This article is available in Spanish.
The American Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced the withdrawal of Staff Accounting Bulletin (SAB) No. 121 on Thursday 23 January, a directive that had imposed strict accounting requirements on the preservation of crypto currency for American banks and financial institutions. This step, encapsulated in the newly published SAB 122, is ready to serve as a more substantial catalyst for Bitcoin’s price dynamics than the expected American Bitcoin Reserve (SBR), according to various experts from the sector.
Implications for Bitcoin
SAB 121, originally in force in 2022, forced banks to classify cryptocurrencies on their balance sheets as liabilities managed by customers. This classification significantly increased operational costs and complexity for financial institutions, so that they were effectively deterred from offering crypto-related services. The requirement therefore acted as a barrier, which limits the integration of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies in regular banking activities.
Related reading
The withdrawal of SAB 121 via SAB 122 effectively removes this accounting obstacle. SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce praised the decision on social media and said: “Day, day SAB 121! It wasn’t fun: http://sec.gov | Personnel accounting bulletin No. 122. ”
The Bitcoin community has responded positively to the decision of the SEC. Andrew Parish, founder of X3, emphasized the importance of SAB 122 on X, to claim“The withdrawal of SAB 121 is a larger catalyst for Bitcoin than the SBR. Make a bookmark of this message. ” In the same way, Fred Krueger, founder of Troop, said marked The wider market implications, where it is noted: “SAB 122 is extremely good for Bitcoin. More important than the Bitcoin Reserve, which is also coming. Now look at how the banks are starting to accumulate. “
Vijay Boyapati, an ex-Google engineer and author of The Bullish Case for Bitcoin, further elaborate About the transforming potential of the SEC action, by stating: “It is really difficult to emphasize how great the enormous change is that we witness to. We went from the worst conceivable anti-bitcoin, anti-innovation, anti-growth, anti-business administration to the most friendly Bitcoin administration that you could hope for. This is 100% not priced. “
Related reading
Michael Saylor, executive chairman of MicroStrategy, briefly summarized the market sentiment together with its tweet: “SAB 121 has been withdrawn, so that banks can take Bitcoin in custody. 
”This corresponds to Saylor’s previously outlined catalysts for Bitcoin who would reach $ 1 million per coin, whereby facilitating traditional bank storage was the last open factor.
The relaxation of the regulations is expected to catalyze a larger institutional participation in the BTC and cryptomarkt. Brian Moynihan, CEO of Bank of America – in terms of assets the second largest American bank – discussed the potential for a broader adoption of crypto currency during an interview with Andrew Ross Sorkin of CNBC at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Moynihan said: “If the rules come and it will be a real thing that you can actually do business with, you will notice that the banking system will intervene hard on the transactional side of it.”
This statement corresponds to the latest directive of the SEC, which indicates that it is now more likely that banks will develop and offer crypto services, including storage solutions, which were previously limited under SAB 121. The removal of these regulatory regions is expected to liquidity And accessibility of Bitcoin could possibly cause a new wave of demand, comparable to the mock-ETFs of January last year.
At the time of writing, BTC acted at $ 105,466.
Featured image made with dall.e, graph of tradingview.com