For holders assessing who safeguards their crypto, Coinbase’s federal trust charter concerns its institutional custody business—not a move into retail deposit-taking. According to Decrypt’s November 9, 2026 report, Coinbase said it had received final approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) to charter Coinbase National Trust Company.
Original publication: November 9, 2026, at 19:50:36 UTC+08:00.
A federal framework for institutional custody
Coinbase announced the approval on Monday, saying the OCC had approved its application the preceding Friday. The company said the charter would allow it to expand its business holding digital assets on behalf of institutional clients under a federal regulatory framework.
Describing itself as the leading global crypto custodian, Coinbase called custody foundational to its business and said the charter would bring “clear and consistent federal uniformity” to those operations. That description of its market position is the company’s own.
CEO Brian Armstrong wrote on November 9 that trusted custody was essential to bringing more of the financial system onchain, describing the new trust company as another step toward that foundation.
What changes—and what Coinbase said would not
Coinbase has offered regulated custody since 2018, when Coinbase Custody Trust Company received a limited-purpose trust charter from the New York Department of Financial Services. The company said the national trust company builds on that foundation while bringing its trust activities into a consistent federal framework.
The final approval followed conditional OCC approval in April, seven months earlier. At that time, Coinbase said it was not becoming a commercial bank, would not accept retail deposits and would not engage in fractional-reserve banking. It first applied for the charter in 2025.
For readers comparing custody arrangements, the distinction is the scope of the announcement: Coinbase described a federal framework for institutional custody, rather than a retail banking service.
Other approvals and unresolved opposition
Coinbase joined other crypto firms that had secured national trust charters:
- Circle received final approval in July 2026 for a trust bank to manage reserves backing its USDC stablecoin.
- Ripple received final approval in October 2026 for a trust bank behind its RLUSD stablecoin.
Other applications had not reached final approval. Jack Dorsey’s Block applied in September for a charter to custody Bitcoin, while Kraken parent Payward filed in May. According to Reuters, a trust company linked to Trump family-backed World Liberty Financial received conditional approval in August for a charter tied to its USD1 stablecoin.
The approvals also faced opposition. Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, argued that the OCC’s crypto charter approvals, including Coinbase’s, were illegal. The Independent Community Bankers of America sued the OCC to stop what it characterized as crypto firms entering banking through a “side door.” Those are the opponents’ claims, not legal findings established by the report.