Rep. Maxine Waters Contests OCC Guidance Amid Anti-Crypto Offensive

Representative Maxine Waters stands as the Chair of the House Financial Services Committee. Through a letter, Rep. Waters started to push for Joe Biden, the US President-Elect, to either monitor or outright rescind the crypto-related guidances issued out by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, or OCCC.

Two Groups Butting Heads

Through this letter, issued on Friday, Waters renewed the ongoing criticisms of various Democratic party members of the House Financial Services Committee. These members have come to openly criticize the crypto-related actions done by the OCC within the COVID-19 pandemic.

A matter of note is that these same members had introduced a new bill just a few days ago. This bill would see stablecoin issuers be mandated to be verified by regulators, including seeking a bank charter, only to issue out their respective stablecoins.

A Coordinated Anti-Crypto Movement

With this information in mind, it’s quite clear that Waters is joining a coordinated effort by the Democrats in order to impose a severe level of regulatory oversight when it comes to cryptocurrencies, or at least just stablecoins. Here’s where things get interesting, however.

Donald Trump, the current US President, is rather famously against Bitcoin in his few comments made about it, but Waters claims that these measures are made to undo the harms his administration had done to the space.

In her letter, Waters explained that US People had mandated Biden’s upcoming administration to restore their trust in the Federal government. As such, Waters highlighted several areas, she deemed critical for the actions of their predecessor administration to be reversed entirely.

Again. At no point in time was Donald Trump bullish for crypto in the slightest.

Planning To Undo The OCC’s Work

Waters called on Biden and his administration to rescind the OCC’s guidance on national banks being allowed to hold stablecoin reserves, in particular. These reserves would act as custodian services for bank customers.

Another guidance Waters wants removed, is the OCC allowing federal savings associations and federally chartered banks to provide custodian services for customers when it comes to crypto, which would ultimately increase the crypto usage within the country.

Brian Brooks stands as the Acting Comptroller of the Currency, and these recommendations would see all his work be undone in that position. It should be noted, however, that Brooks had recently been nominated to serve the full five-year term in this position by Trump, which itself is a strange move, considering Trump doesn’t like crypto.