Texas, which has long been known for its friendly attitude towards cryptocurrencies, has announced that state-owned banks will now be able to provide customers with cryptocurrency services. With this announcement came The Texas department of banking and it is a significantly different approach to the crypto industry compared to, for example, China.
“While custody and safekeeping of virtual currencies will necessarily differ from that associated with more traditional assets, the Texas Department of Banking believes that the authority to provide these services with respect to virtual currencies already exists pursuant to Texas Finance Code § 32.001.”
In other words, the bank can decide whether the customer will have direct control over their virtual currency or whether the virtual currency will be managed directly by the bank using private keys. The Texas government itself even encourages banks to contact experienced third parties a.k.a. IT companies to help them implement the necessary data and overall business model.
