OCC Confirms Banks Permitted to Pay Gas Fees

On November 18, 2025, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) issued Interpretive Letter 1186 (the "Letter"), which confirmed that national banks may: (1) "pay network fees on blockchain networks ("gas fees") to facilitate otherwise permissible activities"; (2) hold crypto-assets on their balance sheets "necessary to pay gas fees for which the bank anticipates a reasonably foreseeable need"; and (3) hold crypto-assets "necessary for testing otherwise permissible crypto-asset-related platforms . . . ."¹

Permissible Activities

The OCC cited a number of previous interpretive letters confirming crypto-asset activities permissible for national banks, including:

• Interpretive Letter 1170, affirming that banks may provide crypto-asset custody services;
• Interpretive Letter 1172, affirming that banks may hold dollar deposits as stablecoin reserves;
• Interpretive Letter 1174, affirming that banks may (1) act as nodes on a distributed ledger technology ("DLT") network and (2) engage in certain stablecoin activities to facilitate payment transactions on a DLT network; and
• Interpretive Letter 1184, affirming that banks may (1) buy and sell assets held in custody at the custody customer's direction and (2) outsource bank-permissible crypto-asset activities to third parties, subject to third-party risk management practices.²

Such permissible crypto-asset activities also include activities "explicitly allowed under the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins Act" (GENIUS Act).

Gas Fees

National banks may exercise "all such incidental powers as shall be necessary to carry on the business of banking . . . ."³Such incidental activities must be "convenient or useful to an activity that is specifically authorized for national banks or to an activity that is otherwise part of the business of banking."⁴

In the Letter, the OCC determined that national banks may pay gas fees and hold crypto assets required to pay reasonably foreseeable necessary gas fees as incidental activities, as national banks cannot engage in certain permissible activities without paying gas fees.⁵ For example, a national bank may want to pay gas fees on behalf of a custody customer wishing to transfer custodied crypto-assets as a courtesy.⁶

Paying gas fees on behalf of a customer is paralleled by "certain long-established bank practices relating to payments," including acquiring bank notes issued by other banks or holding principal stores of foreign exchange to facilitate customer transactions.⁷ And a national bank is allowed to engage in a number of otherwise impermissible activities as long as it is done as a convenience to customers, such as "borrowing from custody customers securities that are ineligible for the bank to purchase for its own account for purposes of lending those securities to third parties to whose credit risk the customer does not wish to be directly exposed."⁸

The OCC also noted that national banks are already permitted to serve as a node on a DLT network.⁹ Because node operators are compensated for their services in the form of gas fees, national banks are therefore already permitted to accept gas fees.¹⁰ Likewise, national banks would also be permitted to hold such gas fees.¹¹ Accordingly, the OCC determined that national banks are allowed to hold crypto-assets for the purpose of paying gas fees.¹²

Testing

Separately, the OCC also determined that national banks may hold crypto assets "for testing otherwise permissible crypto-asset-related platforms, whether internally developed or acquired from a third party."¹³

In its brief discussion of this issue, the OCC held that it is necessary to permit banks to test crypto-asset-related platforms "for safe and sound operation," whereas "requiring a bank to have a third party provide crypto-assets to the bank for testing may increase costs, expose the bank to heightened operational and counterparty risks, and may limit in practice the likelihood that the bank tests its systems thoroughly."¹⁴

Takeaways

The Letter narrowly focused only on the issues of gas fees and testing crypto-asset-related platforms. Nevertheless, this represents the removal of a major obstacle in the way of banks directly interacting with the blockchain, as all transactions made on the most popular blockchains require the payment of gas fees in their native tokens. National banks may not only pay such gas fees but may also hold crypto assets as "gas in the tank" to pay such gas fees.

Furthermore, while the majority of the Letter discussed the scenario of paying gas fees on behalf of a customer, especially a custody customer, the Letter allows banks to pay network fees incidental to any of its permissible activities. This includes a number of other activities, such as operating nodes on DLT networks, transacting in and holding stablecoins, and tokenizing or facilitating the tokenization of products on public or permissioned chains.

This Letter was not drafted through the OCC's own initiative but as a response to an inquiry made by a national bank. Given its other previously issued interpretive letters related to crypto assets, the OCC is likely to continue working with market participants to address guidance and rulemaking to allow national banks to legally engage in the crypto asset markets.

¹ Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Interpretive Letter 1186 at 1, Authority of National Banks to Hold Crypto-Assets as Principal and Pay Crypto-Asset Network Fees as Incidental to a Permissible Banking Activity (Nov. 18, 2025), https://www.occ.treas.gov/topics/charters-and-licensing/interpretations-and-actions/2025/int1186.pdf.

² Id at 3.

³ 12 U.S.C. § 24.

⁴ 12 C.F.R. § 7.1000(d)(1).

⁵ See Interpretive Letter 1186 at 5.

⁶ See id. at 5-6.

⁷ Id. at 6-7.

⁸ Id. at 8.

⁹ Id. at 10.

¹⁰ Id.

¹¹ Id.

¹² Id.

¹³ Id.

¹⁴ Id.