Several parties have filed amicus briefs with the appellate court in support of Custodia Bank receiving approval for a master account from the Federal Reserve.
Donald Verrilli, who served as the solicitor general of the United States from 2011 to 2016, has claimed in an appellate filing that federal regulators were engaged in “aggressive, coordinated efforts to ‘debank’ the digital asset industry.”
In a July 3 amicus brief with the U.S. Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals. Verrilli represented the Blockchain Association in support of an appeal from Custodia Bank. After a March decision in U.S. District Court for the District of Wyoming, Custodia appealed to the Tenth Circuit challenging the Federal Reserve from denying the bank access to a master account.
Custodia applied for a master account in October 2020 and filed a lawsuit against the central bank in June 2022 over allegations that the Fed engaged in an “unlawful delay” in processing its application. The Fed rejected Custodia’s application in 2023, citing the bank’s connections to the crypto space in its decision. In March 2024, a judge supported the Fed’s decision, denying Custodia an opportunity to have its application reviewed.
