The U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) has granted conditional approval to cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase for a national bank trust charter, marking a significant regulatory milestone for the company's institutional business. The approval, announced by Coinbase Chief Legal Officer Paul Grewal, allows the establishment of Coinbase National Trust Company.
The charter is specifically structured around custody and market infrastructure services and does not permit Coinbase to take retail deposits or operate as a traditional fractional reserve bank. Greg Tusar, Co-CEO of Coinbase Institutional, stated the approval brings "federal regulatory uniformity to the custody and market infrastructure business we have been building for years."
Coinbase submitted its application to the OCC in October. The company already holds a state-level trust charter from the New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS). The federal charter is expected to significantly expand its institutional client base, as Tusar noted Coinbase is "the custodian to over 80% of the world's digital asset ETFs" and that other asset managers and hedge funds prefer engaging with a federally chartered entity.
As of June 2025, Coinbase's institutional business reported $245.7 billion in assets under management, representing roughly 7% of the total crypto market. Conditional approval is not final; Coinbase must complete several procedural steps, including holding its first board meeting, adopting bylaws, establishing payment rails, and passing a pre-opening OCC exam. Its existing NYDFS licenses remain fully operational in the interim.
Coinbase follows other crypto firms, including Ripple Labs, BitGo, Circle, Fidelity Digital Assets, and Paxos, which received similar conditional OCC approvals in December. More recently, Morgan Stanley, EDX Markets, and World Liberty Financial have also filed for national trust charters.
