The OCC has received 40 de novo applications in 18 months. Ripple, Circle, Crypto.com and Paxos have conditional approval as the regulator pushes crypto bank charters.
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The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency says it is reviving federal bank chartering, and some of the biggest names in crypto are already through the door.
In a statement Tuesday, the regulator said reinvigorating new bank formation remains a priority. Comptroller Jonathan V. Gould called de novo chartering “a sign of a healthy banking system” and praised the FDIC for its own recent work on deposit insurance reviews.
“For more than a decade, regulators signaled that those seeking a federal bank charter and federal deposit insurance need not apply,” Gould said. “Entities that engage in legally permissible activities, including those involving digital assets and other novel technologies, should have a path to becoming a national bank. America and the OCC are once again open for business.”
The numbers back him up. The OCC has received 40 de novo applications in the last 18 months. In many cases it ruled within 120 days of receiving a complete application. For the first time in five years, a full-service national bank has received final approval and opened: Erebor Bank, backed by Palmer Luckey, Joe Lonsdale and Founders Fund.
A number of top crypto firms have conditional approval already. Ripple, Circle, Crypto.com and Paxos are on that list. World Liberty Financial, the Donald Trump-backed DeFi platform, has also applied, hoping to get institutions on board with its native stablecoin, USD1.
The structural appeal is straightforward. A federal bank charter lets a crypto company hold client assets and handle trade settlement inside a regulated framework. For an exchange like Coinbase, whose application remains under review, it would mean serving as a crypto custodian on a federal basis, managing assets for larger entities.
Not everyone is on board. The Independent Community Bankers of America urged the OCC in December to reject Coinbase’s application, arguing the exchange has “demonstrably flawed risk and control functions” and governance that “prevents independent oversight.” In February, the American Bankers Association, the country’s largest banking lobby, asked the OCC to slow its review of crypto companies’ charter applications.
Underneath the procedural objections is a turf war. One of the biggest gripes from traditional banks comes down to stablecoins: companies like Coinbase want to pay users rewards for holding the tokens. Banks say that is unfair and could erode their deposit base.
The OCC said it will continue to encourage new bank formation and strengthen the resilience of the federal banking system.
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