Congressional Research Service report flags shaky ground for banks dealing in Bitcoin

For US banks, the rules on crypto tend to change whenever the people in charge do.

That is the core finding of a new Congressional Research Service report, published September 30, 2026. It concludes that whether banks can work with digital assets like Bitcoin depends more on who leads the regulators than on anything written into law.

What the report found

The report is titled “Crypto and Bank-Permissible Activities” (IF13324). It describes a regime that is ambiguous on paper and fragile in practice.

Its central argument is that permission for crypto activities can shift with agency leadership and presidential administrations. Consistent statutory guidelines play a far smaller role than most bankers would like.

The CRS traces this pattern back to at least 2017. Since then, the three main federal bank regulators have repeatedly reversed their policies as the political environment changed.

Those three are the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), the Federal Reserve, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). Together they decide what most US banks can and cannot do.

The history the report outlines follows a recognizable arc. The Trump administration brought pro-crypto policies, then the Biden administration tightened things considerably from 2021 to 2024.

Then the pendulum swung back. In March 2025, the OCC issued Interpretive Letter 1183, which eased some restrictions on bank digital asset activities.

Each of those shifts came through agency action rather than new law. That is precisely why the CRS considers them reversible.

A two-pronged test with no consensus

Regulators do have a framework for judging what banks may do. It just does not produce consistent answers.

The test has two parts. First, is the activity connected to the “business of banking”? Second, what safety-and-soundness risks does it introduce?

The trouble, according to the CRS, is a longstanding disagreement among regulators over whether specific crypto activities satisfy either prong. The same activity can look like a natural extension of banking to one official and an unacceptable hazard to the next.

The new report builds on an earlier CRS analysis from February 2025 (R48430). That piece examined the tighter regulatory measures that followed the collapses of FTX and Signature.

What Congress does next matters

The CRS lays out three paths for lawmakers.

The first is to keep deferring to the regulators, which effectively means accepting more of the same back-and-forth. The second is to pass legislation that clearly spells out what banks are permitted or prohibited from doing with crypto.

The third is a hybrid of the two. Congress would set some rules in statute while leaving regulators discretion over the rest.

Some legislative groundwork already exists. The GENIUS Act (P.L. 119-27), enacted in July 2025, permits stablecoin issuance by bank subsidiaries.

The House has also passed the CLARITY Act (H.R. 3633). The bill could establish a broader regulatory framework for crypto and would explicitly allow banks to use digital assets in connection with activities they are already authorized to carry out.

Passing one chamber, of course, is not the same as becoming law. Until the bill clears the full legislative process, it remains a proposal rather than a protection.