Coinbase Global received conditional approval from banking regulators for a national trust company charter, Bloomberg News reported Thursday, in a move that could bolster the appeal of the largest American cryptocurrency exchange among institutional investors.
Full approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency would allow Coinbase to operate as a federally regulated cryptocurrency custodian.
Greg Tusar, the company’s VP of product management, told Bloomberg in an interview that full approval could also help the company offer new products such as tokenized securities and enable it to issue stablecoins.
“The ability to have a federal framework for our custody business is important,” Tusar told Bloomberg. “It’s about expanding our reach and being able to conduct new activities that we may not have been able to do before.”
Coinbase did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Reuters.
The United States has taken a more cryptocurrency-friendly approach since the election of President Donald Trump, with regulators easing previous restrictions and reducing enforcement measures.
Earlier this year, Crypto.com also received conditional approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency for a national trust bank charter.
