Regulation
Zerohash's Bank Charter Bid Hits an OCC Snag, Refiling Planned This Month
14 Aug 2026, 13:40
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Crypto infrastructure firm Zerohash, which powers digital asset trading on Morgan Stanley's E*Trade platform, had its federal trust bank charter application returned by the OCC without a decision, and now plans a narrower refiling.
Zerohash, the crypto infrastructure company that powers digital asset trading on Morgan Stanley's E*Trade platform, will not become a federally chartered trust bank this summer after all. The US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency returned the company's application without reaching a decision, and Zerohash says it now plans to refile a narrower version of the request this month.
A return is different from a denial. Under OCC rules, the agency can send back a filing it considers materially deficient without issuing any public reasoning, which means there is technically nothing to appeal. That is a notably softer outcome than a formal rejection, which the OCC has issued to other applicants like fintechs Wise and Bunq, though neither is a digital asset company. In a statement, Zerohash described its return as "an administrative process that allows us to refile this month," emphasizing it "is not a substantive decision on the merits of our application," and said the step does not affect its current operations, which continue under existing state-level approvals.
The original application, filed in March, sought a broad slate of permissions covering custody of digital assets and fiat currency, staking, transfer agent services, trade execution and stablecoin management, along with settlement and clearing services. That breadth drew objections from banking trade groups, including the Independent Community Bankers of America and the Bank Policy Institute, both of which argued that federal law limits national trust charters to firms predominantly engaged in fiduciary activities, and that a company offering trade execution alongside custody does not clearly meet that bar. Zerohash's own explanation for the refile, describing a "more focused approval of national trust activities aligned with our intended rollout timeline," tracks closely with those objections without directly conceding them.
Zerohash is not the first crypto firm to secure federal trust approval, and it won't be the last to try. The OCC has already conditionally approved Circle, Ripple, Paxos, BitGo, Fidelity Digital Assets, Coinbase, Stripe's Bridge unit and Crypto.com. Still pending are applications from Morgan Stanley, Payoneer, Nomura's Laser Digital unit, and World Liberty Financial, the decentralized finance venture backed by the family of US President Donald Trump. If regulators are now applying the "predominantly fiduciary" standard more strictly, the applications most at risk may be the ones requesting the widest range of activities, regardless of who is behind them. Zerohash itself already holds a state trust charter and says its core business, including its work with E*Trade, is unaffected by the setback; what it has lost, for now, is the ability to describe itself as a federally chartered bank while several competitors already can.
A return is different from a denial. Under OCC rules, the agency can send back a filing it considers materially deficient without issuing any public reasoning, which means there is technically nothing to appeal. That is a notably softer outcome than a formal rejection, which the OCC has issued to other applicants like fintechs Wise and Bunq, though neither is a digital asset company. In a statement, Zerohash described its return as "an administrative process that allows us to refile this month," emphasizing it "is not a substantive decision on the merits of our application," and said the step does not affect its current operations, which continue under existing state-level approvals.
The original application, filed in March, sought a broad slate of permissions covering custody of digital assets and fiat currency, staking, transfer agent services, trade execution and stablecoin management, along with settlement and clearing services. That breadth drew objections from banking trade groups, including the Independent Community Bankers of America and the Bank Policy Institute, both of which argued that federal law limits national trust charters to firms predominantly engaged in fiduciary activities, and that a company offering trade execution alongside custody does not clearly meet that bar. Zerohash's own explanation for the refile, describing a "more focused approval of national trust activities aligned with our intended rollout timeline," tracks closely with those objections without directly conceding them.
Zerohash is not the first crypto firm to secure federal trust approval, and it won't be the last to try. The OCC has already conditionally approved Circle, Ripple, Paxos, BitGo, Fidelity Digital Assets, Coinbase, Stripe's Bridge unit and Crypto.com. Still pending are applications from Morgan Stanley, Payoneer, Nomura's Laser Digital unit, and World Liberty Financial, the decentralized finance venture backed by the family of US President Donald Trump. If regulators are now applying the "predominantly fiduciary" standard more strictly, the applications most at risk may be the ones requesting the widest range of activities, regardless of who is behind them. Zerohash itself already holds a state trust charter and says its core business, including its work with E*Trade, is unaffected by the setback; what it has lost, for now, is the ability to describe itself as a federally chartered bank while several competitors already can.