Brian Brooks, who was named the short-term head of the Workplace of the Comptroller of the Forex (OCC) final summer season, made the announcement official a day after he was rumored to be departing.
His departure will come a day after the federal banking regulator granted crypto custodian Anchorage a conditional belief constitution, making it the primary crypto-native nationwide financial institution.
“It has been a terrific honor to serve the US as Appearing Comptroller of the Forex,” Brooks mentioned in an emailed assertion via a spokesperson. “The Workplace of the Comptroller of the Forex (OCC) is essentially the most extraordinary of federal businesses full of essentially the most devoted, skilled, and gifted workers any government can hope to have. I’m extraordinarily pleased with what now we have achieved collectively via what have been extraordinary occasions by any measure.”
Beneath Brooks, the OCC revealed quite a lot of interpretative letters surrounding how nationwide banks can work together with the cryptocurrency area, with explicit consideration paid to stablecoins and their issuers. Nevertheless, he mentioned throughout a public seminar hosted by evaluation agency Elliptic that a lot of this work started previous to his arrival on the company final March.
The previous chief authorized officer at Coinbase has mentioned a number of occasions that he believes digital belongings and blockchain expertise can type the idea for the way forward for the monetary system, a view he reiterated in the course of the seminar.
“Blockchains, essentially, are banking as a result of what they’re doing is permitting the transaction of worth throughout networks … they’re doing it in an orthogonally totally different approach,” he mentioned Wednesday in what could also be his swan track in public workplace.
It’s unclear who incoming president Joe Biden would possibly faucet to exchange Brooks. The OCC introduced that chief working officer Blake Paulson will develop into the brand new appearing comptroller within the interim. Regulation agency Davis Polk mentioned in a public presentation Wednesday that it’s unlikely Brooks’ efforts round digital asset custody shall be overturned by his successor, although additional efforts round digital currencies could also be slowed.
