Crypto.com files for a national trust bank charter with the U.S. OCC to expand digital asset custody and ETF services

Crypto.com has officially filed for a national trust charter with the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), according to a company statement released Friday.

The company says it’s looking to grow its crypto custody services, especially for exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and treasury products.

Crypto.com is already registered in New Hampshire as a non-depository trust company, but that’s state-level.

The application throws Crypto.com into a growing list of crypto companies that want federal oversight. That list includes Ripple Labs, BitGo, and Circle Internet Group.

Their goal? To be treated like real financial institutions and finally escape the mess of state-by-state licensing. Kris Marszalek, the CEO of Crypto.com, said:

“Building the Crypto.com product and service portfolio through regulated and secure offerings has been our focus since Day One.”

Trump’s comeback drives fresh push for charters

The recent wave of charter applications isn’t random. It picked up after Donald Trump returned to the White House earlier this year. Since his administration came back in, regulators have pulled back hard, easing pressure on crypto and handing the industry real wins.

One major victory? The first-ever federal framework for stablecoin issuers. That was the sign many firms were waiting for. And now they’re lining up to get federally chartered before the next crackdown comes from somewhere else.

While the OCC handles charters, all eyes are on the Federal Reserve, specifically whether these new trust banks can get access to the Fed’s payment systems.

This week, Christopher Waller, a Federal Reserve Governor, said he wants staff to explore something called “payment accounts,” a simplified Fed account that gives crypto firms limited access to systems like Fedwire, without making them full member banks.

Waller also talked about “skinny” master accounts, another version of restricted Fed access that could work for fintech and crypto firms.

“The revolution transforming payments is demanding change everywhere,” Waller said during the Fed’s payments innovation conference in Washington. Right now, only banks with full master accounts get access to the Fed’s rails, but that could change.

Custodia and Anchorage fight for access while the Fed rethinks the rules

Anchorage Digital Bank already holds a national trust charter. They’ve applied for a master account, but it’s still sitting in the Fed’s request database. Meanwhile, Custodia Bank, based in Wyoming, applied way back in October 2020 and got tired of waiting.

So they sued the Federal Reserve Board and the Kansas City Fed, calling the delay “a patently unlawful” stall. They lost. Another firm, PayServices Bank, went after the San Francisco Fed in a similar case, and also lost.

Still, Caitlin Long, founder and CEO of Custodia, wasn’t surprised by Waller’s speech.

“Custodia welcomes the Fed’s acknowledgment of the importance of payment-only banks,” she said on Tuesday. “We knew all along that a big but quiet faction at the Fed supported us, and it’s terrific to see Governor Waller publicly acknowledge this.”

Even with lawsuits behind them, these firms (and now Crypto.com) are focused on the same question: how to connect crypto to the Fed’s network without needing full bank licenses.

The Fed says it’s working to better understand the mix of traditional finance, decentralized systems, stablecoins, and tokenized assets. That includes figuring out how to deal with AI-powered payment systems, which were also discussed at this week’s Fed conference.

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