Coinbase received conditional approval for a national trust charter from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.
The approval “is the result of years of investment in compliance, engagement with regulators, and belief that the right path forward for crypto is through the system — not around it,” Greg Tusar, co-CEO of Coinbase Institutional, wrote in a note posted on the company’s website.
“Let me be direct about what this means, and what it doesn’t,” he added. “Coinbase is not becoming a commercial bank. We will not be taking retail deposits. We will not be engaging in fractional reserve banking.”
Coinbase applied for a trust charter in October.
The charter will bring “federal regulatory uniformity to the custody and market infrastructure business we have been building for years,” Tusar wrote. “The OCC charter was designed precisely for this purpose — to provide clear oversight over assets in safekeeping — and that is exactly how we intend to use it.”