Coinbase Wins Final OCC Approval for National Trust Bank Charter

Coinbase has final approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to run a national trust bank, the company said on Monday, seven months after the OCC gave it conditional approval. The OCC approved the application last Friday, and licensing records show the chartering process completed on 6 November.

It is a narrow win. The new bank, Coinbase National Trust Company, is built for institutional custody, the business of holding digital assets for institutional clients. The charter does not turn Coinbase into a deposit-taking bank, it does not authorise stablecoin issuance, and the custody arm it is meant to house currently answers to New York, not Washington.

• The news: Coinbase won final OCC approval to charter Coinbase National Trust Company, upgrading the conditional approval it received in April 2026.
• The figure: the trust bank must hold at least $60 million in Tier 1 capital and cover 180 days of operating expenses in liquid assets during its first three years, terms carried from the April 2026 conditional approval.
• What happens next: Coinbase will migrate its custody business from its NYDFS-regulated trust company to the new bank over a three-year de novo period.

What the Charter Allows, and What It Leaves Out

The OCC's decision describes Coinbase National Trust Company as a wholly owned subsidiary of Coinbase Global, Inc., with its main office in New York, filed under control number 2025-Charter-343449.

A national trust charter is a narrow licence. The bank cannot take ordinary retail deposits or make loans, and it is not authorised to issue stablecoins. The OCC's decision is explicit that the bank does not propose to issue them, which closes off the reading that this approval is a stablecoin launch in disguise.

Staking, prime trading and financing do not move into the trust bank. They keep running through Coinbase affiliates.

Custody Moves From New York to the OCC

Custody sits today with Coinbase Custody Trust Company, LLC, a limited-purpose trust chartered by the New York State Department of Financial Services. Coinbase has offered regulated custody since 2018, when that trust won its New York charter. The OCC decision says the company will migrate the entirety of the custody business to the new bank over the three-year de novo period, the start-up phase for a newly chartered bank.

That migration is the substance of the announcement. Institutional clients keep the same custodian, but it answers to a federal framework rather than a state one, which Coinbase described as bringing "clear and consistent federal uniformity" to its custody operations.

CEO Brian Armstrong put it the same way on Monday: "Trusted custody is essential for bringing more of the financial system onchain," he said, calling the trust company "another step for building that foundation."

The $60 Million Floor and the Pushback

The capital condition is small next to the market the bank is joining. OCC-supervised uninsured national trust banks reported $7.0 trillion in assets under administration as of 31 December 2025, according to the same decision.

The application drew five comments: two from trade groups representing banks and three from community groups.

Banks objected on the way in. The Independent Community Bankers of America urged the OCC in December to reject the application, arguing Coinbase has "demonstrably flawed risk and control functions." The American Bankers Association asked the regulator in February to slow its review of crypto charter requests. The ICBA has since sued the OCC over the crypto charter pipeline, and Senator Elizabeth Warren has argued the approvals, Coinbase's included, are illegal.

Circle, Ripple and the Queue Behind Coinbase

Coinbase joins a short list late. Circle won final OCC approval in July for a trust bank to manage the reserves behind its USDC stablecoin, and Ripple received final approval on 26 October for a trust bank behind RLUSD. Only a handful of firms, including those two, have completed the process.

More are waiting. Block applied in September for a charter to custody Bitcoin, Kraken parent Payward filed in May, and the OCC's licensing page lists Galaxy National Bank's application as received on 26 October 2026.

The clock that matters for Coinbase now is the three-year custody migration, which runs from the charter's 6 November completion. The fight over whether the OCC should be granting these charters at all is still open, and nothing in the decision settles it.