This issue covers eight developments. Better and Coinbase closed the first Fannie Mae-backed mortgage collateralized by Bitcoin. All four prudential regulators told the House Financial Services Committee that GENIUS Act implementation is a top supervisory priority. The comment window on the FDIC’s GENIUS Act stablecoin proposal closed June 9, with industry letters splitting over whether issuers may pay yield or rewards. The CLARITY Act was placed on the Senate Legislative Calendar. The House Ways and Means Committee held a legislative hearing on digital asset taxation, examining eight bills and discussion drafts. The Federal Reserve published an updated proposal for a “skinny” master account for fintech and digital-asset firms. Mastercard said issuers and acquirers will be able to settle card transactions in regulated stablecoins, with three community banks among the first participants. And United Texas Bank completed its conversion from a Texas state charter to a national charter.
Better and Coinbase Close the First Fannie Mae-Backed Mortgage Collateralized by Bitcoin
Better Home & Finance and Coinbase announced on June 4 that they closed the first Fannie Mae-backed mortgage in the United States using Bitcoin as collateral for the down payment loan. The borrowers, a couple in Ann Arbor, Michigan, pledged Bitcoin held in Coinbase Prime custody rather than selling it, pairing a standard 15- or 30-year conforming mortgage with a privately financed down payment loan at a 250% collateral ratio for Bitcoin and 125% for USDC.
The product carries no margin calls. Price declines alone cannot trigger liquidation; collateral is at risk only after 60 days of payment delinquency. The companies plan a nationwide rollout by summer.
For context: the structure builds on a June 2025 FHFA directive instructing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to recognize digital assets as eligible collateral.
For banks: A conforming, GSE-backed mortgage now exists with Bitcoin collateral, segregated custody, and a no-margin-call structure. Institutions evaluating Bitcoin-collateralized lending programs have a public reference point, including its collateral ratios and delinquency terms, inside a mortgage framework they already underwrite against.
Sources: Bitcoin Magazine | BusinessWire
Four Prudential Regulators Name Stablecoin Rulemaking a Top Priority at House Oversight Hearing
At a House Financial Services Committee oversight hearing on June 4, Fed Vice Chair for Supervision Michelle Bowman, Comptroller of the Currency Jonathan Gould, FDIC Chairman Travis Hill, and NCUA Chairman Kyle Hauptman testified on supervisory priorities. Gould said the OCC is “working to respond to comments on our GENIUS Act proposal and finalize it.” Hill called GENIUS Act implementation “a top priority” at the FDIC, citing proposals on application requirements, reserve assets, and redemption standards. Bowman confirmed the Fed is developing its own stablecoin issuer regulations.
Bowman also told lawmakers that Kraken’s limited Federal Reserve payment-system access was approved by the Kansas City Fed for a limited period lapsing early next year, and that the Fed will use the arrangement to study how similar entities might use payment-system access.
For banks: All four prudential agencies are on record that GENIUS Act rulemaking sits near the top of their queues. Final rules would define application requirements, reserve standards, and redemption terms for insured depository institutions weighing stablecoin issuance. No agency announced a finalization date.
Sources: PYMNTS
FDIC Stablecoin Comment Window Closes; Letters Split Over Issuer Yield and Community-Bank Deposits
The public comment period on the FDIC’s proposed rule implementing the GENIUS Act for FDIC-supervised payment stablecoin issuers closed June 9, alongside the parallel FinCEN/OFAC anti-money-laundering proposal for the same issuers. The proposal states that payment stablecoins are not insured deposits and that holders would not receive pass-through FDIC coverage; reserve assets held at a bank would be insured as corporate deposits of the issuer, not of individual stablecoin holders. It also addresses reserve composition, redemption practices, and custody.
The closing letters returned to the issuer-yield question that has run through the GENIUS Act rulemakings. Capitol Federal Savings asked the FDIC to bar issuers from paying interest, rewards, or cashback. The ISO Technical Committee 68 advisory group asked the agency to require machine-readable reporting formats and Legal Entity Identifiers to support interoperability.
For context: the FDIC’s broader stablecoin rulemaking includes a separate provision, issued in May, requiring the agency to give FinCEN at least 30 days’ notice before initiating most major AML enforcement actions against an issuer.
For banks: The deposit-insurance treatment is the operational detail. Stablecoin holders receive no pass-through FDIC coverage, which bears on how a bank describes any stablecoin product to customers. The issuer-yield question remains unresolved across the GENIUS Act rules.
Sources: PYMNTS | American Banker
CLARITY Act Placed on Senate Legislative Calendar
H.R. 3633, the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, was reported out of the Senate Banking Committee and placed on the Senate Legislative Calendar on June 2. The bill needs 60 votes to pass the Senate and would then require reconciliation with the House version. Senator Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) and Senate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Scott (R-S.C.) posted statements supporting the move. Roughly four weeks of floor time remain before Congress’s July recess.
JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon said on May 29 that banks will fight the bill because, in his view, it allows digital-asset companies to pay interest on deposits without AML/BSA requirements and FDIC protections.
For banks: The bill would establish federal market structure rules for digital assets, including custody rules and the SEC/CFTC jurisdictional split. Whether the Senate takes it up before the recess remains open; the bill could also carry into the fall session.
Sources: PYMNTS
House Ways and Means Holds First Digital-Asset Tax Hearing, Examining Eight Bills
On June 9, the House Ways and Means Committee held a legislative hearing on digital asset taxation, examining eight bills and discussion drafts. Chairman Jason Smith said it was the committee’s first legislative hearing in years and that “America needs clear tax rules of the road to remain the crypto capital of the world,” citing committee figures that more than 67 million Americans, about a quarter, own cryptocurrency, against a digital-asset market capitalization above $2 trillion. The session was a legislative hearing, not a markup; no bill advanced.
Two of the drafts bear directly on bank and payment activity. The Less Tax Paperwork for Digital Asset Owners Act (Rep. Rudy Yakym) would exclude gain or loss on digital assets used to pay network fees and on regulated U.S. dollar stablecoins, and create an election for a simplified accounting method. The Providing Analogous Rules for Digital Assets Act (Rep. David Kustoff) would extend existing securities-lending and securities-trading safe harbors to digital assets, letting holders lend digital assets without triggering a taxable event, and permit dealers and traders to use mark-to-market accounting.
Other measures would treat mining and staking rewards as ordinary income with an election to treat them as self-created property (Rep. Mike Carey); remove the qualified-appraisal requirement for charitable donations of widely traded digital assets (Rep. Mike Kelly); extend wash-sale and constructive-sale anti-abuse rules to digital assets (Rep. Jodey Arrington); and create a one-time voluntary disclosure program (Rep. Aaron Bean). A Democratic discussion draft, the End Digital Assets Tax Shelter Act, would close a Puerto Rico residency-based loophole. Smith cited bipartisan work with Representatives Miller and Horsford; Horsford offered an amendment limiting the mining-and-staking deferral to five years.
For banks: Several of the drafts touch bank digital-asset programs: the stablecoin and network-fee de minimis exclusions, the securities-lending safe harbor, and the wash-sale and constructive-sale rules. If enacted, they would change the tax mechanics of stablecoin and Bitcoin transactions for customers and institutions. Because the session was a legislative hearing rather than a markup, none advanced; a markup would be the next procedural step.
Sources: Ways and Means (legislation) | Ways and Means (Chairman Smith statement) | CoinDesk
Federal Reserve Publishes Updated “Skinny” Master Account Proposal
On May 20, the Federal Reserve Board published an updated proposal for a “skinny” master account: a special-purpose payment account that would let fintech and digital-asset firms clear and settle through Fedwire and FedNow without earning interest on balances, accessing the discount window, or receiving intraday credit. The proposal followed the May 19 executive order directing the Fed to review how uninsured depository institutions may access Reserve Bank payment accounts.
The Cato Institute’s Nicholas Anthony noted that Treasury holds broad latitude over how it applies the Bank Secrecy Act guidance directed by a companion order.
For banks: The proposal would define how non-bank Bitcoin and stablecoin firms reach federal payment rails. That access model is a variable in partner-risk assessments and integration design for institutions that serve or partner with those firms, and comment responses from bank trade associations will indicate how the industry positions on direct fintech access.
Sources: CoinDesk
Mastercard to Settle Card Transactions in Regulated Stablecoins; Three Community Banks Among First Participants
Mastercard announced on June 3 that issuers and acquirers will be able to settle transactions using regulated U.S. dollar stablecoins, including Circle’s USDC, Paxos-issued PYUSD, USDG and USDP, Ripple’s RLUSD, and SoFiUSD. Settlement options will cover intraday, weekend, holiday, and on-chain windows across Ethereum, Solana, Polygon, Base, Arbitrum, and XRPL. Cross River, Lead Bank, CBW Bank, ARQ, and Nuvei will be among the first participants in the U.S. and Latin America.
“The next phase of stablecoin adoption is about real-world utility, especially in settlement, where timing and liquidity matter most,” said Raj Dhamodharan, Mastercard’s executive vice president of blockchain and digital assets.
For context: the New York Department of Financial Services granted Mastercard Transaction Services a BitLicense on May 27, and Mastercard agreed in March to acquire stablecoin payments firm BVNK for $1.8 billion.
For banks: Three of the named early participants — Cross River, Lead Bank, and CBW Bank — are community-scale institutions operating as settlement banks for stablecoin flows on a major card network. Their participation is a public data point on the settlement-bank role smaller institutions can hold in stablecoin payment systems.
Sources: CoinDesk | CoinDesk (BitLicense)
United Texas Bank Completes Conversion to National Charter, Citing Digital-Asset Business
Dallas-based United Texas Bank said on May 27 that it satisfied the final conditions on its OCC-approved conversion from a Texas state charter to a national charter. President and CEO Scott Beck told CoinDesk the conversion “was satisfied as of today, May 27.” The bank now has direct Federal Reserve access for wires and ACH alongside FDIC insurance, and says it clears roughly $10 billion per month in U.S. dollar volume for foreign banks, OTC desks, and exchanges.
United Texas Bank had operated under a 2024 Federal Reserve consent order related to its Bank Secrecy Act compliance infrastructure; Beck said the bank built a proprietary BSA/AML platform to address those requirements. The bank plans to launch a digital-asset custody and full-service trust department this summer, along with a 24/7 payments network aimed at institutional digital-asset clients.
For banks: A community-scale bank has completed the state-to-national charter conversion route with a stated digital-asset focus, including the BSA/AML remediation work required while operating under a Federal Reserve consent order.
Sources: CoinDesk
What to Watch
SEC strategic plan comments close July 2. The SEC’s Draft Strategic Plan for FY2026–2030, published June 2, names digital asset rulemaking and SEC/CFTC jurisdictional clarity as five-year priorities. Public comment runs through July 2, 2026.
OCC GENIUS Act final rule. Comptroller Gould told the House committee on June 4 that the agency is working through comments on its proposal. No finalization date has been announced.
Tokenized deposit network at The Clearing House. JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, and other large banks plan a shared tokenized deposit network for the first half of 2027, per June 4 Wall Street Journal reporting. A blockchain vendor has not been chosen.
BlockFills sale hearing June 16. Keyrock’s $3.25 million acquisition of the bankrupt institutional digital-asset lender goes before the U.S. Bankruptcy Court on June 16.
Fed bank holding company applications. Comments on the pending Credicorp/Helm Bank USA and Ulster Savings Bank applications close June 22.
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