A wave of cryptocurrency companies has applied for national trust charters from the OCC under the second Trump administration, drawn by the ability to operate at scale across states, gain access to Federal Reserve payment systems, and achieve regulatory legitimacy without bearing the full compliance burden of a commercial bank charter. Experts note this is a meaningful structural shift in how crypto-native firms integrate into regulated financial infrastructure.
For Armada's crypto-repo desk, OCC-chartered crypto firms represent a higher-quality counterparty tier than unchartered entities, potentially simplifying credit approval and onboarding under existing MRA/GMRA frameworks. The Fed access these charters provide also means counterparties could have direct access to reserve accounts, reducing settlement risk. Legal and compliance should update counterparty onboarding criteria to reflect OCC trust charter status as a qualifying factor.