The OCC chief made crypto-inclusive remarks at a blockchain symposium, adding that protecting traditional banks is not his job.

Every August, the eyes of the financial world turn to Wyoming. In the past, that’s meant the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City’s annual Jackson Hole summit. But ever since the Cowboy State has become entrenched in digital-asset innovation, the Wyoming Blockchain Symposium, too, has grown into recommended viewing.

By the same, er, token(?), digital assets received arguably momentous validation when Comptroller of the Currency Jonathan Gould addressed the gathering Wednesday. Here are four critical takeaways from his appearance.

Gould did not hold a fence around traditional banking, or signify any asterisks when he discussed digital-asset activities. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has received 40 applications for new-bank charters in the past 18 months, and 23 of those incorporate digital assets, Gould said.

“It is becoming ordinary course to involve and integrate payment stablecoins, etc., in the business plans that we are now seeing presented to the OCC for consideration,” he said.

While he didn’t verbally separate crypto and banking, Gould did take pains to distinguish the Trump administration’s treatment of digital asset innovation from its predecessor. For one, he cited an eightfold increase in applications with a digital-asset component, compared with the Biden era.

2. “There was a strategy taken of risk elimination with respect to crypto and trying to shield the banking system from crypto activities, digital asset activities and blockchain technology.

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