Coinbase reports final federal approval for its national trust company
The custody milestone brings a federal framework while the scope of services still matters.
Coinbase says the OCC gave final approval on Friday to charter Coinbase National Trust Company. Its November 9 announcement presents the decision as a step toward a consistent federal framework for digital-asset custody, building on its existing New York regulatory history. The company announcement establishes the final-approval claim; the earlier April decision was explicitly conditional.
The OCC’s April decision describes fiduciary custody, related transactions involving custodied assets and referrals to affiliate services. It distinguishes facilitating access to staking, trading and financing from providing those underlying affiliate services itself. The application did not propose stablecoin issuance. Those boundaries help explain why a national trust charter should not be read as permission for every activity associated with a commercial bank.
For institutional buyers in the US and LATAM, the practical diligence remains entity-specific. Identify which company signs the custody agreement, which services an affiliate provides and how assets would migrate between legal entities. Federal supervision is a meaningful organizational change; it does not replace reviewing the actual custody contract, operational controls and service availability.