Coinbase received final approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to charter Coinbase National Trust Company, the company announced on November 9, 2026. The OCC’s own decision documents put the approval date at November 6 and authorise the new bank to open on November 9.
That is a real regulatory milestone, and it is also one of the most over-read headlines in crypto this month. A national trust charter is not a bank charter in the everyday sense, it is not deposit insurance, and it does not make anyone’s crypto balance risk-free. This is what the documents actually say.
What the OCC approved, in sequence
The application is not new. The OCC granted preliminary conditional approval on April 2, 2026, for a de novo national trust bank called Coinbase National Trust Company, headquartered in New York. The corporate applications record lists the control number as 2025-Charter-343449, with a public comment period that ran from October 3 to November 3, 2025.
The final letter is dated November 6, 2026. In it, the OCC states that the organisers met the preopening requirements attached to the earlier conditional approval and grants final conditional approval to charter the bank. Coinbase’s own announcement describes that as final approval to charter Coinbase National Trust Company and frames it as a federal framework for its custody business.
What a national trust charter permits
The OCC decision is specific about the permitted business: the bank must limit its operations to those of a trust company and activities related thereto, as stated in its business plan. The approval constitutes a permit to exercise fiduciary powers under 12 USC 92a and 12 CFR 5.26, and the activity named in the decision is cryptocurrency custody in a fiduciary capacity.
The mechanism matters. The OCC approved the bank’s acquisition of client custody accounts and custodied digital assets from Coinbase Custody Trust Company under a Master Assignment and Assumption Agreement dated September 1, 2026, and granted a Regulation W exemption for that transfer as a newly formed bank. In plain terms, the custody business is being moved into a federally chartered trust company, gradually, rather than duplicated inside one.
Being a fiduciary is not a marketing phrase here. It means the bank owes fiduciary duties and standards of behaviour to the clients whose assets it holds, and it is supervised on that basis.
What it does not permit
The conditions in the OCC letter are the useful part of the story, because they describe the boundaries:
- It is not a bank for deposits and loans. The bank must not meet the definition of “bank” under section 2(c)(1)-(2) of the Bank Holding Company Act. Taking insured deposits and making loans is a different charter.
- No FDIC insurance. Nothing in the approval extends deposit insurance to crypto balances. Custody is not a deposit.
- Capital and liquidity floors. The bank must maintain at least $60 million in tier 1 capital, with at least 50 percent of that, or $30 million, in eligible liquid assets, plus 180 days of operating expenses in liquid assets for its first three years.
- No transactional services without permission. A significant deviation from the business plan, explicitly including any offering of transactional services for custody account customers, requires prior notice and an OCC written determination of no objection.
- GENIUS Act compliance. The bank must conform, cease or divest activities as needed to comply with the GENIUS Act and the OCC’s implementing regulations.
What changes for an ordinary Coinbase user
Day to day, very little. The charter covers institutional custody and the migration of custody accounts into a federal trust company. It does not turn the Coinbase exchange into a federally insured bank, and it does not change the fact that crypto prices move, that exchange balances carry counterparty risk, and that a custody arrangement protects assets from being commingled or misused but does not protect them from market losses.
If you hold crypto on an exchange, the safer reading of this news is “the institutional custody layer now has a federal supervisor”, not “my balance is guaranteed”. For the practical side of that distinction, our explainer on what the Binance hack means for wallet and exchange safety covers self-custody, withdrawal practice and the trade-offs involved.
A dated risk note
As of November 12, 2026, crypto assets remain volatile and can lose value quickly. Custody arrangements, charter status and regulatory approval address how assets are held and supervised, not how they perform. Nothing here is investment advice, and no regulatory approval should be read as an endorsement of any token, product or price.
What we did not do
We did not interview Coinbase or the OCC, and we have not seen the bank’s approved business plan, which is not public in full. Every date, condition and dollar figure above comes from the OCC’s published decision and from Coinbase’s announcement, both linked below. We did not verify the bank’s current capital position, which is reported to its supervisor rather than published daily.
Sources
- Coinbase: Coinbase launches National Trust Company with federally regulated custody
- OCC Corporate Decision #1370: Coinbase National Trust Company
- OCC Corporate Applications Search: control number 2025-Charter-343449
