Three Republican members of the US House of Representatives Financial Services Committee have written letters to heads of banking regulatory agencies inquiring about potential coordinated efforts against digital asset firms. The lawmakers sent the letters to Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) chair Martin J. Gruenberg, Federal Reserve System chair Jerome Powell, and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) acting comptroller Michael J. Hsu. In the letters, they demanded to see the agencies’ records, citing examples such as OCC Interpretive Letter 1179, the FDIC’s April 2022 letter, and a joint statement released by the three agencies in January.
The lawmakers suggested that the agencies’ actions appeared to be part of a “coordinated strategy” to deplatform the digital asset industry, rather than a response to recent events or a desire to protect financial institutions from risky behavior. The authors, Reps. Patrick McHenry, Bill Huizenga, and French Hill, requested non-public records related to communications between employees of the regulatory agencies and the institutions they supervise.
