Banks get approval to hold crypto

The U.S. banking shift behind the “banks can now hold crypto” claim is real, but it did not arrive as a single blanket approval this week. The clearest regulatory change came on May 7, 2025, when the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency said national banks and federal savings associations may provide crypto-asset custody and execution services and may outsource those activities to third parties, subject to risk controls. The more recent developments in 2026 were a series of preliminary conditional approvals for specialized trust-bank structures tied to digital-asset firms. ### What did U.S. regulators actually approve? The OCC said in Interpretive Letter 1184 on May 7, 2025, that banks may buy and sell assets held in custody at a customer’s direction and may outsource bank-permissible crypto custody and execution services. The agency said those activities must be conducted “in a safe and sound manner” and in compliance with applicable law. That means the core U.S. permission is not a new law saying every bank can freely warehouse crypto on any terms. It is a regulator’s clarification that federally supervised banks already have authority to offer crypto custody and related execution services, if they meet the same safety, legal and risk-management standards applied to other banking activities. ### Which firms received the most concrete 2026 approvals? (occ.gov) The OCC granted preliminary conditional approval on February 13, 2026, for National Digital Trust Company, a proposed Seattle trust bank backed by Protego Holdings. The filing said the bank planned four core business lines tied to crypto-assets: custody, trading, lending and borrowing, and issuer services. It also said the bank planned custody-related services including staking, governance and voting, fork and airdrop decisions, and treasury management in a fiduciary capacity. (occ.gov) The OCC granted preliminary conditional approval on February 20, 2026, for Foris DAX National Trust Bank in Chicago, which would do business as “Crypto.com National Trust Bank.” The filing said the proposed bank would focus on digital-asset and U.S. dollar custody accounts, optional digital-asset trade settlement, staking services and customer-directed exchange services, with an initial target market that included institutional investors and some retail clients in New York and Illinois. (occ.treas.gov) The OCC granted preliminary conditional approval on April 2, 2026, for Coinbase National Trust Company in New York. The filing said the proposed bank would provide digital-asset custody services as a fiduciary, primarily for institutional clients, and would permit custody customers to accept, hold and transfer fiat currency and digital assets in custodial accounts. (occ.treas.gov) ### Does “approval” mean these banks are already operating? The OCC documents say no. Each of the 2026 charter decisions was a preliminary conditional approval, and each said final approval to commence business would not be granted until all preopening requirements were met. The agency also said it retained the right to modify, suspend or rescind the preliminary approvals before final authorization. (occ.treas.gov) That distinction matters because social-media posts often compress several steps — legal authority, conditional charter approval and final launch approval — into one phrase. The underlying filings support the claim that regulators have opened a path for bank-style crypto custody, but they do not show that every named entity has already begun operating as a fully authorized bank. ### What about the Japan angle? (occ.treas.gov) CoinDesk reported on May 17, 2026, that SBI Securities and Rakuten Securities plan to offer cryptocurrency investment trusts once Japanese regulators finalize rules for such products. That is adjacent to the U.S. custody story, but it is not the same thing: the Japan move concerns investment-trust products distributed through brokerages, not U.S. bank custody approvals. (occ.gov) ### So what is the cleanest way to describe the story? The most precise version is this: U.S. regulators had already clarified that national banks can provide crypto custody and related services, and in 2026 the OCC issued preliminary conditional approvals for several digital-asset trust-bank structures, including entities tied to Protego, Crypto.com and Coinbase. In Japan, SBI Securities and Rakuten Securities are preparing crypto investment trusts pending final rules. (coindesk.com) The next concrete milestone is final OCC authorization for the proposed U.S. trust banks to commence business, while Japan’s next step is final regulatory rules for crypto investment trusts that SBI Securities and Rakuten Securities could use to launch products. (occ.treas.gov) (occ.gov)