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Former Ripple Board Member Tapped to Lead Biden's OCC: WSJ
Former Treasury official Michael Barr is reportedly among several people being considered to replace Brian Brooks.
Michael S. Barr, a former U.S. Treasury Department official and onetime member of Ripple's board of advisers, is likely to become the next Comptroller of the Currency, the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday.
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If named and confirmed by the U.S. Senate, Barr will succeed Brian Brooks, the former Coinbase executive who served as Acting Comptroller for the last half of 2020. Barr is currently a dean at the University of Michigan Ford School of Public Policy. The news comes days after Politico first reported Barr was under consideration, as is law professor Mehrsa Baradaran.
Barr was part of the Treasury Department in President Barack Obama's administration, where he worked on bank regulations in the form of the Dodd-Frank Act, the Journal reported. Barr did not immediately return a request for comment.
Barr joined Ripple's board of advisers in 2015, though a company spokesperson confirmed he was no longer a member earlier this week. The spokesperson did not immediately respond to a question about when he left the board.
If Barr is indeed nominated and confirmed, he would become the second individual with a crypto connection to lead the federal banking regulator, which granted a national trust charter to Anchorage just last week.
Under Brooks, the OCC also published a number of interpretative letters and finalized a Fair Access rule that crypto advocates believe can bring the industry closer to the traditional financial system by making it easier for these startups to tap banking services.
Read more: State of Crypto: What the Crypto World Should Watch for in the Biden Era
Some of these interpretive letters would also let banks participate in the cryptocurrency ecosystem by using stablecoins for payments or acting as node operators on blockchain networks.
The Fair Access rule may be in limbo, however; while Brooks finalized it before stepping down from his role last Thursday, it was not published in the Federal Register, meaning it has not yet taken effect. Ronald Klain, the White House Chief of Staff, issued a memo earlier Wednesday directing agency leads to rescind or freeze any rules not yet published.
UPDATE (Jan. 21, 2021, 03:40 UTC): Added additional context, corrects that Barr was on Ripple's board of advisers, not its board of directors.
Nikhilesh De
Nikhilesh De is CoinDesk's managing editor for global policy and regulation, covering regulators, lawmakers and institutions. He owns < $50 in BTC and < $20 in ETH. He won a Gerald Loeb award in the beat reporting category as part of CoinDesk's blockbuster FTX coverage in 2023, and was named the Association of Cryptocurrency Journalists and Researchers' Journalist of the Year in 2020.
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Crypto Industry Asks President Trump to Stop JPMorgan’s 'Punitive Tax' on Data Access
A coalition of fintech and crypto trade groups is urging the White House to defend open banking and stop JPMorgan from charging fees to access customer data.
What to know:
- Ten major fintech and crypto trade associations have urged President Trump to stop big banks from imposing fees that could hinder innovation and competition.
- JPMorgan's plan to charge for access to consumer banking data may debank millions and threaten the adoption of stablecoins and self-custody wallets.
- The CFPB's open banking rule, which mandates free consumer access to bank data, is under threat as banks have sued to block it, and the CFPB has requested its vacatur.
