Brian Brooks, Acting Comptroller of the Currency and former head of legal at Coinbase.

On this episode of The Scoop, Frank Chaparro sat down with Brooks to talk about what it means to have a crypto veteran in the Comptroller's chair. 

He broke down some of the topics he's been thinking about in relation to the OCC, including:

• Beefing up the agency's Office of Innovation to better evaluate trends and provide written guidance
• How blockchain technology can shrink wealth disparity by providing another route to establish credit
• How federal regulation can help to level the playing field between banks and fintech firms
• Why the digital dollar should come from the private sector, while the government handles the guidelines 

Full Episode Post

Brooks had just taken the top job at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the federal agency that charters and supervises national banks, making him one of the highest-ranking financial regulators in the country with direct experience inside a major crypto exchange. He tells Chaparro that one of his early priorities is strengthening the OCC's Office of Innovation so the agency can track emerging financial technology more closely and issue clearer written guidance, rather than leaving banks and fintech companies to guess at how existing rules apply to new products.

Brooks also lays out his view that blockchain technology could help shrink wealth disparity by giving more people an alternative route to establishing credit history outside the traditional banking system, and he discusses how federal regulation might create a more level playing field between banks and the fintech firms increasingly competing with them for the same customers. On the question of a potential U.S. digital dollar, Brooks argues for private-sector companies to lead development of the underlying technology, with government's role limited to setting the regulatory guardrails around it.

The conversation reflects the OCC's rapidly evolving posture toward digital assets during this period, which would soon include landmark interpretive letters clarifying that national banks could provide cryptocurrency custody services. The episode offers a rare inside look at crypto-informed thinking arriving at the top of one of the country's most consequential banking regulators, at a moment when few in Washington had any direct experience with how digital asset companies actually operated. Brooks also previews the kind of interpretive guidance the OCC could issue to clarify gray areas for banks weighing whether and how to offer crypto-related services to customers.