❯ Coinbase’s U.S. national trust charter takes effect, bringing institutional custody under federal supervision

From a New York charter to a national charterOn November 9, Coinbase announced that the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency had given final approval to charter Coinbase National Trust Company. The OCC’s filing record shows the application was received in October 2025, gained preliminary conditional approval in April 2026, and took effect on November 6. Coinbase has provided custody through a company that received a New York limited-purpose trust charter in 2018.

What institutional customers entrust to a custodianDigital asset custody includes safeguarding the keys that control the assets, tracking holdings, and processing transfers authorized by clients. The OCC’s April decision also describes related services available to custody clients and plans to migrate the existing business to the new entity. The national charter gives banks and asset managers a common federal framework against which they can assess their own vendor requirements.

Stablecoin payments have a separate pilotAlso on November 9, Coinbase and PNC expanded their partnership. The pilot lets eligible corporate and institutional clients receive USDC, with Coinbase supplying payment APIs and PNC supplying banking and treasury services. It builds on an earlier collaboration that gave eligible private bank clients access to digital asset trading and extends the relationship to corporate collections.

Stablecoin issuance remains a reported possibilityBloomberg, citing people familiar with the matter, reported that the federal trust structure could also help Coinbase issue its own stablecoin or provide issuance and management services to other companies. Coinbase has announced no such product or timetable. The charter in effect covers institutional custody, and the PNC pilot accepts the existing USDC.

▮ SIGNALCoinbase can pursue more institutional custody mandates with a federal charter while putting an existing stablecoin to work in corporate payments through a bank, building two ways to serve financial institutions beyond trading.