Bitcoin Magazine

Circle (CRCL) Wins Final OCC Approval for National Trust Bank

Circle Internet Group secured final approval from the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency today, to establish a national trust bank, a milestone that sent the stablecoin issuer’s shares higher and deepened its ties to the federal banking system.

The regulator cleared Circle to charter First National Digital Currency Bank, N.A., which will operate under the name Circle National Trust. 

The company, which trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker CRCL, said the charter places the new entity under direct federal oversight by the OCC, the primary supervisor for national banks and national trust banks.

Circle National Trust will provide fiduciary custody services for digital assets held by Circle and its affiliates. Under the business plan the OCC approved, the bank could extend custody services to a limited set of institutional customers, with a focus on banks and regulated derivatives organizations. 

The charter opens a path for the bank to manage the reserve backing USDC, the largest regulated stablecoin, which would bring that multibillion-dollar pool under federal supervision.

National trust banks differ from traditional lenders. They safeguard client assets and provide fiduciary services, and they do not take deposits or issue loans. The structure aligns its digital-asset infrastructure with a long-standing model for holding client assets under strict fiduciary standards.

“OCC approval to establish Circle National Trust marks a defining step in bringing blockchain technology and digital assets into the core of the U.S. financial system,” said Jeremy Allaire, co-founder, chairman, and chief executive of Circle. He said federal oversight of the trust bank “sets a new standard for transparency, governance, and scale” and unlocks a phase of adoption in which large financial institutions can build on public blockchains with confidence.

Investors welcomed the decision. CRCL shares climbed as much as 14% on the day of the announcement, a rebound from a three-month low. Other crypto-linked names, including Coinbase and Strategy, posted gains near 5% this morning as bitcoin bounced.

CRCL shares have since settled to 5% gains.

Circle’s federal framework

The approval caps a process that began when Circle filed its application on June 30, 2025. The OCC granted conditional approval in December 2025, alongside peers such as Ripple, BitGo, Fidelity Digital Assets, and Paxos. 

The final decision arrives as the GENIUS Act, the federal stablecoin law enacted in July 2025, moves toward full implementation in early 2027. 

That statute requires OCC supervision of large stablecoin issuers, and the trust charter positions Circle to meet the mandate while bringing USDC reserves into a federal framework.

Circle has built a record of regulatory engagement across markets. It received a BitLicense from New York in 2015, became the first global stablecoin issuer to comply with the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets framework in 2024, and holds licenses in the United Kingdom, Singapore, Bermuda, and Abu Dhabi.

The charter strengthens USDC’s role as regulated digital-dollar infrastructure for payments, settlement, and capital markets, Circle said.

This post Circle (CRCL) Wins Final OCC Approval for National Trust Bank first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

Bitcoin Magazine

Visa, Mastercard, And Over 140 Companies Launch Stablecoin Open USD

A coalition of more than 140 companies — among them Visa, Stripe, Mastercard, BlackRock, and Coinbase — announced today the formation of Open Standard and the launch of Open USD (OUSD), a new dollar-pegged stablecoin built to redistribute the economics of the $300 billion stablecoin market.

The project is led by Zach Abrams, co-founder of Bridge, the stablecoin infrastructure firm that Stripe acquired in 2024. 

“Existing stablecoins have great strengths,” Abrams said in a statement, “But to use them at scale, businesses need something that’s open, low-cost, high-throughput, broadly accessible, and aligned to their interests.”

The announcement sent Circle shares down as much as 15% Tuesday, a sign of how directly Open USD targets the USDC issuer’s business model.

The core proposition of Open USD is straightforward: no minting fees, no redemption fees, no volume limits — and most of the interest generated by the stablecoin’s reserves goes to the companies using it, minus a management fee retained by Open Standard.

That reserve income is what makes Circle and Tether profitable. Both issuers park stablecoin backing in short-term U.S. Treasuries and keep the yield themselves. Circle’s USDC carries a market cap of roughly $73 billion; Tether’s USDT sits at around $145 billion. Open USD proposes to share that yield with its distribution network instead.

Governance follows the same logic. Rather than a single issuer calling the shots, Open Standard will be managed by an independent organization with decision-making shared among partner companies.

Who is backing Open USD

The partner list spans nearly every corner of finance. Payment networks include Visa, Mastercard, American Express, and Discover. Banks include BNY, Standard Chartered, DBS, and U.S. Bank. On the technology side: Google, Shopify, and IBM. Crypto firms include Coinbase, Ripple, MetaMask, Aave, Bybit, OKX, Galaxy, Fireblocks, and Anchorage Digital.

“Today, we announced Visa is joining Open Standard alongside Stripe, Coinbase, Mastercard, American Express, BlackRock, U.S. Bank, BBVA, Standard Chartered and 100-plus initial partners with the mission of issuing Open USD,” Visa’s head of crypto, Cuy Sheffield, wrote on X.

Open USD is expected to go live later in 2026 on Solana, Stellar, Base, and Polygon. Tempo CEO Matt Huang confirmed OUSD will be natively issued on its network from day one, with support for payments, liquidity, exchanges, and DeFi.

Open Standard is not the first consortium to try this model. Paxos leads the Global Dollar Network (USDG) — backed by Robinhood, Kraken, and Galaxy Digital — on the same premise: share reserve income, grow adoption. 

In Europe, 37 banks and payment providers have organized around Qivalis, a euro-denominated stablecoin, as institutions push back against U.S. dollar dominance in the digital asset space.

The timing is not accidental. Stablecoins have migrated out of crypto trading and into cross-border payments, merchant settlements, and corporate treasury operations. 

Citi projects the market will reach $4 trillion by 2030. 

This post Visa, Mastercard, And Over 140 Companies Launch Stablecoin Open USD first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.