April 2 - Coinbase Global has secured conditional approval from banking regulators for a national trust company charter, Bloomberg News reported on Thursday, a development that could enhance the platform’s attractiveness to large institutional investors.
According to the report, full approval by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency would allow Coinbase to operate as a federally regulated crypto custodian. That status would align custody operations with a federal regulatory framework rather than a patchwork of state rules.
Greg Tusar, Coinbase’s vice president of product management, told Bloomberg that final approval could unlock new product capabilities. In the interview he said, "The ability to have a federal framework for our custody business is important." He added, "This is about us growing our reach and being able to conduct new business that we may not have been able to before." Tusar flagged potential expansion into tokenized securities and the issuance of stablecoins as examples of new offerings that a full charter could facilitate.
Coinbase did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
The report also noted that U.S. regulators have taken a more crypto-friendly approach since the re-election of President Donald Trump, with regulators easing prior curbs and dialing back enforcement actions. Earlier in the year, Crypto.com received conditional approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency for a national trust bank charter, a similar regulatory milestone.
This conditional charter represents a regulatory step that could affect how institutional capital interacts with major crypto platforms, while also creating nascent pathways for new product types under a federal custody framework.
- Context: Conditional OCC approval reported by Bloomberg could change Coinbase’s regulatory footing and product scope.
- Potential product impact: A full charter could enable custody under federal oversight and facilitate tokenized securities and stablecoin issuance, per company remarks.
- Regulatory backdrop: The U.S. has been described as more crypto-friendly since President Donald Trump’s re-election, with easing of prior curbs and reduced enforcement actions.