Brian Brooks, the OCC, and What 'Crypto Is Banking' Means for AML and Accounting Compliance
When Brian Brooks served as Acting Comptroller of the Currency, he advanced a proposition that cut through years of regulatory hesitation: crypto is banking. That framing, and the concrete OCC actions that followed it, continues to set the baseline for how US accounting firms, auditors, and CFOs must think about digital asset compliance, AML obligations, and the role of robust crypto accounting software in satisfying a bank-grade standard. Understanding what Brooks actually said, and what the OCC did during his tenure, is essential context for any practice that serves digital asset clients today.
The 'Crypto Is Banking' Thesis and Its Regulatory Consequences
Brooks' central argument was not rhetorical. He positioned crypto businesses as functional equivalents of banks: they hold customer assets, facilitate payments, and intermediate credit in various forms. From that premise, it followed that a national bank charter could be an appropriate vehicle for crypto firms, not a category error.
Anchorage and the National Bank Charter Precedent
Shortly after Brooks articulated this view publicly, Anchorage became the first crypto company to receive a national bank charter from the OCC. That single event changed the legal topology of the US digital asset market. A chartered crypto bank sits inside the federal banking framework, which means it is subject to the same capital adequacy expectations, examination schedules, and BSA/AML obligations as any other nationally chartered institution. For accounting firms auditing such entities, the implications are direct: the audit scope, the KYC documentation requirements, and the transaction monitoring expectations all map to banking-standard obligations, not the lighter touch that might have applied to an unchartered crypto firm.
Regulatory Clarity as a Market Enabler
Brooks also argued, explicitly, that OCC guidance had removed regulation as a barrier to crypto adoption by banks. His position was that if sufficient customer demand exists for digital asset access, financial institutions will find a way to meet it, provided the regulatory path is clear. The OCC published a series of interpretive letters during his tenure that addressed cryptoasset custody, stablecoin reserve management, and participation in blockchain networks. Each letter was designed to give national banks a documented basis for engaging with digital assets without requiring individual no-action relief.
For CFOs and finance teams at banks or bank-adjacent firms, those letters established the permissibility framework that many treasury and custody decisions still reference. They also set an expectation that institutions engaging with crypto would maintain compliance infrastructure proportionate to the activity, not merely tick a box.
AML Compliance and the Role of Blockchain Analytics
One of the most practically significant threads in Brooks' public commentary concerned financial crime risk. He acknowledged that cryptoassets carry genuine AML exposure, and he was direct about the tools he viewed as essential to managing it.
On-Chain Data as a Compliance Input
Brooks' position was that blockchain analytics, the capacity to trace the provenance and destination of on-chain transactions, are central to any credible AML programme for a crypto business. This is not a novel idea, but hearing it articulated by the nation's top bank regulator at the time gave it institutional weight. The logic is straightforward: the pseudonymous nature of public blockchains means that name-based KYC alone is insufficient. A transaction from a wallet with no KYC name attached can still be screened against known illicit addresses, sanctions lists, and clustering heuristics that associate wallets with high-risk counterparties.
For accounting firms and CFOs, this creates a concrete expectation. Any digital asset accounting software workflow that processes inflows and outflows for a client must be able to connect to, or at minimum interface with, on-chain data that supports AML screening. If your current crypto bookkeeping software stack treats a crypto receipt as simply a debit to a digital asset wallet with no provenance metadata attached, that is a gap worth addressing. Bank examiners and external auditors alike are increasingly asking whether transaction-level records include the counterparty risk context that blockchain analytics can supply.
Compliance as a Competitive Baseline
There is a subtler implication here for accounting practices that serve crypto-native clients. Brooks' framing suggests that firms which build robust AML infrastructure early are not over-investing; they are positioning for a market in which bank-grade compliance is simply the price of entry. Clients seeking banking relationships for their crypto operations, whether for custody, payments, or lending, will need to demonstrate that their own internal controls meet the standard their prospective banking partner is examined against. An accounting firm that can help a client evidence that standard, through clean transaction records, documented KYC chains, and reconciled on-chain data, delivers something genuinely valuable.
This connects directly to the broader question of how AI is reshaping AML obligations for accounting firms, where automation of transaction monitoring is accelerating the gap between firms that have invested in this infrastructure and those that have not. It also intersects with what the FATF DeFi report means for your firm's AML controls, given that DeFi protocols increasingly interact with chartered and semi-chartered entities.
Accounting and Audit Implications for US Firms
Brooks' legacy is not only a compliance story. It has direct accounting implications that practices with digital asset clients need to build into their engagement frameworks.
Bank-Charter Clients Require Banking-Standard Audit Procedures
If a crypto firm holds a national bank charter, its financial statements are prepared and audited under the same regulatory accounting principles that apply to any nationally chartered bank. That means the OCC's examination standards apply alongside GAAP, and the audit team needs familiarity with both. For smaller accounting firms that have picked up crypto clients without fully mapping their charter status, this is a practical risk: the audit procedures appropriate for a non-chartered crypto exchange are materially different from those required for a chartered crypto bank.
Transaction Record Depth and the 'Digital Asset Accounting Software' Question
The interpretive letters from the OCC's Brooks era implicitly set an expectation about record depth. Institutions engaging in crypto custody, stablecoin operations, or node validation are expected to maintain records that support examination. That expectation flows through to the accounting records their auditors rely on. A client's digital asset accounting software needs to produce transaction-level records that are reconcilable to on-chain data and that retain sufficient metadata, wallet addresses, transaction hashes, block timestamps, to satisfy an examiner or auditor who needs to reconstruct a transaction history.
This is an area where many finance teams are still catching up. Accounting systems that were adapted from fiat-currency workflows often strip out or fail to capture the blockchain-specific metadata that makes an on-chain audit trail credible. Practices advising clients on their systems and controls should be raising this specifically, particularly for clients with banking relationships or aspirations.
KYC Documentation and the Beneficial Ownership Thread
Brooks' emphasis on robust KYC as a precondition for safe crypto-banking activity also has a documentation angle. Accounting firms handling digital asset clients in the US need to ensure that the KYC and beneficial ownership records attached to those clients are current, accessible, and consistent with the client's transaction history. This is especially relevant given recent shifts in beneficial ownership reporting requirements at the federal level, and the expectation that national banks maintain rigorous customer due diligence programmes regardless of any broader regulatory changes.
What CFOs at Digital Asset Firms Should Take Away
For CFOs who are not running a chartered bank but are operating in the crypto space, the Brooks era OCC guidance still matters, because it set the benchmark that banking counterparties are measured against. If your treasury team is seeking to open accounts at a nationally chartered bank, or if your firm is looking to hold crypto assets through a chartered custodian, you are entering a relationship where the other side is examined by the OCC. That means your counterparty expects you to have your own house in order.
Practical Steps Worth Taking Now
First, map your transaction history against the record depth expectations described above. Can your accounting team produce a reconciled view of every crypto inflow and outflow, with wallet-level metadata, covering the last three to five years? If not, that is a remediation project worth starting before a banking relationship or audit triggers the request.
Second, assess your AML screening coverage. Does your current crypto accounting software workflow connect to on-chain screening at the point of transaction recording, or is screening a separate, manual, post-hoc step? The answer matters both for operational efficiency and for the credibility of your compliance programme in the eyes of a bank examiner or auditor.
Third, review your KYC chain for digital asset counterparties. Blockchain analytics can tell you the on-chain history of a wallet, but your KYC records need to establish who controls it. Maintaining both, and linking them in your accounting records, is the standard that the Brooks-era OCC framework points toward.
Frequently Asked Questions
What did the OCC's crypto-related guidance under Brian Brooks actually establish?
The OCC published a series of interpretive letters addressing specific cryptoasset activities for national banks: holding crypto assets in custody, managing stablecoin reserves, and participating in blockchain networks as node validators. These letters gave national banks a documented regulatory basis for engaging in those activities without needing individual approval. The grant of a national bank charter to Anchorage was the most visible outcome of the broader policy direction Brooks championed.
Does a national bank charter for a crypto firm change its AML obligations?
Yes, materially. A nationally chartered bank, whether its business is traditional or crypto-focused, is subject to the Bank Secrecy Act, OCC examination, and the full suite of federal AML obligations. That includes formal BSA/AML programmes, suspicious activity reporting, currency transaction reporting where applicable, and customer due diligence requirements. The compliance burden is substantially higher than for an unchartered digital asset firm, and the audit expectations that follow are correspondingly more rigorous.
What does 'blockchain analytics as an AML tool' mean in practice for accounting firms?
It means that transaction-level accounting records for crypto clients should, ideally, include on-chain provenance data, not just internal ledger entries. When a client receives crypto from an external wallet, the accounting record should capture the wallet address, the transaction hash, and ideally a risk classification for the sending address based on on-chain screening. Accounting firms advising on systems and controls should be asking whether their clients' digital asset accounting software supports this level of record depth.
How should a CFO at a non-bank crypto firm respond to this regulatory baseline?
By treating bank-grade compliance as the operating standard, even if the firm is not chartered. Any firm seeking banking relationships, institutional investment, or regulated custody arrangements will be evaluated by counterparties who are themselves subject to OCC examination. Demonstrating that your internal controls, KYC records, and transaction documentation meet or approach that standard makes those relationships smoother and reduces the risk of a banking partner or auditor flagging gaps at an inconvenient moment.
Is Brian Brooks' OCC work still relevant given subsequent regulatory changes?
The interpretive letters and the Anchorage charter are part of the standing record and have not been rescinded. Brooks acknowledged when leaving his role that subsequent appointees might take different approaches, but the legal instruments produced during his tenure remain in place as reference points. Accounting firms and CFOs should track any new OCC guidance that modifies or builds on those letters, but the foundational permissibility framework he established continues to underpin the compliance expectations that nationally chartered banks apply to their crypto activities.
Source: Elliptic