Crypto.com has applied to the US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) for a National Trust Bank charter, a move it says will expand its federally supervised crypto-custody services to institutions.
In Friday’s announcement, the exchange framed the filing as an expansion of its regulated, security-first effort to serve larger clients — ETF sponsors, corporates and advisors — focused on custody and staking-adjacent trust services across multiple blockchains. The company did not provide any review timeline and said the application does not impact the operations of Crypto.com Custody Trust Company, its New Hampshire-chartered, non-depository trust that already serves institutions as a qualified custodian.
A national trust bank is a limited-purpose national bank that is supervised by the OCC for trust-company powers. In practice, it may provide custody, security and other fiduciary services throughout the country; It is not a full-service commercial bank and does not take FDIC-insured deposits or make conventional loans. The OCC’s framework recognizes chartering banks that limit operations to trust activities under 12 USC § 27(a), and its trust-operations materials outline applicable fiduciary standards and recordkeeping requirements.
This is a recent example. In 2021, the OCC conditionally approved the conversion of Anchorage Trust Company into Anchorage Digital Bank, N.A., pairing the decision with a detailed operating agreement – an example of the typical conditions attached to digital-asset trust charters. The OCC also gave preliminary conditional approval to the Paxos National Trust in New York that year.
Other big crypto companies have moved forward on this path in 2025.
According to its application posted on the OCC’s digital-asset licensing portal, Coinbase applied earlier this month to organize Coinbase National Trust Company, an uninsured national trust company headquartered in New York. The circle applied on June 30 to establish the first national digital currency bank, N.A., to bring USDC reserves oversight and institutional custody under the OCC charter.
Not every route is federal.
Gemini Trust Company operates under a New York limited-purpose trust charter issued by the New York State Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) on October 5, 2015 – with state supervision rather than an OCC national trust bank – and remains a reference point for the state-charter model with the BitLicense regime.
For retail users, nothing changes immediately.
The filing is not an endorsement, and Crypto.com’s proposal targets institutional custody rather than consumer deposit accounts. If the OCC charter is approved and stands up, the effects will likely be indirect: Federal supervision could make it easier for large counterparties to use a provider’s trust services under one rule set, which in turn could over time affect the market “plumbing” visible to everyday investors – how assets are separated and verified, what products are visible through ETFs or advisors and How liquidity moves across different locations. This will not turn the exchange into a deposit taking bank.
The OCC generally does not comment on pending applications. Previous crypto approvals have come with tailored conditions and timelines, underscoring that outcomes are not guaranteed and the scope of any charter is defined on a case-by-case basis.