Coinbase receives full national trust charter from the OCC

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Coinbase receives full national trust charter from the OCC

Coinbase now holds a full national trust charter from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. The charter moves its custody business under a federal regulator, but it covers no retail deposits or lending. The move follows the GENIUS Act framework for payment stablecoin issuers.

Coinbase now holds a full national trust charter from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). The largest US crypto exchange can now run its custody business under a federal banking regulator instead of relying only on a state license.

What Coinbase received

The new entity is called the Coinbase National Trust Company. It is a de novo national trust bank, built from scratch rather than acquired, and its main job is fiduciary digital asset custody.

Coinbase filed its application on October 3, 2025 and received conditional approval on April 2, 2026. The charter has limits, however: it does not cover retail deposits, lending or fractional reserve banking. Coinbase also keeps its existing New York state trust charter and its BitLicense.

A three-year move for a large custody business

The shift will be gradual. The charter application includes a plan to move the custody business over a three-year period.

The size of the business explains the pace. Coinbase held $245.7 billion in institutional custody assets as of mid-2025, and total assets on its platform reached $376 billion at year-end 2025.

The GENIUS Act backdrop

The charter wave ties to the GENIUS Act, which was signed into law in July 2025 and set up a regulatory framework for payment stablecoin issuers. National trust banks are one of the structures the OCC uses to bring issuers and custodians inside that system.

Ripple has reached the same status. It received conditional OCC approval on December 12, 2025 and secured final approval on October 26, 2026.

The source also flags risks. The three-year transition means Coinbase will operate across both state and federal frameworks for a while, which adds complexity, and without deposit-taking or lending powers these trust banks remain specialists.

Source: Crypto Briefing

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