The U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has given Bridge, a stablecoin infrastructure company owned by Stripe, preliminary approval to establish a national trust bank.
If approved, Bridge National Trust Bank would have direct federal supervision over its reserves, digital asset custody, and stablecoin issuance.
This comes after Bridge was acquired by Stripe for $1.1 billion in 2024. According to the corporation, its systems already meet the requirements of the GENIUS Act, which governs stablecoin issuers.
Circle, Ripple, Paxos, and BitGo are among the other companies that have already been granted similar provisional approvals.
The pursuit of a national trust charter is not unique to Bridge. Additionally, Circle, Ripple, Paxos, Fidelity Digital Assets, and BitGo have all been granted conditional approvals in recent months. In October of last year, Erebor Bank received a similar charter.
Bridge currently powers stablecoin issuance for products like Phantom’s CASH and MetaMask’s mUSD through Stripe’s Open Issuance platform. The business could increase confidence among businesses and financial institutions wishing to incorporate digital currencies under federal supervision.
A final approval timeline has not been issued by the OCC. However, conditional permission is important in and of itself. It shows that instead of pressuring stablecoin issuers to operate in grey areas, regulators are becoming more and more inclined to place them under conventional banking-style oversight.
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