OCC Chief Plays Down Stablecoin ‘Bank Run’ Fears

The highest banking regulator within the U.S. dismissed fears that stablecoins might set off a sudden deposit disaster, urging neighborhood banks to view the digital belongings as instruments for competing with Wall Avenue giants relatively than existential threats.

Jonathan Gould, head of the Workplace of the Comptroller of the Forex, informed attendees on the American Bankers Affiliation Annual Conference in Charlotte on Monday that any materials deposit flight “wouldn’t occur in unnoticed style” and “wouldn’t occur in a single day.”

“If there have been to be a fabric flight from the banking system, I might be taking motion,” Gould stated, noting that “extremely elected officers” and commerce associations would additionally intervene.

His remarks come because the banking business has spent months demanding Congress shut loopholes within the GENIUS Act, the nation’s first main stablecoin laws signed into legislation in July.

Normal Chartered not too long ago projected stablecoins might siphon $1 trillion in deposits from rising market banks inside three years, whereas a Treasury Division report estimated stablecoins might set off as much as $6.6 trillion in U.S. deposit flight relying on yield choices.

The sector continues to develop, with customers of prediction market Myriad (launched by Decrypt’s mother or father firm Dastan) putting a 55% likelihood in the marketplace cap of all stablecoins crossing $360 billion earlier than February 2026.

Federal banking businesses engaged on GENIUS Act rulemakings are “very aware of the statutory deadlines that Congress has given us,” he added.

Cost stablecoin connectivity “could be a risk” for neighborhood banks to “break a number of the dominance that exists proper now among the many very largest banks within the fee system in America,” Gould stated, emphasizing his position in making certain “there are methods so that you can do that in a safe-and-sound method.”

“I do not assume that is honest,” Gould stated of making an “unlevel enjoying discipline” the place solely establishments with “danger administration sophistication” or sturdy steadiness sheets can take part in new applied sciences, pledging to open “as many paths as potential in your long-term viability and success.”

Banking teams warn of “loopholes”

The American Bankers Affiliation, Financial institution Coverage Institute, and over 50 state banking teams wrote to Congress in August demanding closure of “a number of loopholes” within the GENIUS Act.

The banking teams urged Congress to increase the curiosity prohibition to “digital asset exchanges, brokers, sellers, and affiliated entities” and known as for eradicating the approval pathway that lets non-financial companies challenge stablecoins.

“Banks’ concern with stablecoins is not nearly regulation—it is about survival in a altering monetary panorama,” Prarabdh Sharma, DeFi Partnerships at STBL, informed Decrypt. “Even a ten% shift might elevate their funding prices by 20–30 foundation factors, slicing into lending capability and profitability.”



Nonetheless, Prarabdh famous the shift opens alternatives, as banks can “undertake the identical underlying blockchain rails to tokenize deposits, streamline funds, and challenge regulated, interest-bearing digital {dollars} of their very own.”

Bridge utilized for an OCC nationwide belief constitution in October, following Coinbase, Circle, Paxos, and Ripple.

Anchorage Digital turned the primary digital asset agency to obtain an OCC constitution in 2021, although it operated below a consent order till August, when the OCC terminated the order, citing the financial institution had reached “compliance” with security and soundness necessities.