OCC approval lets Crypto.com form a national trust bank for custody
Crypto.com has received conditional approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to establish a national trust bank for digital-asset custody in the United States, according to Reuters. The decision permits the company to advance a federally supervised custody model while the charter remains subject to additional supervisory steps.
As reported by PYMNTS, the approval allows the firm to charter Foris Dax National Trust Bank, a specialized entity focused on safeguarding customer assets and delivering trust services under federal oversight. The authorization is limited to trust powers and does not itself extend to deposit-taking or lending.
As noted by Forbes, the move follows similar conditional charter paths pursued by peers such as Ripple and Circle, reflecting an evolving approach to crypto-focused trust charters. The approval also arrives amid heightened scrutiny of World Liberty Financial’s bank charter application, with Senator Elizabeth Warren urging a delay over potential conflicts of interest, according to the Senate Banking Committee.
How a national trust bank differs from a commercial bank
A national trust bank is a special-purpose national bank centered on fiduciary and custody activities; it does not take FDIC-insured deposits or engage in commercial lending, as described by Axios in its coverage of the OCC’s policy direction. These entities are not subject to Community Reinvestment Act obligations that apply to deposit-taking banks and are examined within a narrower mandate focused on safekeeping, controls, and governance.
Within that framework, a national trust bank can act as a qualified custodian for digital assets under federal supervision. That status is intended to support institutional-grade segregation, reconciliation, and auditability consistent with bank-level oversight.
Kris Marszalek, CEO of Crypto.com, said the conditional milestone brings the firm “a major step closer to meeting leading institutions’ needs for a one-stop-shop qualified custodian under a gold standard of federal oversight.”
Conditions before final charter: capital, compliance, exams, onboarding timeline
As reported by The Defiant, the OCC’s action is a conditional approval to charter Foris Dax National Trust Bank; from there, such charters typically proceed through capital adequacy verification, buildout of risk and compliance controls (including custody operations and BSA/AML), and pre-opening supervisory examinations before client onboarding can occur. These steps are intended to validate operational readiness and align the entity’s risk profile with its proposed activities under federal standards.
A definitive onboarding timeline was not provided and will likely depend on the pace of capital planning, control implementation, and examination outcomes. Conditional approval does not guarantee a final charter; additional conditions can be imposed through the supervisory process if warranted by findings.
At the time of this writing, broader market conditions remain volatile; Coinbase (COIN) recently traded near the upper-$150s to $160s with a single-session decline of roughly mid–single digits, based on data from Yahoo Finance. Market moves may influence institutional demand for custody services but do not alter the OCC’s supervisory milestones that must be met before launch.
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