Coinbase has received final approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) to charter Coinbase National Trust Company, the crypto exchange said on Monday.

The OCC approved the application last Friday, according to Coinbase. The charter will let the company expand its custody business, which holds digital assets on behalf of institutional clients, under a federal regulatory framework. It also brings Coinbase's institutional crypto custody operations under a single federal regulator, building on the firm's existing New York trust charter.

"Custody is foundational to our business," the company said, describing itself as the leading crypto custodian globally. The national charter will "bring clear and consistent federal uniformity" to its custody operations, it added.

"Trusted custody is essential for bringing more of the financial system onchain," Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said on X on Monday, calling the newly chartered entity "another step for building that foundation."

Trusted custody is essential for bringing more of the financial system onchain. Coinbase National Trust Company is another step for building that foundation.

— Brian Armstrong (@brian_armstrong) November 9, 2026

The OCC, an independent bureau of the U.S. Department of the Treasury, charters and supervises national banks and federal trust companies. A national trust charter places a firm's custody and fiduciary activities under unified federal oversight rather than separate state-level regulation. Unlike a full commercial bank charter, it does not authorize the holder to take deposits from the public — a distinction Coinbase underscored during the approval process.

Coinbase has offered regulated custody since 2018, when its Coinbase Custody Trust Company won a limited purpose trust charter from the New York Department of Financial Services. The new national trust company builds on that foundation while bringing the exchange's trust activities into a consistent federal framework, Coinbase said.

The approval comes seven months after the OCC granted Coinbase conditional approval in April. At the time, the company said it was not becoming a commercial bank and would not take retail deposits or engage in fractional reserve banking. Coinbase first applied for the charter last year.

The crypto charter wave

Coinbase is the latest crypto firm to win a national trust charter this year, following Circle and Ripple. Circle won final approval in July for a trust bank to manage the reserves behind its USDC stablecoin, and Ripple received final approval last month for a trust bank that supports its RLUSD stablecoin. In both cases, the charters place the reserves backing the respective tokens under federal oversight.

Others are still awaiting final approval. Jack Dorsey's Block applied for a charter to custody Bitcoin in September, Kraken parent Payward filed its own application in May, and a trust company linked to Trump family-backed World Liberty Financial won conditional approval in August for a charter tied to its USD1 stablecoin, Reuters reported. Whether the OCC grants those applicants final approval is the next development to watch in the chartering wave.

Legal pushback

The approvals have drawn opposition, with banking groups challenging them in court. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) has argued that the OCC's crypto charter approvals, including Coinbase's, are illegal. Separately, the Independent Community Bankers of America has sued the OCC in an effort to stop crypto firms from entering banking through what it describes as a side door. The lawsuits remain pending, leaving the newly granted charters subject to judicial challenge even as their holders operate under federal oversight, and how courts treat the OCC's authority to charter crypto firms is now a key open question for the broader effort.