Coinbase Receives OCC’s Conditional Approval for Trust Charter

Coinbase has recently announced that it has secured conditional approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) to establish a national trust company charter. This development reflects the company’s strategy to enhance its regulatory framework within the cryptocurrency landscape.

The OCC granted this preliminary approval to the Coinbase National Trust Company, an application that was originally filed on October 3, 2025. Until the recent announcement, the application status was listed as pending on the OCC’s Digital Assets Licensing Applications page.

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This charter will operate as a non-insured national trust company, which means Coinbase will not engage in deposit-taking or loan issuance. Instead, the focus will be on custody services, staking, and other fiduciary functions aimed at institutional clients.

Coinbase highlighted that the charter aims to provide regulatory consistency for its custody and market operations. The firm currently manages more than $245 billion in assets under custody, primarily through its existing business approved by the New York Department of Financial Services.

It is important to note that this conditional approval does not equate to full authorization. Coinbase must meet a series of pre-opening requirements set forth by the OCC before the national trust bank can commence operations. These requirements include comprehensive anti-money laundering (AML) and know-your-customer (KYC) programs, along with standards related to capital, liquidity, governance, risk management, and an operational agreement with the OCC.

Only once the OCC verifies that Coinbase has fulfilled these conditions will it gain the green light to operate under this charter.

This approval positions Coinbase to offer custody services under federal oversight, particularly to large institutional clients who prefer the added regulatory assurance before trusting a crypto firm with their assets. Additionally, the federal charter will allow Coinbase to benefit from a unified national framework, simplifying compliance compared to state-by-state regulation.

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In recent months, the OCC has been progressively granting conditional national trust charters to various crypto firms, with Paxos being one of the recipients in December 2025. Other companies like Circle, Ripple, Bitgo, Fidelity Digital Assets, and Crypto.com have also received similar preliminary approvals.

However, each entity must independently fulfill the pre-opening conditions before they can begin operations. Therefore, obtaining conditional approval does not guarantee that the company will achieve full operational status.

For Coinbase, this charter represents a significant expansion of its institutional custody capabilities beyond its previous state-chartered framework in New York. The demand for regulated digital asset custody has surged, prompting Coinbase to pursue a path toward federal oversight.

Despite this progress, Coinbase has clarified that it does not plan to engage in full commercial banking activities under the charter. Instead, the framework is designed to support its custody and infrastructure services at the federal level, marking a pivotal step in the company’s ongoing evolution in the crypto space.