Eleven companies have filed applications or received conditional approvals for national trust bank charters from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) in an 83-day span, according to OCC filings. The applicant list includes Circle, Ripple, BitGo, Paxos, Fidelity Digital Assets, Brid...
"New entrants into the federal banking sector are good for consumers, the banking industry and the economy. They provide access to new products, services and sources of credit to consumers, and ensure a dynamic, competitive and diverse banking system." — Jonathan V. Gould, Comptroller of the Currency
Eleven companies have filed applications or received conditional approvals for national trust bank charters from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) in an 83-day span, according to OCC filings. The applicant list includes Circle, Ripple, BitGo, Paxos, Fidelity Digital Assets, Bridge (Stripe's stablecoin subsidiary), Crypto.com, Protego, Morgan Stanley, Payoneer, Zerohash, and — as of April 2 — Coinbase. EDX Markets, backed by Citadel Securities and Charles Schwab, filed separately on March 25.
The rush was catalyzed by an OCC rule change that took effect April 1, 2026. The amendment replaces the phrase "fiduciary activities" in 12 CFR 5.20 with "operations of a trust company and activities related thereto," removing a textual ambiguity that could have been read to restrict national trust banks to fiduciary services only. The OCC stated it had never interpreted the prior language that way, but the amendment eliminates the legal surface for a future challenge. The result: non-fiduciary custody — the foundational service institutional crypto allocators require — is now unambiguously authorized under the federal charter.
The crypto custody provider market was valued at $3.69 billion in 2026, according to Research and Markets, with institutional assets under professional custody exceeding $200 billion across the industry. The charter race represents a structural shift: crypto-native firms and Wall Street incumbents alike are converging on the same federal regulatory framework, creating a two-tier custody market where federally chartered entities hold a compliance advantage over state-only licensees.
The OCC filed an amendment to its chartering regulation on February 27, 2026, published in the Federal Register on March 2. The rule replaced one phrase in 12 CFR 5.20: "fiduciary activities" became "operations of a trust company and activities related thereto." It took effect April 1.
The practical significance is narrow but consequential. Under the prior text, a strict reading could have implied that national trust banks were limited to fiduciary activities — managing assets on behalf of clients under a fiduciary duty. Non-fiduciary custody, where a bank holds assets in safekeeping without exercising discretion over them, could theoretically have been challenged as outside the statutory scope.
The OCC was explicit in its rulemaking preamble: it had never interpreted the regulation that way. National trust banks have operated non-fiduciary custody accounts for decades. But the textual ambiguity created litigation risk, particularly for crypto-focused institutions whose primary business model rests on non-fiduciary safekeeping of digital assets. The amendment removes that ambiguity from the regulatory text.
For crypto firms, the timing was deliberate. Five institutions — Circle, Ripple, BitGo, Paxos, and Fidelity Digital Assets — had already received conditional approvals in December 2025. A second wave of approvals followed in February 2026. The rule change arriving on April 1 gave all conditionally approved entities a clean legal foundation for their core custody operations before final charter reviews.
The OCC's conditional approval and application timeline proceeded as follows:
December 2025 — First Wave (5 approvals):
February 2026 — Second Wave (3 approvals):
February–March 2026 — Applications Filed:
April 2, 2026:
The applicant pool spans the institutional spectrum: crypto-native custodians (BitGo, Coinbase), stablecoin issuers (Circle, Paxos, Ripple), payment processors (Bridge/Stripe, Payoneer), a TradFi broker-dealer (Morgan Stanley), an institutional exchange backed by Citadel and Schwab (EDX Markets), and a crypto exchange (Crypto.com).
The OCC granted Coinbase conditional approval on April 2, 2026, for a de novo non-insured national trust company headquartered in New York. Coinbase reported $245.7 billion in institutional assets under custody as of mid-2025, representing approximately 7% of total cryptocurrency market capitalization.
The entity — Coinbase National Trust Company — will not take retail deposits or engage in fractional reserve banking. Its scope is digital asset custody under federal oversight, replacing the state-level supervision Coinbase previously operated under via the New York Department of Financial Services.
Coinbase Chief Legal Officer Paul Grewal told CNBC: "Over the long haul we will be able to explore, with the OCC, offering not just custody products but also other infrastructure products, particularly around payments." This suggests the trust charter may serve as a platform for Coinbase to expand into stablecoin infrastructure and payment services.
Conditional approval is not final approval. Coinbase must build out compliance systems, hire key personnel, pass regulatory reviews, and demonstrate adequate risk management and anti-money-laundering controls before the OCC issues a final charter. This process typically takes 12–18 months.
Morgan Stanley filed its de novo charter application on February 18, 2026, proposing Morgan Stanley Digital Trust, National Association (MSDTNA), based in Purchase, New York. The entity would custody digital assets and, during its three-year de novo period, "conduct certain activities incidental to the business of banking, including the purchase, sale, swap and transfer of digital assets to support client investment activities, and facilitate customer staking of digital assets on a fiduciary basis," according to the filing.
The application followed a series of moves by the firm: in January 2026, Morgan Stanley appointed Amy Oldenburg to a newly created role overseeing digital asset strategy and filed S-1 documents for three spot ETFs covering Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana.
EDX Markets Holding Company — backed by Citadel Securities, Charles Schwab, Fidelity Digital Assets, Virtu Financial, Paradigm, Sequoia Capital, and Hudson River Trading — filed its charter application on March 25. The proposed EDX Trust, N.A., would be headquartered in Chicago and provide fiduciary custody, asset management, and settlement services exclusively for institutional clients.
No decision has been announced on either application. The OCC listed EDX's application as pending on March 26.
The entry of Morgan Stanley and EDX shifts the charter race from a crypto-industry affair into a cross-sector competition. These are not crypto-native firms seeking legitimacy; they are incumbent financial institutions seeking a federal framework for digital asset operations. The distinction matters for how the resulting custody market will be structured.
The charter approvals have drawn organized opposition from the banking sector. The Independent Community Bankers of America (ICBA) called the Coinbase conditional approval "a grave mistake" in a public statement, citing "flawed risk and control functions, profitability challenges, and resolution risks."
ICBA President and CEO Rebeca Romero Rainey argued the OCC lacks statutory authority to expand trust powers for crypto-related activities without applying the full set of banking regulations. The group contends that crypto firms are seeking access to the benefits of bank charters — federal preemption of state law, supervisory credibility with institutional clients — without meeting the same capital, liquidity, and resolution-planning requirements imposed on commercial banks.
Coinbase CLO Paul Grewal responded: "Imagine opposing a regulated trust charter because you prefer crypto to stay … unregulated. That's ICBA's position. It's another case of bank lobbyists trying to dig regulatory moats to protect their own."
The Bank Policy Institute and the National Community Reinvestment Coalition have also published opposing statements. The dispute centers on a structural question: whether the national trust bank charter, originally designed for traditional trust and fiduciary operations, is an appropriate vehicle for digital asset custody businesses that do not take deposits or make loans.
The OCC's position, stated in the December 2025 approval announcement and reiterated in the April rule change, is that the trust charter framework is broad enough to accommodate these activities and that conditional approval includes sufficient supervisory safeguards.
The crypto custody provider market grew from $3.28 billion in 2025 to $3.69 billion in 2026, according to Research and Markets. Assets under professional custody industry-wide exceeded $200 billion. Coinbase alone held $245.7 billion as of mid-2025, suggesting that the total figure across all institutional custodians is substantially higher when including firms such as Fidelity, BitGo, and Anchorage.
The federal charter creates economic advantages for holders. National trust banks operate under a single federal regulator rather than a patchwork of state licensing regimes — Coinbase, for example, previously held money transmitter licenses in dozens of states in addition to its NYDFS trust charter. Federal preemption reduces compliance costs and allows uniform service delivery across all 50 states.
For stablecoin issuers, the charter has additional significance. Ripple's RLUSD reached a $1.26 billion market cap within a year of launch. Under the Ripple National Trust Bank charter, RLUSD reserves and institutional digital assets will be custodied under dual federal (OCC) and state (NYDFS) oversight. Circle's First National Digital Currency Bank provides a similar federal custody framework for USDC reserves.
The convergence of stablecoin issuance and federal custody powers creates a vertically integrated structure: the same entity issues the stablecoin, holds its reserves, and provides custody services for institutional holders. Whether regulators will view this integration as a risk concentration or an efficiency remains an open question.
The charter race is occurring within a broader regulatory reconfiguration. The GENIUS Act, signed into law in July 2025, established a $10 billion threshold for stablecoin issuers: those above the threshold must submit to federal oversight. The CLARITY Act, which would create a comprehensive token classification framework, is expected to reach Senate Banking Committee markup by mid-April 2026.
The OCC charters interact with both legislative tracks. Stablecoin issuers with national trust bank charters (Circle, Ripple, Paxos) will already satisfy the federal oversight requirement of the GENIUS Act. If the CLARITY Act passes with provisions requiring qualified custodians for classified tokens, federally chartered trust banks will be positioned as the default compliant option.
The SEC's five-part token taxonomy, announced in early April, cleared 16 tokens from securities classification. For tokens classified as non-securities, qualified custody under a federal trust charter provides institutional allocators with a regulatory-compliant holding structure.
The combined effect creates a regulatory moat — not through political lobbying, but through accumulated compliance infrastructure. Firms that complete the charter process will operate in a different competitive tier than those relying solely on state licenses.
The OCC national trust bank charter race represents the most significant structural shift in U.S. crypto custody regulation since the SEC approved spot Bitcoin ETFs in January 2024. In 83 days, the applicant pool expanded from five crypto-native firms to a roster that includes the largest U.S. crypto exchange, a major Wall Street bank, and an institutional trading venue backed by some of the most capitalized firms in traditional finance.
The April 1 rule change was not a policy revolution. It was a one-sentence amendment to a chartering regulation. But it resolved an ambiguity that had created legal risk for every applicant, and its timing — coinciding with the second wave of conditional approvals and Coinbase's entry — suggests the OCC orchestrated the regulatory sequence deliberately.
What emerges is a two-tier custody market. Firms with federal charters will hold a structural compliance advantage: a single regulator, federal preemption, and alignment with both the GENIUS Act and any future CLARITY Act requirements. Firms operating under state-only licenses will face higher compliance costs, jurisdictional fragmentation, and a credibility gap with institutional allocators.
The banking lobby's opposition reflects a legitimate structural concern — whether the trust charter framework was designed to accommodate these activities — but the OCC has moved forward. The question is no longer whether crypto firms will hold federal charters. It is how the resulting custody market will be structured, who will win the race to full approval, and whether the compliance infrastructure built during the conditional period will prove adequate under stress.