Coinbase received final approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) to charter Coinbase National Trust Company, the exchange said on November 9, 2026. According to Coinbase, the regulator approved its application the preceding Friday.
The charter gives Coinbase a federal framework for expanding its custody business, which holds digital assets on behalf of institutional clients. It is a regulatory milestone—not evidence, on its own, of growth in customers, assets under custody or onchain activity. The report provided no figures for those measures.
What the charter changes
Coinbase said the national trust company would bring “clear and consistent federal uniformity” to its custody operations. The company 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 new entity builds on that operation while placing its trust activities within a consistent federal framework, according to Coinbase. The exchange described itself as the leading global crypto custodian, a characterization attributed to the company rather than supported by comparative figures in the report.
“Trusted custody is essential for bringing more of the financial system onchain,” CEO Brian Armstrong wrote on November 9, calling the trust company “another step for building that foundation.” That statement outlines the company’s ambition; the approval does not establish how much additional adoption will follow.
Final approval came seven months after the OCC granted conditional approval in April 2026. At that stage, Coinbase said it was not becoming a commercial bank and would neither accept retail deposits nor engage in fractional-reserve banking. It first applied for the charter in 2025.
A broader charter push, with legal opposition
Coinbase joins other crypto companies that secured final national trust charter approvals in 2026:
- Circle received final approval in July for a trust bank to manage reserves backing its USDC stablecoin.
- Ripple received final approval in October for a trust bank behind its RLUSD stablecoin.
Other applications remained short of final approval at the time of the report. Jack Dorsey’s Block applied in September for a charter to custody Bitcoin, while Kraken parent Payward filed in May. A trust company linked to Trump family-backed World Liberty Financial received conditional approval in August for a charter tied to its USD1 stablecoin, Reuters reported.
The approvals also face opposition. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) has argued that the OCC’s crypto charter approvals, including Coinbase’s, are illegal. The Independent Community Bankers of America has sued the OCC to prevent crypto firms from entering banking through what the group describes as a “side door.”
For adoption, the distinction is between infrastructure and demonstrated use: Coinbase says the charter supports institutional custody expansion, but the report does not quantify resulting demand. The legal challenge also remains part of the regulatory context, rather than a resolved outcome.
Original report: Decrypt, published November 9, 2026, at 19:50:36 UTC+08:00.
