Crypto.com said it received conditional approval from the US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) to create a national trust bank, paving the way for the expansion of its federally supervised custody services.
Foris Dax National Trust Bank, doing business as Crypto.com National Trust Bank, would operate as a limited purpose national trust bank. It would not accept deposits or issue loans, but rather offer services such as custody, staking and transaction settlement for digital assets, including those on its internal Cronos blockchain.
While Crypto.com already operates a qualified custodian, Crypto.com Custody Trust Co., regulated by the New Hampshire Banking Department, the OCC charter consolidates its institutional offerings into a single federal framework.
This is important for exchange-traded fund (ETF) issuers, asset managers and other institutional clients, who often prefer custodians with national oversight, which can streamline compliance and operational processes.
The national charter proposes this one-stop shop structure, but only for trust services, and not for traditional banking services.
Crypto.com filed its application with the OCC in October. Although the conditional approval is not final, it marks an important step forward. Last week, Striple’s stablecoin Bridge also received initial approval to create a national fiat bank.
These approvals allow the companies to join a growing group of crypto companies seeking to establish a foothold in a federal framework. In December, BitGo, Circle, Ripple, Paxos and Fidelity Digital Assets all received similar conditional approvals.
