The the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) provided guidance allowing US banks to use blockchains and stablecoins for payment activities and “other bank-permissible functions”. This will provide less expensive and real time alternatives to the existing networks such as SWIFT or ACH. While there are unique risks involved the OCC recognizes that banks are well suited to manage these risks.
This is likely to add more fuel to the bull market in Bitcoin and Ethereum as both are used to host the most popular stable coins such as USDT, USDC and DAI. This news should also have a positive effect on Ethereum’s growing DEFI ecosystem which uses stable coins as a foundation. This is rare welcome news from US regulators and provides hope that the US is not entirely hostile to crypto currencies. This is in contrast to the December 18 FinCen request for comments on requiring identity verification for unhosted wallets, which if implemented would risk pushing users and exchanges further away from the US.
The OCC guidance can be found here: https://www.occ.gov/news-issuances/news-releases/2021/nr-occ-2021-2.html