OCC approves the use of stablecoins for banking transactions.

[Malam90]

Top US banking regulator, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, has approved the use of stablecoins for the settlement of financial transactions by banks.

The OCC guidance clears the way for banks to participate in independent node verification networks (INVN) and use stablecoins to conduct payment activities and other bank-permissible functions.

Acting Comptroller of the Currency Brian P. Brooks, says: “The President’s Working Group on Financial Markets recently articulated a strong framework for ushering in an era of stablecoin-based financial infrastructure, identifying important risks while allowing those risks to be managed in a technology-agnostic way. Our letter removes any legal uncertainty about the authority of banks to connect to blockchains as validator nodes and thereby transact stablecoin payments on behalf of customers who are increasingly demanding the speed, efficiency, interoperability, and low cost associated with these products.”

The agency letter concludes a national bank or federal savings association may validate, store, and record payments transactions by serving as a node on an INVN. Likewise, a bank may use INVNs and related stablecoins to carry out other permissible payment activities.

While the OCC's approval added to the surge of investor interest in cryptocurrency, the guidance does not cover decentralised assets like bitcoin. Rather, the lifting of perceived restrictions is linked to regulatory-approved bank-issued coins and central bank digitial currencies.  Source link

[Noverteno]

Of course, states, and primarily the United States, will care primarily about centralized digital currencies based on the blockchain. They can allow and regulate the circulation of decentralized cryptocurrency, but they will never actively support it.
However, this decision by a major US regulator also has a great positive significance. A variety of private and other commercial stablecoins will be admitted to banking circulation. And this is already a good thing, since states could follow the path of recognizing only stablecoins issued by states.

[damsix]

This is good news for stable coins that all local banks can use.
I often do the same thing when I see P2P trading on Binance which is connected to a local bank in my country.
This is really amazing because Binance is able to make it easy to deposit and withdraw using local banks and this thread shows that this OCC is very open to cryptocurrency.

[Condorlaib]

Now I can be calm about the funds that are stored in my USDT blockchain. The fact is that I have been using USDT for a long time to store my money instead of banks.