Bastion, the stablecoin infrastructure provider for global enterprises and financial institutions, has received preliminary conditional approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) to establish a national trust bank.

 

 

Following the approval, Bastion, through the Bastion Platforms National Trust Company, will now offer regulated digital asset services under OCC supervision, including stablecoin wallets and custody, payment infrastructure, and white-label issuance.

 

"Enterprises and financial institutions can now access stablecoins through a federally regulated counterparty, with the controls and oversight they already expect from their banks. We’ve built Bastion for this moment from day one,” said Nassim Eddequiouaq, CEO of Bastion.

 

With OCC approval now in the bag, enterprise clients and financial institutions can fully access Bastion’s products, including its wallet and issuance services such as minting, redemption, and conversion between stablecoins and fiat, with services that meet required regulatory and compliance standards.

 

Prior to receiving the conditional charter from the OCC, Bastion had secured a limited purpose trust company charter from the New York State Department of Financial Services, which enabled it to offer certain fiduciary and trust services.

 

It was during that period that Bastion acquired Dibbs Trust Company, which was eventually renamed Bastion Platforms Trust Company, the entity that is now playing a pivotal role in Bastion’s OCC-regulated fiduciary offerings.

 

Like Bastion, several other financial institutions have received similar conditional or even full trust charters from the OCC, notably Trump-backed World Liberty Financial, Catena, and Agora.

 

Deutsche Bank has just announced its plan to launch its digital asset custody solution this year, depending on how soon it completes the necessary regulatory requirements.

 

Making the announcement in a press release this Wednesday, the bank said the new custody solution will provide its institutional and corporate clients with secure and regulated custody services for their digital assets, with Deutsche Bank managing the clients’ wallets and private keys.

 

“Digital assets are not a replacement for the traditional financial system but an important complement to it. We see them as new rails that can coexist with existing market infrastructures while benefiting from the trust, security and safeguards that regulated financial institutions provide. Our aim is to offer clients a secure and regulated gateway to this evolving market,” said Gerald Podobnik, Co-Head of Corporate Bank at Deutsche Bank.

 

At launch, the custody solution will support only a selected range of digital assets, including Bitcoin and Ether, as well as a few stablecoin assets such as USDC, EURC and EURAU, with possible expansion to support more assets depending on clients’ demand and regulatory processes. Tokenized financial instruments are also included in the bank’s roadmap.

 

Security Measures to Protect Clients' Assets

 

To enhance the safety and security of clients’ assets under its custody, Deutsche Bank will implement multiple layers of security for the custodial solution, with the bank stating that these security mechanisms will operate under strict governance.

 

Among the various security measures that will be implemented to safeguard clients’ assets are secure key generation and hardware-based protection, segregation of duties, multi-person approval processes, separate warm and cold storage environments, and controlled backup and recovery arrangements.

 

As its initial focus, the custodial solution will be made available first to qualified Deutsche Bank institutional clients across Europe, including corporates, asset managers, hedge funds, custodians, brokers and sovereign institutions.

 

Circle Internet Group has launched the mainnet of Arc, its Layer 1 blockchain purpose built for money and financial markets, with BlackRock and Visa among the chain’s founding validators.

 

Announcing the launch in a press release this Wednesday, Circle said Arc was launched with native integration into Circle’s full stack platform, with more than 100 applications already built atop it and more than 100 institutional and ecosystem builders, including global banks, asset managers, payment networks, exchanges, DeFi protocols, crypto wallets, and AI platforms.

 

Among the validators for the Arc chain are BlackRock, The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), Galaxy, ICE, Mastercard, MoneyGram, SBI Group, Standard Chartered, Sumitomo Corporation, Visa, and Worldpay.

 

 

Describing Arc’s launch as Circle’s most significant launch since the launch of the USDC stablecoin, Circle Co Founder and CEO Jeremy Allaire said the Arc chain is the embodiment of what the Circle team has operated on for 13 years.

 

“Today we are switching on something the world has never had before: an open, neutral, always-on economic operating system for the internet, secured by some of the most important financial institutions on Earth, and built for a world where both people and machines transact.”

 

According to Circle, there are six features that set Arc apart from other chains: a chain gas fee denominated in dollars, which allows gas fees to be paid in USDC; sub-second finality, which ensures fast and instant settlement; opt in privacy, which ensures confidentiality of transactions; interoperability; agentic economic activity; and institutional security.

 

Alongside the Arc mainnet launch, Circle also released Arc Studio and Arc App Kits, which enable builders to create stablecoin native applications from scratch.

 

Arc Studio is an on-chain coding agent that turns ideas into implementations, enabling builders to create applications with market ready blockchain features faster, while Arc App Kits is a unified SDK that enables builders to add payments, swaps, on ramp, and other on-chain funding features to applications with just a few lines of code.

 

UniCredit, Italy’s second largest bank, is reportedly considering entering the crypto and digital asset custody market, according to a Bloomberg report.

 

Although UniCredit has yet to publicly announce its intention to offer crypto custody services, Bloomberg, citing people familiar with the matter, reported that the bank is already selecting a provider to build custodial infrastructure that would allow it not only to hold digital assets but also facilitate their buying and selling.

 

In addition to custodial services, Bloomberg also reported that the bank is considering other areas of crypto, including tokenized investment products and fixed income securities, the use of stablecoins, and exposure to cryptocurrencies, as possible areas of expansion.

 

UniCredit’s expansion into crypto custody comes at a time when financial institutions are also considering expanding into the sector.

 

Just recently, Jack Dorsey owned financial technology company Block formally applied to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) to establish a National Trust Bank that would allow it to offer crypto custody services.

 

In August, Citibank also announced plans to launch a native Bitcoin custody service that would allow its clients to hold Bitcoin alongside traditional assets such as stocks and bonds.

 

While UniCredit has yet to officially issue a public statement regarding the move, speculation surrounding the bank’s plans to expand into crypto custody could be a significant development for the crypto industry if successful, as it would enhance crypto adoption, bridging the gap between blockchain-based finance and traditional finance.

 

Financial technology company Block Inc. has formally submitted an application to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) to establish Builders Bank & Trust, N.A. (“Builders Bank”), an uninsured national trust bank.

 

If approved, the charter will enable Block to operate as a federally regulated national trust bank under the supervision of the OCC, allowing it to provide fiduciary and custody services for digital assets such as Bitcoin and stablecoins.

 

“Combining Block’s digital asset expertise, our experience with Square Financial Services, and the deep banking expertise of our team, we believe Builders Bank is well positioned to support Block’s broader vision of economic empowerment,” said Lee Woolley, who is expected to serve as president and CEO of Builders Bank.

 

Although the charter will not allow Builders Bank to accept customer deposits or make loans like traditional banks, if approved, it will enable the bank to operate as an uninsured, non-deposit taking national trust bank under the OCC’s regulatory framework.

 

Block’s application comes at a time when several financial institutions have made similar filings with the OCC to establish national trust banks.

 

Just last month, digital asset infrastructure provider Zero Hash applied to establish a national trust bank focused exclusively on digital assets. The application followed similar filings by fintech firm Dakota, Catena, and Payward in preceding months.

 

President Trump-backed World Liberty Financial and Sony Bank also recently received conditional trust charters from the OCC to establish national trust banks, while stablecoin issuer Circle was granted a New York trust charter.

 

Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, has signed three memorandums of understanding with key entities and institutions in Kazakhstan.

 

In a blog post announcing the agreements, Binance said the MoUs focus on key sectors of Kazakhstan’s economy and were signed with the Ministry of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Development, the National Bank of Kazakhstan, and the Astana International Financial Centre (AIFC).

 

Under the memorandum signed with Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Development, Binance will cooperate on digital assets, digital and computing infrastructure, and innovative payment solutions, while exploring the possibility of issuing a stablecoin backed by the Kazakhstani tenge.

 

The second memorandum, signed with the National Bank of Kazakhstan, focuses on building payment and digital financial infrastructure, with Binance and the National Bank potentially exploring opportunities to position Kazakhstan as a regional payments and fintech hub.

 

To ensure the initiative is practically implemented and moves beyond a paper plan, Binance and the National Bank of Kazakhstan have already created a roadmap outlining the different phases for building payment infrastructure, obtaining licenses, and launching new payment products.

 

The third memorandum, signed between Binance and the Astana International Financial Centre (AIFC), is aimed at strengthening cooperation under the Investment Tax Residency Programme and expanding the potential use of digital assets as part of Kazakhstan’s modern investment infrastructure.

 

According to Renat Bekturov, Governor of the Astana International Financial Centre, the expansion will enable investors to better access new opportunities within the AIFC ecosystem and contribute to the further development of Kazakhstan’s digital asset market.

 

Two Thai businessmen, Nutthawat Rukthammachalern and Natthawat Kasamvilas, have filed a lawsuit against stablecoin issuer Tether over the alleged seizure of $42.4 million worth of USDT.

 

The lawsuit, which was filed by the plaintiffs this week in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, challenges the seizure of the crypto funds by the stablecoin issuer, alleging that it was carried out without proper legal backing.

 

According to the suit filed with the court, the plaintiffs claim that the seizure involved funds held across 10 Ethereum addresses that were blacklisted by Tether. They allege that the blacklist was created solely based on an informal request from a U.S. Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) agent and without a warrant, court order, or other formal legal process.

 

 

Defending how the funds were obtained, the plaintiffs claimed that the frozen USDT assets were acquired through secondary market business transactions that had no direct relationship with Tether whatsoever.

 

Post-seizure Recovery Efforts

 

After discovering that Tether had frozen the funds October last year, one of the plaintiffs, Natthawat Kasamvilas, emailed the stablecoin issuer to inquire why he could no longer control the funds and asked to regain full custody of them.

 

However, Kasamvilas claimed that Tether replied by asking him to contact a special agent with Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), whose email address the company provided, while failing to provide a legal basis for the freeze.

 

Although earlier this year, in February, a U.S. Magistrate Judge in the Eastern District of North Carolina ordered the seizure of $61 million worth of USDT that was reportedly linked to a pig butchering and money laundering scam, the plaintiffs claim that the seizure of their funds occurred months before the judge issued the order. They also allege that Tether continued to earn yield from the frozen assets.

 

A consortium of 21 banks and financial institutions has formed a joint venture to potentially launch a stablecoin in the first half of 2027.

 

The consortium, which was first announced in October 2025 and initially comprised just 10 banks, has grown to include 21 major banks across multiple jurisdictions, including North America, Europe, Africa, East Asia and the Middle East.

 

Some of the financial institutions that make up the consortium include Bank of America, Citi, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, Capital One, PNC, Fidelity Investments, WisdomTree, Deutsche Bank, BBVA, MUFG Bank and Standard Bank, among others.

 

With its member institutions now fully established, the consortium plans to launch a yet to be named company in the second half of this year, subject to fulfilling various regulatory requirements.

 

Once established, the company will launch a stablecoin backed by the U.S. dollar for cross border payments and settlements across wholesale, retail and institutional markets in early 2027. Euro pegged stablecoins will follow, paving the way for the launch of stablecoins denominated in other G7 currencies.

 

The formation of this 21 institution consortium comes at a time when other financial institutions are coming together to support the launch of their own stablecoins.

 

Notable among these consortia is Qivalis, a consortium made up of 37 banks targeting the launch of a euro pegged stablecoin before the end of the year.

 

There is also the Open Standard consortium, made up of 140 companies supporting the launch of Open USD, a recently launched stablecoin that allows its members to share in the earnings generated from its reserves.

 

Dunamu, the parent company of the South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Upbit, has entered into a strategic partnership with global payments company Visa to develop next generation stablecoin based payments and AI driven financial services.

 

The partnership, which was signed at Visa’s Global Market Support Center in San Francisco, USA, this Thursday in the presence of key figures from both companies, including Dunamu CEO Oh Kyung seok and Visa Global President Oliver Jenkyn, will leverage the existing infrastructure of both companies to create new stablecoin based payment and global remittance services.

 

According to Dunamu, the partnership will aim to ensure the secure and reliable use of digital assets and next generation payment technologies based on stability, transparency, interoperability, and regulatory compliance.

 

“The spread of AI, stablecoins, and tokenization is a key trend that will transform how finance and commerce operate,” said Oh Kyung seok, CEO of Dunamu. “Through collaboration with Visa, which has led global payments, we will connect digital assets with traditional finance and create a new global financial experience that users can truly experience.”

 

As part of the two companies’ initial exploration of stablecoins, the Open USD (OUSD) stablecoin will be further explored, including the potential expansion of its use cases across areas such as global remittances, payments, and settlements.

 

Over time, the partnership could expand to include the utilization and integration of AI for payments and other stablecoin based payment and settlement services, Dunamu said. It could also explore the use of AI in agentic commerce and the handling of certain user tasks, such as purchases and payments. 

 

JPMorgan Chase, the largest bank in the United States, has signaled its interest in the possibility of launching its own stablecoin, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported.

 

Although the bank has made no official announcement and has no active plans to launch a stablecoin at present, a JPMorgan spokesperson reportedly told the WSJ that the bank recently held a preliminary discussion about the possibility of creating its own stablecoin.

 

“While we have no plans to issue a stablecoin, depending on customer demand and the evolution of the regulatory landscape, we would of course evaluate all options in the future.”

 

If JPMorgan ever decides to move ahead with a stablecoin launch, the stablecoin will be very different from JPM Coin, a digital deposit token the bank launched on its permissioned Kinexys blockchain in 2019 to modernize institutional payments and settlements.

 

Growing Stablecoin Interest Among U.S. Banks

 

Like JPMorgan, several other U.S. banks and financial institutions have also been considering launching their own stablecoins.

 

Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and Santander have formed a global stablecoin venture comprising more than a dozen financial institutions.

 

Through this venture, the financial institutions plan to launch a dollar backed stablecoin, with possible expansion to stablecoins pegged to the euro and other G7 currencies over time.

 

Stablecoins have seen growing adoption among large financial institutions in recent times. 

 

According to a recent Fireblocks survey covering about 295 executives from banks and financial institutions, about 49% of these institutions actively use stablecoins for payments, while 23% are reportedly in the pilot phase and 18% plan to integrate stablecoins soon.

 

Global fintech company Revolut has rolled out its MiCA-compliant, euro-denominated stablecoin EURR across Denmark, Poland and Portugal.

 

Announcing the rollout in a Wednesday post on X, Revolut said the launch aims to make stablecoins more accessible to its customers, giving them more options beyond the dominant dollar-backed stablecoins.

 

With the launch of EURR, Revolut customers across the three European countries will now be able to move more value on-chain, with the company hinting at a potential expansion into other European markets later this year.

 

"EURR connects 80 million Revolut customers directly to on-chain finance," Emil Urmanshin, Head of Crypto at Revolut, said.

 

"By combining our global scale and licensed banking infrastructure with instant euro-denominated access to the crypto ecosystem, we are unlocking real-world stablecoin utility that no traditional bank or crypto-native company can match."

 

The EURR stablecoin will be issued by Bridge Building S.A., the stablecoin infrastructure company acquired by Stripe for $1.1 billion in October of last year. For a start, EURR will only be available on Ethereum and Polygon, with support for more blockchains expected over time.

 

Institutional Interest in Euro-Pegged Stablecoins Grows

 

Despite accounting for only about 0.2% of the total stablecoin market, euro-pegged stablecoins have received growing interest from financial institutions looking to create more options for users beyond dollar-backed stablecoins.

 

Prior to the launch of EURR, EURXT, a stablecoin also pegged to the euro, was launched by Crédit Agricole, one of Europe’s largest banks, in July of this year.

 

Efforts are underway by other institutions to launch euro-denominated stablecoins, notable among them is the Qivalis consortium, made up of about 37 banks, which is targeting the launch of a euro-pegged stablecoin in the second half of this year.

 

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) has granted President Trump-backed World Liberty Financial preliminary conditional approval to establish World Liberty Trust Company, N.A., a national trust bank that would oversee its USD1 stablecoin operations.

 

Since the charter is conditional, World Liberty Trust Company will serve as a limited purpose national trust bank, handling the fiduciary and trust aspects of the USD1 stablecoin, including the issuance and redemption of the stablecoin, management of the reserves backing USD1, and custody services for institutional clients using USD1.

 

Regarding the regulatory milestone, Zach Witkoff, CEO and co-founder of World Liberty Financial, wrote in an X post, “Rigorous oversight, institutional controls and clear accountability are how stablecoins become trusted financial infrastructure.”

 

“Our ambition is clear: to build the most trusted and widely used digital dollar in the world while strengthening the role of the U.S. dollar across the global economy.”

 

As part of the conditions stated by the OCC in its approval letter, World Liberty Trust Company must restrict its activities strictly to those relating to trust activities. If it intends to deviate from these activities, the bank must provide the OCC with 60 days’ prior notice.

 

Before any executive is appointed, World Liberty Trust Company must submit information about the executives to the OCC and receive a non-objection letter from the regulator.

 

The trust bank will initially be governed by a five member team: Zach Witkoff, who will serve as board chair; Scott Alper, President and Chief Investment Officer of Witkoff Group; Robert Witkoff, former Co-Chief Investment Officer of The Chubb Corporation; Jeffrey Weiner, former Chairman and CEO of Marcum LLP, one of the largest accounting firms in the U.S.; and Erin Baskett, a member of the FINRA Board of Governors and founder of brokerage firm Sine Qua Non Capital.