OCC Grants Bridge National Trust Bank Charter
The U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) has conditionally approved a national trust bank charter for crypto custodian Bridge. This move allows the firm to offer federally regulated stablecoin services, integrating it further into the U.S. banking perimeter. The charter provides a federal alternative to the state-by-state money transmitter licensing process.
- Bridge is a subsidiary of payments giant Stripe, and the charter is a key part of Stripe's strategy to integrate blockchain-based payments into its global network. The conditional approval was granted on February 12, 2026. - The national trust bank charter will authorize Bridge to provide digital asset custody, stablecoin issuance and orchestration, and stablecoin reserve management under direct federal oversight. This allows it to operate nationwide without the need for state-by-state money transmitter licenses. - Bridge's co-founders, CEO Zach Abrams and CTO Sean Yu, are both alumni of Coinbase and previously co-founded a P2P payments company called Evenly, which was acquired by Square (now Block). - The firm has raised a total of $58 million from backers including Sequoia Capital, Ribbit, Index Ventures, and Haun Ventures. - This approval follows a wave of similar conditional charters granted by the OCC in December 2025 to other crypto-focused firms, including Circle, Ripple, BitGo, Fidelity Digital Assets, and Paxos. - The charter positions Bridge to be "GENIUS ready," aligning its operations with the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act, which established a federal regulatory framework for stablecoins in July 2025. - While Bridge joins a growing list of crypto firms with federal charters, the path is not guaranteed; the OCC has previously seen conditional approvals for firms like Protego and Paxos expire before final authorization was granted. Anchorage Digital was the first crypto-native firm to receive a national trust bank charter back in 2021. - The move has not been without opposition from traditional finance; banking trade groups like the American Bankers Association and the Bank Policy Institute have expressed concerns about crypto and fintech companies gaining access to bank charters without what they consider adequate prudential oversight.
