Coinbase Wins Full OCC Trust Charter for Custody, Not Deposits

Coinbase now runs a national trust bank. The exchange said Monday that the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has granted final approval for Coinbase National Trust Company, turning the conditional charter it won on April 2 into a full one, CoinDesk and Crypto Briefing reported.

For institutions that keep crypto with Coinbase, the custodian moves under a federal bank supervisor instead of relying on a New York State license alone.

How a trust charter differs from a bank

A national trust bank holds and safeguards assets for clients as a fiduciary, meaning it must act in their interest. It does not take retail deposits or make loans. The OCC's April approval letter describes the new bank's job as digital asset custody, "primarily for institutional clients," plus letting custody customers hold and transfer cash and coins in their accounts. Cash held in custody sits in "for benefit of" accounts at other banks, the letter says.

The reports of Monday's approval don't say how many client assets the new bank will hold on day one. For scale, OCC-supervised uninsured national trust banks reported $1.7 trillion in custody and safekeeping accounts as of Dec. 31, 2025, the letter says.

Staking stays with affiliates

The letter sets limits. Custody clients can reach Coinbase's staking, Prime Trading and Prime Financing products, but the bank acts only as a finder: affiliates provide those services, not the bank itself. Coinbase will move the whole custody business from Coinbase Custody Trust Company, its New York-chartered trust firm, to the national bank over the three-year start-up period, according to the letter.

Coinbase's April blog post said the company would not take retail deposits or engage in fractional reserve banking, and that its BitLicense and New York trust charter stay in place.

Ripple won its own final OCC trust approval on Oct. 26, Crypto Briefing reported.

In our opinion: the line to watch is the three-year migration. Until the custody book actually moves, Coinbase runs two regulators' rulebooks side by side. The next checkable document is the OCC's own final-approval record, and whether it attaches conditions beyond April's.