OCC move accelerates crypto bank charter race

TLDR

The U.S. OCC has conditionally approved national trust bank charters for major crypto firms, escalating competition to become federally supervised "crypto banks."

1. The OCC cleared national trust charters tied to Coinbase, Ripple, BitGo, Fidelity and Paxos, sharpening focus on how digital asset custody is regulated.
2. A parallel Trump executive order pushes regulators and the Fed to open payment rails to qualified crypto firms, making these charters a key on-ramp to institutional finance.
3. Senator Elizabeth Warren and banking groups are challenging the approach, so the charter race now sits inside a larger political fight that will shape who actually wins access.

Deep Dive

1. What The OCC Approved

Reporting indicates the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has conditionally approved national trust bank charters for Coinbase, Ripple, BitGo, Fidelity and Paxos, placing them under federal banking supervision for fiduciary digital asset custody rather than traditional deposit-taking banking crypto bank charter approvals.

These approvals build on an earlier template used by Anchorage Digital, which already operates as a federally chartered crypto bank and recently won a large custody mandate from Canadian asset manager 3iQ for TSX-listed ETPs Anchorage partnership.

New entrants like Catena Labs, backed by a16z, have also filed for an OCC national trust bank charter to support AI-agent banking infrastructure, underscoring that this is becoming a competitive category rather than a one-off Catena charter filing.

2. Why Charters Matter For Crypto

National trust charters give qualified crypto firms a clear federal regulatory home for custody, settlement and fiduciary services, which many large institutions view as a prerequisite for holding significant digital asset exposure.

At the same time, a new Trump executive order instructs the Federal Reserve and other regulators to review barriers that keep crypto and fintech firms from Fed master accounts and payment services, and to streamline access where law permits Trump order on payment access.

Together, this means firms with OCC trust charters sit at the front of the line if the Fed creates a predictable route for non-bank payment access, which would directly benefit exchanges, stablecoin issuers and custodians that need fast, large-value dollar settlement.

3. Pushback, Risks And What To Watch

Senator Elizabeth Warren has argued that OCC crypto trust charters effectively let "crypto banks" bypass full bank rules and may violate the National Bank Act, pointing to at least nine approvals she wants reexamined Warren criticism of OCC charters.

Industry voices push back that fiduciary trust banks do not take deposits or lend and instead hold client assets fully segregated, with BitGo's CEO arguing that this model reduces consumer risk compared with unregulated platforms that commingled customer funds fiduciary custody defense.

Over the next 90 to 180 days, key signals will be: how the Fed defines eligibility and timelines for non-bank access, whether OCC tightens or pauses new charters under political pressure, and whether Congress or courts intervene to narrow or endorse this path.

Conclusion

The OCCs conditional trust charters have turned crypto custody into a regulated charter race, especially for firms like Coinbase, Ripple and BitGo that want to sit inside the U.S. banking perimeter. Whether this accelerates or stalls will depend on how the Fed implements Trumps order on payment access and how far critics like Senator Warren succeed in reshaping or blocking the framework. For crypto users and institutions, the winners of this race will likely define which platforms can offer the most trusted, deeply integrated bridges between digital assets and the core dollar system.