Coinbase's National Trust Charter Kicks In, Crypto Custody Now Under OCC Watch

Coinbase's new federally supervised trust company is officially up and running. The OCC's application record shows Coinbase National Trust Company's charter took effect on Nov. 6, 2026, after preliminary approval landed on April 2. Coinbase announced the final authorization on Nov. 9.

The charter lets the institution safeguard digital assets in a fiduciary capacity, primarily for institutional clients. Under the approved business plan, custody customers can hold and move digital assets and associated fiat currency inside their accounts, along with certain transaction services tied directly to those assets. It is not a bank: no ordinary retail deposits, no conventional lending.

Clients who want staking, prime trading or financing still get those through Coinbase affiliates, since the national trust company won't provide the underlying services itself. The approval also sets up a framework for moving Coinbase's existing custody business out of Coinbase Custody Trust Company, a New York limited-purpose trust regulated by NYDFS, over the trust's three-year initial operating period. Coinbase hasn't confirmed that existing institutional accounts have already transferred, and no completed migration timetable for individual clients has been disclosed.

The arrangement matters to funds that need regulated asset segregation and fiduciary safeguards when choosing a custodian. Coinbase already sits inside the plumbing of crypto ETFs, where custodians hold the underlying tokens while fund administrators and authorized participants handle separate roles. Morgan Stanley previously picked Coinbase and BNY Mellon for digital asset custody supporting its Bitcoin investment products.

Coinbase isn't alone in chasing federal trust supervision. Ripple won final OCC authorization for its national trust bank in October, and other crypto infrastructure providers have sought similar oversight. Traditional banking organizations have challenged the regulator's authority to grant some crypto-focused national trust charters, a dispute that sharpened as Galaxy Digital pursued its own.