Coinbase announced on Thursday that it has received conditional approval for a national trust bank charter from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), but clarified that it won’t be establishing a commercial bank. According to a blog post, this move will enable Coinbase to achieve federal regulatory uniformity in safeguarding various asset types for its customers.
The San Francisco-based exchange emphasized that this development integrates crypto-native companies more tightly with traditional financial systems, facilitating the creation of new products targeting both individual and institutional clients. Payments were specifically mentioned as an area poised for expansion under this charter, leveraging Coinbase’s existing partnership with stablecoin issuer Circle, which secured a similar national trust banking charter last year.
Coinbase Custody Trust Company received a limited purpose trust charter from New York’s Department of Financial Services in 2018, qualifying it to protect securities for professionals like investment advisors. The company underscored its commitment to maintaining regulatory compliance and operational maturity under the stringent BitLicense framework provided by the state regulator.
The firm confirmed that it will not accept individual deposits nor engage in fractional reserve banking. Operating under OCC oversight, Coinbase aims to eliminate interstate banking barriers, despite already being accessible in all 50 states. The GENIUS Act, a federal law for stablecoins signed last year, grants the OCC supervisory authority over qualified issuers, recognizing national trust banks as potential participants and allowing them to avoid state-level licensing complexities.
Following approvals granted by the OCC to Circle and other firms like Ripple, BitGo, Paxos Trust Company, and Fidelity Digital Assets last year, Jonathan V. Gould, Comptroller of the Currency, praised new entrants for benefiting consumers, the banking sector, and the economy. Anchorage Digital was the first federally chartered digital asset bank under the Biden administration in 2021.
Senator Elizabeth Warren expressed concerns following a similar OCC approval wave last year, criticizing efforts by World Liberty Financial to obtain a charter as lacking necessary conflict-of-interest safeguards. The Bank Policy Institute also called on the OCC to reject certain crypto firm applications in October, warning of potential risks and regulatory ambiguities if crypto-native firms could offer bank-like services without enhanced oversight.
Despite these concerns, the crypto industry’s integration with traditional finance continues unabated. Earlier this March, Kraken received approval for a Federal Reserve master account, providing access to its primary payment systems.