proposal “before the end of the year,” and the FDIC reiterated that “a deposit is a deposit” even when tokenized. Separately, the Federal Reserve is targeting the fourth quarter of 2026 for operational rollout of “skinny” master accounts to widen access to payment rails for eligible depository institutions.
Troutman Pepper Locke’s Securities Investigations and Enforcement team counsels and defends clients through all stages of securities enforcement proceedings. Our attorneys have served in key government agencies and regulatory bodies, and bring their insight to bear in each representation. The team includes a former branch chief of
On September 30, 2025, the Office of the Chief Counsel of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) Division of Investment Management (the Division) issued a no-action response (the No-Action Letter) stating that it would not recommend enforcement against registered investment advisers (RIAs) or certain regulated funds (i.e., registered investment companies and business development companies) for maintaining crypto assets and related cash and cash equivalents with certain state-chartered financial institutions (state trust companies) so long as particular conditions are met.[1] In doing so, the No-Action Letter permits regulated funds and RIAs to treat state trust companies as “banks” for purposes of the custody requirements of Investment Company Act of 1940, as amended (the 1940 Act), the Investment Advisers Act of 1940, as amended (the Advisers Act) and the rules thereunder.