Overview
- The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency said on Aug. 11–12 that companies conducting lawful digital-asset activities should have a route into the national banking system and the agency published a list of 13 pending digital-asset trust applications.
- Roughly 40 de novo charter applications arrived at the OCC over the past 18 months and several large crypto firms have received conditional or preliminary approvals, including Circle, Ripple, BitGo, Fidelity Digital Assets, Paxos and Coinbase.
- National trust bank charters grant custody, settlement and fiduciary powers but do not automatically allow retail deposit-taking or general commercial lending, and conditional approvals do not let firms start full operations until final supervisory conditions are met.
- The FDIC introduced a two-phase deposit-insurance review for new applications starting Aug. 15 that aims for contingent authorization within 120 days and a longer phase to complete final insurance orders, a change that affects firms seeking insured deposits.
- The program faces active legal and political scrutiny: the OCC denied Wise National Trust on July 21, Senator Elizabeth Warren and the Bank Policy Institute have raised statutory and prudential objections, and further approvals or court challenges will shape whether federal charters broaden crypto’s regulated role.