Coinbase announced on Monday, November 9, that the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) has granted it a full national trust charter. The approval turns the conditional green light the OCC gave on April 2 into a federal license for Coinbase National Trust Company, a New York-based subsidiary of Coinbase Global. It puts Coinbase alongside Circle and Ripple, which have also reported final approvals, and it is the latest step in the OCC’s effort to bring crypto custody under federal bank supervision.
The charter is narrower than the headline suggests. It is a trust charter, not a bank charter in the everyday sense: it is built for custody, not for taking deposits or making loans. Below is what the OCC’s own April decision allows, what coverage of the final approval adds, who else is in line, and what is still unconfirmed.
What the OCC approved
The final approval appears to have been completed on Friday, November 6, according to Decrypt and crypto.news, which cite OCC licensing records and Coinbase’s announcement. We could not retrieve the OCC’s final approval letter or a news release, so the date rests on those reports. The entity is Coinbase National Trust Company, and the OCC’s April decision letter (Corporate Decision #1370) identifies it as a wholly owned subsidiary of Coinbase Global. Coinbase applied in October 2025, according to Banking Dive.
The April letter sets the terms the charter was built on. The bank must hold at least $60 million in Tier 1 capital plus a separate liquidity reserve covering 180 days of operating expenses, including the cost of winding down. The approval lapses if the capital is not raised within 12 months or the bank does not open within 18 months. Coinbase must give the OCC at least 60 days’ notice before opening and request a pre-opening examination, and it must stay within trust-company activities for the first three years unless the OCC does not object to a change. The bank is not FDIC-insured, and it is expected to apply for Federal Reserve Bank stock. No source we read says which of those conditions were met before the final approval.
What the charter lets Coinbase do
According to the April letter, the charter covers fiduciary custody of digital assets, mainly for institutional clients, plus transactional services tied to that custody: accepting, holding and transferring the fiat and digital assets that customers have placed in custody. It also lets the bank steer custody customers to products that remain at Coinbase affiliates, namely staking, Prime trading and Prime financing; the bank does not provide those itself. Customer cash is held in “for the benefit of” accounts at third-party banks. Coinbase’s existing custody business, now run by the New York-regulated Coinbase Custody Trust Company, is to migrate to the national entity over a three-year start-up period.
Coverage of the final approval adds what the charter does not do. According to crypto.news and Bitcoin Magazine, it does not allow retail deposits or lending, it does not allow the bank itself to run staking, Prime trading or financing, and it does not give Coinbase automatic access to Federal Reserve payment systems, which would take a separate application. Coinbase said in April that it would not become a commercial bank or take retail deposits, according to Banking Dive. The April letter does not address deposits directly, so the “no deposits, no loans” description comes from Coinbase and secondary outlets, not from the OCC text we read.
One caution on the word “payments.” Some summaries describe the charter as covering custody and payments. The OCC letter authorizes custody-linked transfers for custody customers, not payments as a general product line. A February 2026 OCC rule (Bulletin 2026-4, effective April 1) clarified that national trust banks may carry out certain non-fiduciary activities as part of trust-company operations, and a law-firm analysis notes that the exact scope of permitted payments activity is still unclear.
The charter also does not involve stablecoin issuance. The April letter says Coinbase does not propose to issue stablecoins through the bank. Separately, the OCC finalized its GENIUS Act stablecoin-issuer rule on October 21, with the rule and the Act taking effect January 18, 2027, according to Reed Smith. See our explainer on the Fed’s GENIUS Act stablecoin rules.
Who else holds or wants an OCC trust charter
Coinbase is not the second company to get here. Circle’s bank was reported to have final approval in July, and Ripple announced its own final approval on October 26. A longer line is waiting. The table shows the status of the firms we could verify, with the confidence label for each.
| Firm | Status | Confidence |
|---|---|---|
| Anchorage Digital Bank | Operating federally chartered bank since 2021 | Reported |
| Circle | Conditional approval December 12, 2025; final approval reported July 10, 2026; opening not confirmed | Reported |
| Ripple | Conditional December 2025; final approval announced October 26, 2026 | Confirmed (Ripple release); not seen on OCC site |
| Coinbase | Conditional April 2, 2026; final approval reported November 6 | Confirmed (April letter); Reported (final) |
| Paxos, BitGo, Fidelity Digital Assets | Conditional December 12, 2025; no final status found | Confirmed (OCC release) |
| Crypto.com (Foris DAX) | Conditional February 20, 2026 | Confirmed (OCC letter) |
| Bastion Platforms | Conditional approval of a state-trust conversion, September 18, 2026 | Confirmed (OCC letter) |
| Bridge (Stripe), Protego, World Liberty Trust | Conditional approvals reported in 2026; World Liberty’s dated August 14 | Reported |
| Block, Payward (Kraken), Morgan Stanley, Payoneer, Zerohash | Applications pending | Reported |
Sources: OCC Corporate Decisions #1367, #1370 and #1391 and OCC release NR 2025-125; Ripple press release; The Block; FinTech Weekly; Crowdfund Insider; FinTech Futures; Decrypt. Statuses can change quickly; check the OCC’s decisions page for the latest.
The bank lobby’s lawsuit
The charters are being challenged in court. The Independent Community Bankers of America sued the OCC on October 2 in federal court in Washington, according to American Banker, challenging the agency’s trust-bank rule, a 2021 interpretive letter and the conditional approval for Protego. The suit argues the OCC exceeded its authority under the National Bank Act and acted arbitrarily. We found no reported ruling or schedule, and the OCC said it does not comment on litigation. Coinbase and Circle are named in coverage as examples, not as parties. The group had also urged the OCC in May to rescind Coinbase’s preliminary approval after the New York attorney general sued a Coinbase subsidiary. See our earlier coverage of the ICBA lawsuit and the trust charter race.
What Coinbase and the OCC have said
Coinbase Vice Chairman Ryan VanGrack said the company has long asked for clear rules and rigorous oversight, and Coinbase said the charter brings federal uniformity to its custody business, according to Decrypt and crypto.news. Chief executive Brian Armstrong said trusted custody is essential to moving the financial system onchain. We found no OCC statement on this approval, and we could not load Coinbase’s own announcement, so the company’s exact wording is unconfirmed.
What we could not confirm
We did not see the OCC’s final approval letter, so the November 6 date, the conditions it verified and any change to the April activity limits are unconfirmed. We do not know whether Coinbase National Trust Company has opened, whether the 12-month and 18-month deadlines were met or waived, or whether Coinbase has applied for Federal Reserve Bank stock or a payments account. Final statuses for Paxos, BitGo, Fidelity, Crypto.com and Bridge were not found, and we did not locate the ICBA court docket.
Why it matters
For institutional clients, the charter means Coinbase’s custody would be supervised by a federal bank regulator rather than a state one, with capital and liquidity rules written into the approval. For the industry, it shows the OCC will approve several competing crypto trust banks, which raises the stakes of the bank lobby’s lawsuit: a ruling against the OCC’s rule could reach every one of these charters. Watch for the OCC’s final letter, the opening date, any Federal Reserve access decision and the first rulings in the ICBA case. This is reporting, not legal or investment advice.
Further reading
- CoinDesk: Coinbase gets full U.S. trust charter from federal banking regulator
- OCC Corporate Decision #1370: Coinbase National Trust Company (April 2026)
- Decrypt: Coinbase joins Circle and Ripple with final OCC approval
- crypto.news: Coinbase receives full OCC national trust bank charter
- OCC news release NR 2025-125: conditional approvals for Paxos, BitGo and Fidelity Digital Assets
- Ripple: final OCC approval to establish a national trust bank
- OCC Bulletin 2026-4: national trust bank activities rule
- American Banker: ICBA sues OCC over trust charters
- Reed Smith: OCC finalizes GENIUS Act stablecoin rules
Frequently asked
What did the OCC approve for Coinbase?
A full national trust charter for Coinbase National Trust Company, a New York-based subsidiary of Coinbase Global. It converts the conditional approval the OCC issued on April 2, 2026. The final approval was reported as completed November 6 and announced by Coinbase on November 9.
Is Coinbase becoming a bank?
Not in the everyday sense. The charter is for fiduciary custody and related transfers for custody customers. According to coverage of the approval, it does not allow retail deposits or lending, and it is not FDIC-insured. Coinbase said in April it would not become a commercial bank.
Can the new Coinbase trust bank issue stablecoins?
No, not under the April OCC letter, which says Coinbase does not propose to issue stablecoins through the bank. Staking, Prime trading and financing also stay with Coinbase affiliates.
Which other crypto companies have OCC trust charters?
Circle was reported to have final approval in July and Ripple announced final approval on October 26. Paxos, BitGo and Fidelity Digital Assets were conditionally approved in December 2025, and Crypto.com, Bridge, Protego, World Liberty and Bastion have conditional approvals. Anchorage Digital Bank has operated as a federally chartered bank since 2021.
Is there a legal challenge to the OCC trust charters?
Yes. The Independent Community Bankers of America sued the OCC on October 2 in federal court in Washington, according to American Banker, challenging the agency’s trust-bank rule, a 2021 interpretive letter and Protego’s conditional approval. We found no ruling or schedule.