Crypto-friendly OCC head steps down

Acting Comptroller Brian Brooks will step down today, according to a statement from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). Current Chief Operating Officer – Blake Paulson, will take his place as an acting controller.

Brooks took over as acting comptroller of the OCC in May 2020 and was nominated for a full term in November by the outgoing U.S. President Donald Trump. Now the president-elect Joe Biden starting his transition to the presidency, Brooks ultimately chooses to step down.

Brain Brooks in the statement released on Wednesday said:

It has been a great honor to serve the United States as Acting Comptroller of the Currency. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) is the most extraordinary of federal agencies filled with the most dedicated, professional, and gifted staff any executive can hope to have. I am extremely proud of what we have accomplished together through what have been extraordinary times by any measure.

During Brian Brooks’s eight-month tenure as the agency’s head, the Currency took a series of crypto-friendly decisions. Those decisions by Brooks, a former top lawyer at crypto giant Coinbase, include, permitting banks to use stable coins and to rely on blockchain networks to settle transactions, and recently issuing Anchorage a federal bank charter.