Coinbase has received conditional approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) to set up Coinbase National Trust Company in the U.S. ] Coinbase confirmed the development through a blog post onn Thursday.
The exchange explained that the charter is for their custody and market infrastructure services, not banking.
“Coinbase is not becoming a commercial bank. We will not be taking retail deposits. We will not be engaging in fractional reserve banking,” it stated.
Instead, the trust charter would place its digital asset custody business under federal oversight and could support future products linked to that service.
“Conditional approval means that Coinbase is positioned to build the next chapter of finance with the regulatory confidence that our partners, customers, and the broader market need,” the firm added.
In a Thursday post on X, Paul Grewal, Coinbase Chief Legal Officer, also confirmed that the company had received conditional approval.
What conditional approval means
Coinbase’s approval is still conditional, not final. That means the company now has a path to launch Coinbase National Trust Company, but it must first meet the OCC’s remaining requirements.
These include building robust anti-money laundering and know-your-customer programs. In addition, Coinbase has to comply with various financial regulations, establish a proper system of management and ensure readiness of its risk management framework.
The firm can begin operating only after the regulator confirms that all conditions have been satisfied.
The process gives the OCC time to check whether Coinbase is ready for federal oversight. At the same time, it gives the company time to prepare its systems and controls.
Once it gets final approval, Coinbase could offer custody services under one national framework instead of following different rules in each state. As a result, that clearer setup could appeal to large institutions before they commit major assets.
Greg Tusar, Coinbase’s vice president of product management, told Bloomberg that full approval could also help the company expand into new areas. These may include tokenized securities, stablecoins, and related services.
“The ability to have a federal framework for our custody business is important. This is about us growing our reach and being able to conduct new business that we may not have been able to before,” Tusar told Bloomberg.
Coinbase also said the charter could support products beyond custody, while still focusing on the infrastructure it has been building for years.
Why this charter matters for crypto users
Coinbase said this federal trust plan is not replacing the setup it already has in New York. The company will still operate Coinbase, Inc. under New York regulators, and its BitLicense and state trust charter will continue to remain in effect.
For everyday users, nothing is expected to change. But the move could bring more institutional investors into crypto over time.
“This charter is about bringing federal regulatory uniformity to the custody and market infrastructure business we have been building for years,” Coinbase stated.
“The OCC charter was designed precisely for this purpose — to provide clear oversight over assets in safekeeping — and that is exactly how we intend to use it,” it added.
A growing trend among crypto firms
Coinbase is one of several crypto firms that have received conditional OCC trust charter approval in recent months.
Paxos received similar conditional approval in December. Then, in February, Bridge, Stripe’s stablecoin unit, also secured conditional approval from the OCC.
Meanwhile, Fidelity Digital Assets, BitGo, Crypto.com, Circle and Ripple have also followed the same path. However, each company must still meet the OCC’s final conditions before it can begin operating under the charter.
Recently, EDX Markets, the institutional crypto exchange backed by Citadel Securities, formally applied for a national trust bank charter from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.
This trend shows that more crypto firms want clear federal rules for custody. That matters because large investors usually want stronger regulatory certainty before committing money.
By seeking a trust charter instead of a full bank charter, Coinbase and similar firms can focus on custody and infrastructure without becoming commercial banks. The OCC appears more open to crypto-related charter applications this year than it was in earlier years.
Therefore, more firms have been able to reach the conditional approval stage. But final approval depends on whether each company meets strict compliance and operational standards.
In February, the OCC conditionally approved Crypto.com’s request to launch a bank charter. The same month, the American Bankers Association (ABA) had requested the OCC to halt the issuance of fresh national trust bank charters for crypto firms.