Coinbase has received final approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to run Coinbase National Trust Company, a federally chartered trust bank for its crypto custody business. The exchange said on Monday that the OCC signed off last Friday, seven months after a conditional approval in April. The charter moves Coinbase’s institutional custody under a federal bank regulator, but it does not turn the company into a bank that takes deposits or makes loans.
What Coinbase announced
“Last Friday, the OCC approved our application to charter Coinbase National Trust Company,” Coinbase wrote in a blog post. The company called custody “foundational to our business” and said the charter brings “clear and consistent federal uniformity” to that work.
Chief executive Brian Armstrong kept it short. “Trusted custody is essential for bringing more of the financial system onchain,” Armstrong said, calling the trust company “another step for building that foundation.”
Vice Chairman Ryan VanGrack tied it to the company’s long push for federal rules. “We’ve spent years asking for clear rules and rigorous oversight, and today’s approval of our national trust charter puts more of our business behind that commitment,” he said in a statement reported by CoinDesk.
What the charter allows, and what it does not
The limits are spelled out in the OCC’s April 2 conditional approval letter. The New York-based trust bank will hold digital assets as a fiduciary, mainly for institutional clients, and let those custody clients move cash and crypto in and out of their accounts. Customer cash will sit in “for benefit of” accounts at outside banks.
It will not be an insured depository institution, and the OCC barred it from meeting the Bank Holding Company Act’s definition of a bank, which covers firms that both take demand deposits and make commercial loans. The regulator also noted that the trust bank “does not propose to issue stablecoins.” Staking, Prime trading and Prime financing stay with other Coinbase companies. The trust bank can point custody clients to those services as a finder, but the letter says it “will not be providing” them itself.
In practice, the biggest change is where Coinbase’s custody business sits. Today it runs through Coinbase Custody Trust Company, a limited purpose trust company chartered by the New York Department of Financial Services in 2018. According to the OCC letter, Coinbase “will migrate the entirety of this custody business” into the national trust bank over a three-year start-up period.
The conditions attached
The approval came with strings. For its first three years, the trust bank must hold at least $60 million in tier 1 capital, with the greater of half that capital or $30 million kept in eligible liquid assets. On top of that, it must hold enough liquid assets to cover 180 days of operating expenses, and those funds cannot be double counted. Any significant change to the business plan needs 60 days’ notice and a written no-objection from the OCC. The bank must also conform its activities to the GENIUS Act stablecoin law where it applies.
The OCC received five public comments on the application, two from bank trade groups and three from community groups. Three of them pointed to past enforcement actions against Coinbase affiliates. The regulator said those links were “attenuated” and better handled through supervision than as grounds for denial.
For scale, the OCC said uninsured national trust banks it supervises reported $7.0 trillion in assets under administration at the end of 2025, of which $1.7 trillion was custody and safekeeping accounts.
Where this fits
Coinbase joins a growing group of crypto firms holding national trust charters. Circle received final approval in July and Ripple last month. Others are still in line, including Jack Dorsey’s Block, which applied in September for a bitcoin custody trust bank.
The model is also being challenged in court. The Independent Community Bankers of America sued the OCC in Washington on Oct. 2, arguing in its complaint that the agency’s March 2026 chartering rule goes beyond what the National Bank Act allows. The group said the OCC “has approved or conditionally approved national trust bank charters for 21 trust banks, at least 13 of which are crypto companies.” The government’s answer is due Dec. 13, according to the court docket.
What to watch
The next steps are practical. Institutional clients will want to know when their accounts move from the New York entity to the federal one, and on what terms. The ICBA case could still affect the legal footing of these charters. The charter also does not by itself give the trust bank a Federal Reserve master account, which requires a separate application to the Fed.
FAQ
Is Coinbase now a bank?
Not in the usual sense. Coinbase National Trust Company is an uninsured national trust bank. It can hold assets as a fiduciary for custody clients, but it is not set up to take deposits or make loans the way a commercial bank does.
Does this change anything for retail Coinbase users?
Not directly. The trust bank is aimed mainly at institutional custody clients, and Coinbase plans to move its existing New York custody business into it over three years.
Can the trust bank issue a stablecoin?
Coinbase did not propose stablecoin issuance in its application, according to the OCC’s conditional approval letter.
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice.
