Coinbase has applied to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) for a national trust bank charter, a move that would place parts of its business under direct federal bank supervision and expand its ability to safeguard crypto assets for institutions across the United States.
Coinbase’s Bank Charter Bid Faces Pushback From US Community Banks
5 November 2025 - 13:00 CET
By Matt Neill
The bid immediately drew opposition from the Independent Community Bankers of America, which urged the OCC to reject the application and hold a public hearing. The group said Coinbase's plan relies too heavily on shared risk and compliance functions and could prove challenging to resolve in the event of a failure, given the complexity of crypto custody and omnibus wallet structures.
Coinbase chief legal officer Paul Grewal dismissed the criticism as 'protectionist,' arguing in an X post that bringing crypto firms into the chartered banking system would strengthen, not weaken, oversight.
Regulatory context and hurdles
Since 2021, the OCC has permitted national banks and federal thrifts to engage in certain crypto-asset and stablecoin activities only with prior supervisory non-objection and strong risk controls, a policy reaffirmed in Interpretive Letter 1183 and subsequent guidance.
The agency’s Licensing Manual requires charter applicants to demonstrate soundness, managerial capacity and legal permissibility. Any approval would come with continuing supervision and conditions tailored to trust banks, which are uninsured and operate under a separate receivership regime. Applicants must also show credible wind-down plans for large-scale digital-asset custody operations.
Why exchanges want charters
A national trust charter would let Coinbase consolidate fiduciary and non-deposit custody under one federal regulator instead of multiple state regimes. It would also allow the company to demonstrate institutional-grade controls to ETF sponsors, asset managers and corporates seeking federally supervised custody.
Such a licence could also clarify expectations around anti-money-laundering, operational resilience and stablecoin interactions under new guidance tied to the GENIUS Act.
The OCC is expected to weigh statutory factors, recent crypto-risk policy, and opposition from traditional banks before deciding whether Coinbase’s proposal meets the threshold for a federally supervised trust institution.
