Coinbase Gets Full OCC Trust Charter, Effective November 6: No FDIC Cover, No Retail Deposits, Three-Year Custody Move

The timeline

CoinDesk's report describes the step as an upgrade from conditional to full, and attributes it to the company. Its full page blocked our reader, so we used its feed summary. The OCC record gives the same result from the regulator's side, and it is the reason we date the charter November 6 and not November 9.

What the bank may do

The April decision is narrow, and it is more useful than any headline on the word "bank":

• Custody of digital assets as a fiduciary, primarily for institutions.
• Letting custody customers accept, hold and transfer custodied dollars and digital assets inside their custodial accounts. These services are for custody customers only.
• Holding customer dollars in "for benefit of" accounts at third-party banks.
• Pointing custody clients to Staking, Prime Trading and Prime Financing, which Coinbase affiliates provide. The OCC says the bank acts as a finder and does not provide those services itself.

The custody work now sits at Coinbase Custody Trust Company, a New York limited purpose trust company. The decision says Coinbase "will migrate the entirety of this custody business" to the new bank over the three-year start-up period. Until that finishes, a client's assets may sit with either entity, so institutional clients should ask which one holds them on a given date.

The decision's conditions were set in April. The bank must hold at least $60 million in tier 1 capital, with the greater of 50% of that capital or $30 million in eligible liquid assets. It must also keep 180 days of operating expenses in such assets, measured for a wind-down. Both conditions run for the first three years. We did not find a separate document changing them at final approval, and we could not read Coinbase's own release.

To size the wider category, the OCC says uninsured national trust banks reported $7.0 trillion in assets under administration at the end of 2025, including $1.7 trillion in custody and safekeeping accounts. That figure covers the whole sector and predates this charter.

What it means if you have a retail Coinbase account

Nothing we opened moves retail spot accounts into this bank. That is our reading of the documents, because none of them describes such a move. Greg Tusar, co-CEO of Coinbase Institutional, was direct when the conditional approval came in April, as Banking Dive reported: "Coinbase is not becoming a commercial bank. We will not be taking retail deposits. We will not be engaging in fractional reserve banking."

Deposit insurance is where a loose reading costs money. American Banker notes that assets consumers hold at these trusts are not protected by federal deposit insurance. The trade group suing the OCC makes the same point from the other side, calling the charter a "side door" that lacks "FDIC insurance" among other requirements, in its October 2 statement.

Four things to do this week if you hold coins or dollars there:

1. Open your account documents and find the legal entity that holds your assets. Treat that name as the answer, whatever any ad or social post says.
2. Check any claim about insurance separately for each balance type, since coins and dollars can sit under different arrangements. We could not open Coinbase's help pages to confirm the current wording.
3. Keep your withdrawal checks unchanged. The charter does not alter your own address book, 2FA or withdrawal limits in any document we read.
4. Ignore messages telling you to "migrate to Coinbase bank" or move funds to a new federal account. Nothing in these sources describes such a step for retail users, and news like this is easy bait for phishing.

Our November 4 piece on Coinbase's 99% offline storage claim covers the withdrawal controls you can check yourself.

Where sources differ: stablecoins and payments

American Banker reports that Coinbase's immediate focus is custody, and that it eventually wants to move into stablecoin issuance, servicing, white-label stablecoin arrangements and payments. The OCC's April decision says plainly that "the Bank does not propose to issue stablecoins". Crypto.news reads the charter the same way.

Both can hold. One describes what was approved in April and the other describes where the company wants to go. Until a further filing or decision appears, treat stablecoin issuance from this entity as a stated ambition. The decision also tells the bank to conform its activities to the GENIUS Act and its implementing rules as they take effect.

Crypto.news also reports that the charter does not bring automatic access to Federal Reserve payment systems, which need a separate process. Anyone hoping for instant dollar settlement through this bank should wait for that evidence.

The lawsuit could still change the terms

The Independent Community Bankers of America sued on October 2 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, arguing that letting companies do "substantial non-fiduciary activities" under a trust charter exceeds the OCC's authority. American Banker says the litigation and appeals may take years, and that a court would also have to decide a remedy for institutions already chartered. That could mean tighter restrictions on them.

For a holder, this is a slow risk and not a reason to act today. It does mean the permitted activities listed above could still move. American Banker also counts nearly two dozen new national trust charters approved or conditionally approved during the second Trump administration, more than a dozen of them for crypto firms, so any ruling would reach well beyond Coinbase.

Did the market care?

We saw no sign of it. Bitcoin traded at $74,199 on Binance at 18:47 SGT on November 9, down 2.26% over 24 hours. That reading came about 47 minutes after CoinDesk's 10:00 UTC report, so nearly all of that window predates the news. We could not read Coinbase's share price, because the quote feed we tried returned a rate limit. Our liquidations page and funding rates page show how derivatives traders are positioned during this drop.

Fees do not change with a charter

Nothing here alters what you pay to trade, so a federal charter is no reason on its own to expect cheaper fills. If fees are what you are comparing, our rates page sets out the numbers. On Bitget, code nexu888 returns 60% of trading fees, settled daily. At the 0.1% spot fee, a $1,000 trade costs $1 and $0.60 comes back. On OKX, code nexu888 returns 20%, settled hourly. Both percentages apply to the fee and never to the amount you trade.

Quick answers

Is Coinbase now a bank?

One Coinbase entity, Coinbase National Trust Company, is a national trust bank. The OCC's decision says it will not be an insured depository institution, and Coinbase said in April that it will not take retail deposits.

Are my coins on Coinbase FDIC insured because of this?

No document we read says the charter gives any such cover, and American Banker notes that assets held at these trusts are not protected by federal deposit insurance.

When did the charter take effect?

The OCC's record shows November 6, 2026. Coinbase announced it on November 9.

Can Coinbase issue a stablecoin from this bank now?

The OCC's April decision says the bank did not propose to. American Banker reports the company wants to move there eventually.

What we could not confirm

• The text of Coinbase's own November 9 release, since its site returned 403 to us. Quotes reach us through American Banker.
• Whether final approval altered any April condition.
• Which retail balances, if any, might ever touch this entity.
• Coinbase's share price reaction on November 9.