The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) granted conditional national trust bank charters to five digital-asset firms, marking a step toward federal oversight of stablecoin issuers and crypto custody. The approvals affect Circle, Ripple, Paxos, Fidelity Digital Assets and BitGo and aim to replace a fragmented state licensing regime with a unified federal framework.
Circle and Ripple secured de novo national trust bank charters—First National Digital Currency Bank and Ripple National Trust Bank respectively—authorizing them to operate under federal trust-bank rules. Paxos Trust Company, Fidelity Digital Assets and BitGo converted their state trust companies into national associations: Paxos Trust Company, National Association; Fidelity Digital Assets, National Association; and BitGo Bank & Trust, National Association.
The OCC’s action follows a series of interpretive steps that reframed certain crypto activities as permissible banking functions, including guidance permitting “riskless principal crypto‑asset transactions.” Riskless principal transactions are arrangements where a bank executes a trade on behalf of a client and immediately offsets its exposure, effectively brokering the asset without net market risk.
Firms pursued federal charters to escape the patchwork of state-by-state rules that limited scale, to streamline stablecoin operations, and to gain access to federal banking powers that could include custody of reserves and faster settlement paths that may bypass traditional rails such as SWIFT. The approvals arrived after the OCC clarified earlier that national banks could engage in crypto custody and settlement provided they maintain robust risk-management practices.
Industry reaction and market implications
Banking trade groups opposed the move between July and October 2025. The American Bankers Association and the Bank Policy Institute raised concerns about the integrity and readiness of nascent crypto firms to meet trust‑bank responsibilities. OCC officials, including Jonathan Gould, broadly dismissed those objections as protections of entrenched interests.
Stablecoin activity was a central justification: industry data cited in filings and reporting placed stablecoin transaction volumes at roughly $4.6 trillion in 2025 and about $5.7 trillion the prior year, underscoring why issuers sought federal status. Industry observers described the shift as leveraging “favorable Trump Era Regulations,” framing it as a strategic pivot toward institutional credibility.
The conditional charters were granted on 2025-12-12 to five firms to operate as national trust banks or national associations, with Circle and Ripple receiving de novo trust charters, and Paxos, Fidelity and BitGo converting existing state trusts. The OCC’s guidance permits certain brokerage-style crypto trades under “riskless principal” treatment, and despite formal objections from banking trade groups, OCC leadership proceeded with approvals.
The conditional charters signal federal integration of major stablecoin issuers and custodians into the U.S. banking system, shifting regulatory responsibility from a patchwork of states to federal supervision.
