The company applied for the license in October 2025 and gained the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency’s conditional approval in April, but charter plans date to 2024, an executive said.

Coinbase has received an unconditional national trust charter, 13 months after applying with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the company announced Monday.

Coinbase National Trust Co. received the regulator’s unconditional nod Friday, joining the list of national trust banks born of cryptocurrency companies which includes Ripple, Circle and BitGo.

With a national trust charter, Coinbase can now operate under the OCC’s federal framework to provide digital asset custody, settlement and stablecoin reserve management.

“The regulators actually make us better at what we do,” Rick Schonberg, CEO of Coinbase National Trust Charter and Coinbase’s head of trading and custody, said Monday in an interview with Banking Dive.

While federal regulation means more scrutiny, “to me, that isn't scary. That's encouraging,” he said. “As we do our jobs better as a custodian and as a fiduciary, that only means our clients' assets are even more secure. And given what's going on in the universe, that's only a good thing.”

Coinbase applied for a national trust charter in October 2025 and snagged a conditional charter in April, but charter plans date back more than two years, Schonberg said. That pre-dates the second Trump administration, which has enacted crypto-friendly rules and appointed crypto-friendly regulators.

Coinbase is “administration-agnostic,” Schonberg said, adding that the company has worked with lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.

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