The OCC’s regulatory pivot and the crypto custody market

Infrastructure primacy and the OCC

The OCC changed its regulatory focus in April 2026 when it amended 12 CFR 5.20 to replace the "fiduciary activities" language with "operations of a trust company and activities related thereto." This change allowed the agency to approve infrastructure providers like Bastion Platforms, which received preliminary conditional approval on September 18, 2026. Bastion builds the technology and compliance stack for stablecoin programs and received a $14.6 million funding round in September 2025. On that same day, the OCC also granted conditional approval to Catena Trust Bank and Agora National Trust Bank. The agency has granted at least 12 conditional approvals in 2026 alone for entities such as Bridge, Crypto.com, Coinbase, Laser Digital, Morgan Stanley Digital Trust, Revolut, and World Liberty Trust Company. Modern Treasury filed its application for a federal trust charter on February 12, 2026, as it seeks to hold stablecoins and fiat for corporate clients. The company’s existing product suite moves fiat through bank rails for clients such as ClassPass, Gusto, and Marqeta, and its payment operations platform already touches stablecoin settlement through partner integrations. Modern Treasury has held discussions with OCC staff since the third quarter of 2025. I find the OCC’s rush to charter digital-asset banks before the GENIUS Act enforcement deadline on January 18, 2027, to be a distinct shift in strategy.

Anchorage, Kraken, and the state-federal divide

Anchorage Digital remains the only firm with an operating federal trust charter for crypto custody as of February 2026. The company reported $60 billion in assets under custody in December 2025, which is an increase from $40 billion the previous year. Anchorage works with U.S. Bank, which holds $11.7 trillion in assets under custody administration. U.S. Bank relaunched its cryptocurrency custody services for institutional investment managers in 2026 and uses NYDIG as a bitcoin sub-custodian. In Wyoming, Kraken Financial operates as a Special Purpose Depository Institution. The Kansas City Fed approved a limited purpose account for Kraken Financial on March 4, 2026.

Kraken Financial must maintain 100% reserves of its fiat deposits at all times. This requirement differs from traditional fractional-reserve banking. Total stablecoin supply reached $230 billion on February 10, 2026, up from $160 billion in February 2025. While Anchorage expands settlement services through bank partnerships, state-chartered custodians like BitGo still hold the majority of institutional stablecoin custody. You should notice that while the OCC moves on charters, state-level requirements like those in Pennsylvania for virtual currency transmission continue to grow. Kraken Financial provides ETH, SOL, and TAO staking services and uses hardware security modules and multi-party computation to manage private keys.

Custodia and the Federal Reserve

The Tenth Circuit denied Custodia Bank’s petition for an en banc rehearing on March 13, 2026. The court ruled that Federal Reserve banks have the discretion to deny master account requests from legally eligible entities. This decision follows a 2-1 panel ruling that the Federal Reserve Act gives Reserve banks the power to grant or deny access. In the original district court case, the judge ruled the Kansas City Fed was not required to grant Custodia’s request and that Custodia lacked standing because it did not challenge a final agency action under the Administrative Procedure Act. The ABA filed an amicus brief urging the Tenth Circuit to affirm the decision, stating that removing Reserve bank discretion would endanger the safety of the wider financial system. In his dissent, Judge Timothy Tymkovich warned that the decision effectively handed the Reserve banks a veto over states’ chartering power. Custodia argues the Monetary Control Act of 1980 requires the Fed to provide equal payment access to eligible nonmember institutions. The legal dispute between Custodia and the Federal Reserve continues as the bank seeks Supreme Court review. Will the Supreme Court limit the Fed’s power to deny master accounts to statutorily eligible institutions?