The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, it has completed its first full-service national bank approval in five years, part of a broader push the agency says has drawn 40 new charter applications over the past 18 months, up from fewer than four a year between 2011 and 2014.
Comptroller Jonathan Gould framed the shift as extending directly to crypto firms, saying entities engaged in legally permissible activities, including those involving digital assets and other novel technologies, should have a path to becoming a national bank.
New entrants to the banking system drive competition & innovation and are crucial to a healthy financial system. Under @SecScottBessent’s leadership, the OCC is reinvigorating de novo chartering and commends @FDICgov for its recent efforts to do the same. https://t.co/vlA7E2zL4w pic.twitter.com/Mc5Gr1eQBf
— OCC (@USOCC) August 11, 2026
The OCC’s account, laid out in a press release Tuesday and a follow-up post from its official account, ties the momentum to the FDIC’s newly streamlined deposit insurance review process and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s backing of what it calls a de novo chartering revival.
The agency said new entrants drive competition and innovation and are crucial to a healthy financial system, adding that it is reinvigorating de novo chartering alongside recent FDIC efforts.
Crypto Trust Charters Remain Separate From Full-Service Banks
The latest statistics sit on top of a specific run of crypto approvals that started in December. On Dec. 12, 2025, the OCC conditionally approved national trust bank charters for Circle, Ripple, Paxos, BitGo and Fidelity Digital Assets.
Gould said at the time that OCC-chartered trusts had handled custody and safekeeping electronically for decades and that there was no justification for treating digital assets differently. Circle’s charter converted from conditional to final on July 10, while Crypto.com later received its own conditional trust charter approval.
Trust Charters vs. Full-Service National Banks
| Feature | National Trust Charter | Full-Service National Bank |
|---|---|---|
| Primary function | Trust, custody and permitted fiduciary activities | Broader banking activities, including deposit-taking |
| Deposit-taking | No | Yes |
| FDIC deposit insurance | No | Yes, where the bank has FDIC insurance |
| Digital-asset role | Custody, safekeeping and permitted stablecoin-related activities | Potentially broader banking, payments and lending activities |
| Examples in this story | Circle, Ripple, Paxos, BitGo and Fidelity Digital Assets | Erebor, Augustus and Upstart |
The OCC’s recent approvals therefore represent a different regulatory path from the one followed by institutions such as Erebor and Augustus.
The full-service charter highlighted by the OCC, widely reported as going to Erebor Bank, a firm backed by Peter Thiel, Palmer Luckey and Joe Lonsdale, falls into that separate, deposit-insured category. Augustus National Bank, a stablecoin-focused lender that received FDIC deposit insurance on Aug. 4, and Upstart, which received conditional approval for a full-service charter on July 23, are also in that category.
Banking Industry Challenges Uninsured Trust Model
The trust charters have drawn scrutiny from lawmakers and the banking industry. Senator Elizabeth Warren wrote to the OCC on May 19 naming Coinbase, Paxos, Ripple, BitGo and Fidelity, arguing that the charters allow firms to evade safeguards and obligations associated with being a bank.
The American Bankers Association separately asked the OCC to pause approvals until the agency confirms that its receivership and resolution tools are sufficient for uninsured national banks. The Bank Policy Institute has also argued that the approach risks blurring the statutory boundary of what it means to be a bank, with reporting in March indicating it was considering litigation.
The OCC has faced challenges to its fintech charter strategy before. In 2020, a federal court relied on a Civil War-era national banking statute to block an earlier version of the agency’s fintech charter. Walmart’s attempt to obtain an industrial loan company charter in the mid-2000s also collapsed after sustained opposition from community banks and lawmakers over the separation of banking and commerce.
Gould joined the OCC after two years as chief legal officer at Bitfury, a crypto infrastructure firm, following an earlier stint as the agency’s senior deputy comptroller and chief counsel. His latest statement extending charter eligibility to digital assets and other novel technologies continues a position he took in 2023 congressional testimony, when he warned that unclear agency guidance could cause banks to reconsider the use of distributed ledger technology.
The OCC’s broader push to expand national bank charters also includes major crypto firms. Coinbase received conditional approval to launch a national trust company focused on digital asset custody and market infrastructure, while Circle received final approval for Circle National Trust, a federally regulated trust bank supporting institutional custody and USDC infrastructure.
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