BitGo, Circle, Fidelity, Paxos and Ripple Secure National Trust Banking Licences From the OCC

• BitGo, Fidelity and Stablecoin issuers Circle, Paxos and Ripple have secured national trust bank licences from the OCC

• The licences will enable the five firms to offer digital asset issuance, trading, staking, settlement and custody services throughout the United States

• The licence approvals mark a second change in policy direction at the OCC in the last five years

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) in the United States has approved national trust bank licences for BitGo Trust Company, Fidelity Digital Asset Services, Paxos Trust Company and Ripple National Trust Bank.

Though the approvals are preliminary – there are further requirements to meet - the news almost certainly means the blockchain infrastructure providers (they provide trading and settlement as well as custody services) can service clients wishing to issue or invest in digital assets across all 50 states with confidence.

The five must demonstrate they have capital – the range is between $6.05 million and $25 million - but the five companies can now offer digital asset custody, settlement, staking, execution, brokerage, fiduciary, exchange, paying agency and stablecoin issuance and custody services nationwide.

For the OCC, the licences mark a final reversal of previous policy. The regulator has followed an erratic path in licensing digital asset custodians. In an interpretive letter July 2020, it permitted nationally regulated banks in the United States to custody cryptocurrencies.

In January 2021 it awarded Anchorage Digital a federal bank charter to provide digital asset custody services, but for years it remained the only one. Conditional national licences were awarded to Protego in February 2021 and Paxos in April 2021, but the OCC allowed them to expire in February and March 2023.

To provide custody services, digital asset custodians in the United States were forced to rely instead on limited purpose trust company charters issued by State authorities such as the South Dakota Division of Banking and the New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS).

BitGo (South Dakota in September 2018), Fidelity Digital Assets (NYDFS in November 2019) and Paxos Trust Company (NYDFS in May 2015) had already secured state trust company charters they applied in the summer to the OCC to convert to national status.

Circle (though it secured a “Bitlicense” from the NYDFS in September 2015) and Ripple (though it secured a Stablecoin licence from the NYDFS in December 2024) were applying for de novo national bank charters.

It was a change of leadership at the OCC in May 2021 that had led to the initial reversal of the policy of issuing national bank charters to digital asset custodians. Similarly,  it is a change of leadership – to Jonathan Gould, who took over as Comptroller in July 2025 -  that has initiated a more positive approach to digital asset issues this year.

The five approvals followed a series of interpretive letters published by the OCC in 2025 that expanded the range of permissible digital asset activities for national banks as well as the OCC’s revocation of an earlier interpretive letter that required a formal “no objection” letter before a national bank or federal savings association could engage in digital asset activities.

Circle says its new national trust bank, First National Digital Currency Bank, N.A., will oversee the management of its USDC Stablecoin reserves as well as offering digital asset custody services to third parties.

“Establishing a national digital currency trust bank of this kind deepens Circle’s longstanding commitment to the highest standards of trust and compliance,” says Jeremy Allaire, Co-Founder, Chairman, and CEO of Circle. “As a public company, we’re focused on operating under rigorous regulatory oversight and building the infrastructure that allows digital dollars like USDC to become a core part of global finance. This important milestone will give the world’s leading institutions greater clarity and confidence to build on Circle’s platform as stablecoins and blockchain technology move rapidly into the mainstream.”

Paxos, which issues the PayPal Stablecoin PYUSD, says a major advantage of its new status is that all its US-issued stablecoins—including PYUSD— will now be under federal regulatory oversight and in alignment with the provisions of the regulations being issued under the July 2025 GENIUS Act that governs Stablecoins.

“Paxos was the first regulated trust company for digital assets in the US with our 2015 NYDFS charter,” says Charles Cascarilla, CEO and co-Founder of Stablecoin issuer Paxos. “In our decade as a regulated entity, we’ve established a reputation as a trustworthy partner capable of meeting the highest standards of compliance. Paxos is now entering a new phase of regulatory supervision and we’re excited to power a platform subject to federal oversight and supervision. This will enable customers to innovate, incubate and grow digital asset businesses safely and seamlessly within the US.”

BitGo, which provides trading, staking, stablecoin and treasury as well as custody services, has always aimed at institutional money. The news that its July 2025 application to convert its South Dakota-based BitGo Trust Company into a federally charted national digital assets trust bank (BitGo Bank & Trust) will make that task easier.

“BitGo was built to deliver the security, trust, performance institutions demand,” says Jody Mettler, President of BitGo Bank & Trust, N.A., and Chief Operating Officer of BitGo. “Our mission has always been to build the infrastructure institutions trust - and with this approval, that mission expands to a new frontier.”

Ripple welcomed being regulated by the OCC as well as by the NYDFS as regulator of its Stablecoin activities, as good news for holders of its RLUSD Stablecoin, which Ripple is using in its core cross-border payments business.

"The conditional approval of our trust bank charter represents a massive step forward - setting the highest standard for stablecoin compliance with both federal and state oversight," says Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse. “While anti-innovation bank lobbyists may claim otherwise, we are ensuring RLUSD is the most transparent and responsibly managed Stablecoin in the market today.”