Circle said it has received final authorization from the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) to form a national trust bank, a move that drove the company's shares up about 10% in premarket trading. The charter grants Circle the legal ability to act as the custodian for its own reserves and to hold crypto assets on behalf of institutional clients.
In a prepared statement, Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire said, "OCC approval to establish Circle National Trust marks a defining step in bringing blockchain technology and digital assets into the core of the U.S. financial system." The company said the approval places its newly chartered trust bank under direct federal supervision by the OCC, which is the primary regulator for national lenders and trust banks.
Circle is the issuer of USDC, a dollar-pegged stablecoin that is used to transfer funds between crypto tokens. The company noted that USDC has a market value of about $73.2 billion, as reported by CoinGecko. Market data referenced in the company’s public disclosures show that Circle’s shares had declined 20.5% so far this year through the last close, leaving the company with a market capitalization near $15.7 billion according to LSEG data.
The OCC approval comes as digital asset firms have increasingly expanded into traditional financial services. Over the past year, some firms in the digital asset space have pursued banking licenses, custody offerings and payment services as regulatory barriers have, in some cases, eased.
For Circle, the OCC charter formalizes a federal regulatory relationship and authorizes specific custody functions for both company reserves and institutional client assets. The company’s USDC stablecoin and its role in token-to-token transfers were highlighted in the announcement, alongside the market valuation figure attributed to CoinGecko.
Contextual note: The company disclosed both the immediate market reaction to the OCC approval and the year-to-date share performance and market capitalization figures cited above.