At a Glance

• The OCC logged digital-asset activity in 23 of its last 40 charter filings.
• Most applicants are pursuing national trust charters rather than retail banking licenses.
• Fiduciary trust institutions generally do not hold consumer deposits or carry FDIC coverage.
• A conditional approval sets operational requirements; it is not an immediate open door.
• The push places crypto's core infrastructure directly under federal banking supervision.

The OCC Put the 23-of-40 Figure on Record

Crypto's expansion into mainstream banking is no longer a string of disconnected corporate press releases. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) disclosed that it received 40 applications for new bank charters over roughly the past 18 months, and 23 of those business plans incorporate digital-asset activities (OCC news release).

Comptroller Jonathan Gould framed the figure as an eightfold surge compared with new-charter filings over the previous four years. The OCC's August 19 statement carries weight because it reframes scattered crypto filings as a single, unified regulatory trend, signaling how the US regulator is opening bank-charter paths to crypto firms seeking federal status (Coindoo).

The federal trust route itself is not untested. Anchorage Digital became the first digital-asset firm to receive a national trust bank charter from the OCC in January 2021. What has changed is scale: a path once used by a single pioneer now carries a queue of more than twenty applicants with precedent to follow.

Crucially, the number does not signal a fleet of 23 crypto-native alternatives to JPMorgan or Bank of America. Most applicants are pursuing a far narrower federal vehicle: the national trust bank charter.

"Bank" Does Not Necessarily Mean a Checking Account

A national trust bank operates under a federal charter devoted primarily to fiduciary, asset administration, and custodial responsibilities. Rather than serving retail teller lines, these institutions concentrate on digital-asset safekeeping, corporate trust management, investment administration, and targeted payment settlement.

Unlike commercial banks, national trust banks generally avoid consumer lending, refrain from taking retail deposits, and operate without FDIC insurance. That does not make them light-touch entities: the structure subjects them to strict fiduciary oversight while keeping them outside traditional fractional-reserve banking. They exist to protect, manage, and transfer client assets, not to fund loans with consumer savings accounts. The OCC's trust-bank guidance spells out these operational boundaries (OCC Bulletin 2007-21).

For major crypto operators, that division matches their core requirements. Institutional asset custody, stablecoin reserve management, and high-volume settlement rails fit a trust framework far more naturally than mortgage lending or retail savings accounts do.

Circle, Ripple, and Coinbase Are Not All at the Same Stage

Tracking this expansion requires separating initial regulatory milestones from final operational launches, because "OCC approval" spans several distinct regulatory steps.

In December 2025, the OCC granted conditional approvals for de novo national trust-bank applications submitted by Circle's First National Digital Currency Bank and Ripple National Trust Bank (OCC news release). Simultaneously, the agency approved charter conversions for BitGo Bank & Trust, Fidelity Digital Assets, and Paxos Trust Company. The OCC's official decision distinguishes between brand-new bank charters and existing state-chartered trust entities moving under federal oversight. Those conversions trace a well-established state route: New York's Department of Financial Services has issued crypto trust charters since 2015, and firms that built custody businesses under state supervision are now consolidating that oversight under a single federal regulator.

Circle's application also tracks a separate legal milestone. The GENIUS Act, the federal stablecoin law signed in July 2025, restricts payment-stablecoin issuance to regulated entities, giving the issuer of USDC a direct regulatory reason to operate inside the federal perimeter.

Other industry players sit elsewhere in the regulatory pipeline. The OCC's Corporate Applications Search reflects an approved action for Coinbase National Trust Company (filing details; see also Coindoo's coverage), while Crypto.com's proposed Foris DAX National Trust Bank shows a similar filing status. Recent additions to the pipeline include Trump-backed World Liberty, which received a preliminary OCC nod for its trust charter (Coindoo), and Wall Street powerhouse Morgan Stanley, which is seeking a US trust bank charter to scale its institutional custody arm (Coindoo).

These designations should not be confused with full-service commercial banking status. Filings move sequentially through pending status, conditional approval, and finalized authority to open. Securing a trust charter also does not grant automatic access to FDIC deposit insurance for retail traders.

What These Charters Are Built to Do

The core objective behind the filings is establishing a direct federal regulatory shield for crypto's financial plumbing. Institutional clients require audited, federally supervised partners to hold private keys, manage customer property, move collateral, support stablecoin reserves, and clear large-scale transactions. These operational demands center on fiduciary duty and custody long before they touch retail interface features. That demand is partly structural: registered investment advisers are generally required under SEC rules to keep client assets with qualified custodians, making federally supervised custody a practical prerequisite for many institutional mandates. Federal status also carries OCC examination and Bank Secrecy Act anti-money-laundering obligations — requirements institutional counterparties can verify in due diligence.

The OCC has repeatedly clarified that national banks and federal savings associations possess the authority to hold digital assets in custody, manage stablecoin backing funds, and utilize distributed ledger technologies for permissible payment flows, provided appropriate risk-management systems are active (OCC news release). Its 2025 interpretive guidance removed the requirement for firms to obtain prior supervisory non-objection before launching those specific operations.

Even so, general regulatory guidance does not give applicants carte blanche to roll out unapproved products. Chartered institutions remain bound by their specific business plans and agency-imposed conditions. The surge demonstrates why custody providers, stablecoin issuers, and spot exchanges are committing heavy capital toward securing federal trust-bank status.

Retail Users Will Mostly See the Effects Behind the Screen

For individual retail users, this shift will not manifest as a wave of new FDIC-insured crypto checking accounts. Instead, the changes will happen on the back end: institutional trust banks storing exchange-held assets, regulated entities managing stablecoin reserves, and specialized trust institutions powering the payment rails behind retail apps.

This operational line blurs easily as user-facing crypto apps become more polished. A tool offering AI-managed portfolios for US crypto traders serves as the front-end touchpoint, while a national trust bank operates out of sight, managing the underlying custody, asset segregation, and regulatory compliance that keep the system running.

Securing a trust charter elevates a platform's institutional credibility, but it does not convert a digital asset company into a traditional commercial bank.

A Widened Path, an Intact Divide

In April, the OCC updated its core chartering rules to clarify that national trust companies may conduct non-fiduciary activities directly linked to their primary operations (OCC Bulletin 2026-4). The update modernized the scope of trust charters beyond their historical bounds of paper certificate holding and estate administration.

Yet the statutory boundary separating specialized trust entities from commercial deposit institutions remains intact. The OCC's final rule explicitly limits this broader operational scope to trust-related activities, leaving nationwide retail lending out of the picture.

The next measurable signal will be execution: which of the conditionally approved institutions convert approvals into operating banks once agency conditions are met, and how quickly the rest of the applicant pipeline moves through the same sequential stages.

Ultimately, the 23-of-40 figure confirms that crypto firms want a permanent footprint within federal banking structures. Rather than building consumer branches, they are constructing a regulated foundation for holding assets, supporting stablecoin reserves, and settling transactions — establishing institutional credibility while bypassing the traditional consumer banking model.

Source: Coindoo