Crypto.com gets conditional approval for national trust charter

• Key insight: Crypto.com's parent company Foris DAX received conditional approval from the OCC to operate a national trust bank for cryptocurrency.
• Expert quote: Pitchbook analyst Rudy Yang says that fintechs and crypto firms have been applying for charters within the last year due to a regulatory "now-or-never moment."
• Forward look: More crypto firm charter applications are pending, including ones from Coinbase and World Liberty Financial.

Crypto.com is the latest cryptocurrency exchange to receive conditional approval for a national trust bank charter from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.

The platform's parent company, Foris DAX, received conditional approval on Friday. According to the OCC approval filing, Foris DAX National Trust Bank would be a wholly owned subsidiary of Foris Holdings, and plans to do business as Crypto.com National Trust Bank.

Crypto.com announced the news on Monday, pending full approval once the company has met the conditions the OCC outlined in its initial charter approval.

"This milestone brings us a major step closer to meeting leading institutions' needs for a one-stop-shop qualified custodian under a gold standard of federal oversight," said Crypto.com co-founder and CEO Kris Marszalek in a statement.

The company originally filed its application with the OCC in October 2025. In that month, Crypto's parent company Foris DAX also donated $10 million to the political action committee MAGA, Inc., according to Federal Election Committee receipt filings. On January 23, according to an FEC monthly report filed on Friday, Foris DAX donated another $5 million to the super PAC, which was formed in 2022 as a single-candidate PAC to support Donald Trump as a Republican presidential candidate.

Crypto.com did not respond to a request for comment from American Banker on the donations in time for publication.

An assortment of other crypto firms have received conditional approval for national trust bank charters in recent weeks, including five crypto firms at once in December and Stripe-owned Bridge earlier this month. Coinbase, the Trump family's World Liberty Financial and Laser Digital are among the digital asset firms with trust charter applications pending on the OCC website as of Tuesday. Global payments company Payoneer also announced on Tuesday that it has applied for a national trust bank charter.

Pitchbook senior analyst Rudy Yang noted in a recently published fintech report that fintechs and crypto firms have been applying for charters within the last year due to a "now-or-never moment" of regulatory receptivity under the current administration.

National trust bank charters are a type of charter that allows digital asset firms to conduct non-fiduciary activities under interpretive letter 1176, which was authored in 2021 by now-Comptroller of the Currency Jonathan Gould, who was serving as the agency's general counsel at the time. That letter authorizes firms with a trust charter to engage in "activities that are non-fiduciary in nature," such as asset custody. 

Custody services, according to the OCC, are related to the settlement, safekeeping and reporting of customers' marketable securities — in this case, digital assets.

"Trust and special-purpose charters provide clearer regulatory standing and enable regulated asset custody, critical for stablecoin issuers and custody providers," Yang said.

The conditional approval will not impact Crypto.com's status as a qualified custodian regulated by the New Hampshire Banking Department, according to the company.

Last month, Crypto.com partnered with Stripe, a payments fintech, so merchants could accept payments from crypto holdings by using the two platforms. 

Last year, the prediction markets division of the crypto exchange filed a lawsuit against the Nevada Gaming Control Board (NGCB) regarding the state's cease-and-desist order on its sports event contracts. Prediction market platform Kalshi is also in pending litigation with the NGCB over the issue.

Last week, Commodities and Futures Trading Commission Chairman Michael Selig publicly backed Crypto.com through filing a friend-of-the-court brief for the pending lawsuit in Nevada.

"The CFTC will no longer sit idly by while overzealous state governments undermine the agency's exclusive jurisdiction over these markets by seeking to establish statewide prohibitions on these exciting products," Selig wrote in an op-ed published on the CFTC website and in the Wall Street Journal.