The U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency granted a new charter to OpenReserve Bank, a distributed ledger bank supported by various digital asset investors such as Andreessen Horowitz, Jump Capital, and Coinbase Ventures.
While the OCC has conditionally cleared charters for a growing group of institutions—primarily trust companies—OpenReserve explained in its Thursday announcement that it opted for a comprehensive bank charter for its enterprise, designed as a full-feature national bank featuring integrated onchain settlement.
“We chose the national bank path deliberately,” stated Dee Choubey, co-founder and chief executive officer of OpenReserve, through a statement. “Supervision, safety and soundness, compliance, and customer confidence are not constraints on what we are building; they are the foundation of it.”
The Salt Lake City, Utah-headquartered entity, which still requires final authorization from the OCC for a permanent license, noted that it was “built to serve institutional customers across treasury management, stablecoin issuance, and tokenized deposits,” while adhering to forthcoming mandates under the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act.
“We need a bank that’s always on, always open, always available,” a16z crypto remarked in a digital publication detailing its funding choice. “A bank that never closes. A continuous bank.”
OpenReserve received additional backing from Acrew, Wintermute Ventures, Clocktower, Quona, AAF Management, and Zero Knowledge Ventures, according to its press release. The organization delivered its petition to the regulatory authority during April.
The OCC did not immediately reply to an inquiry verifying the charter authorization.
The digital asset ecosystem currently features numerous new, crypto-native financial institutions following years of strained connections with the traditional banking sector. The administration led by President Donald Trump, including his chosen OCC director Jonathan Gould, has made a concerted effort to incorporate digital asset enterprises into the regulated banking framework.
Furthermore on Thursday, the federal regulator granted another conditional banking license to British financial technology firm Revolut, which plans to operate out of Connecticut.
Originally published at https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2026/09/03/u-s-banking-agency-gives-blockchain-bank-openreserve-initial-ok-to-operate.
