Wall Street exchange pursues national trust charter

TLDR

EDX Markets, a crypto exchange backed by major Wall Street firms, has applied for a US national trust bank charter to offer regulated institutional crypto custody and settlement.

1. EDX wants an OCC national trust bank license so a new entity, EDX Trust, can provide crypto custody, asset management and settlement while trading stays on the existing exchange platform.
2. The structure mirrors traditional markets by separating trading from custody, aiming to reduce conflicts of interest and meet regulatory requirements for big banks, broker dealers and investment advisers.
3. The OCC review could take many months, and approval would signal a stronger green light for institutional crypto, while rejection or delay would keep reliance on existing specialist custodians.

Deep Dive

1. What EDX Is Actually Doing

EDX Markets is an institutional crypto exchange backed by Citadel Securities, Fidelity Digital Assets, Charles Schwab and others, launched in 2023 to serve professional investors.

According to public filings and multiple reports, EDX has applied to the US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) for a national trust bank charter to create EDX Trust, a non?depository national trust bank that would offer digital asset custody, asset management and trade settlement, while the current EDX venue continues to handle order matching and trading.

A national trust bank charter would put EDX Trust under direct federal banking supervision and allow it to serve clients across all US states under a single regulatory framework, instead of stitching together state?by?state money transmitter licenses.

2. Why A Trust Charter Matters For Crypto

EDXs proposed model explicitly separates custody and settlement from trading, arguing that combining brokerage, exchange and custody in one platform creates conflicts of interest and single points of failure. This design aligns with traditional equity and derivatives markets, where exchanges, brokers and custodians are distinct entities.

A federally supervised trust bank can hold digital assets, cash and stablecoins, manage them as a fiduciary, and run regulated settlement processes, making it easier for regulated institutions to satisfy their own custody and risk rules. EDXs move follows earlier national trust bank approvals or conditional approvals for Anchorage Digital, Ripple, Circle, BitGo, Fidelity Digital Assets and Paxos, and comes as the OCC has clarified that national trust banks can perform certain non?fiduciary digital asset custody activities under existing law.

3. What To Watch Next

The OCC has listed the EDX Trust application as pending, and similar bank charter reviews often run on the order of 6 to 18 months, with intensive scrutiny of capital, risk controls, AML/KYC and governance.

Key signals to watch are: any OCC updates on the application status, signs of political pushback from bank lobbies concerned about competition from crypto?native banks, and announcements from EDX about anchor institutional clients or bank partners contingent on charter approval.

For crypto users, the practical question is whether more national trust banks translate into deeper, cheaper and more reliable fiat rails and custody options for institutional flows, which can indirectly affect liquidity and market stability.

Conclusion

A Wall Street?backed exchange moving to become a nationally chartered trust bank is less about retail access and more about rebuilding crypto market structure to look like traditional finance.

If EDX secures the charter and similar applications from other firms advance, it would mark another step in pulling digital asset custody and settlement inside the US banking perimeter, potentially accelerating institutional adoption while also tightening regulatory expectations on how crypto infrastructure is run.