Circle Internet Group received final approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency on Friday to establish First National Digital Currency Bank, N.A. — a federally chartered national trust bank that will operate as Circle National Trust. The approval, announced eight days before the GENIUS Act’s implementing rules are due from six federal agencies, gives the issuer of USDC the regulatory standing it has pursued since filing its OCC application on June 30, 2025. What it does not give Circle is a solution to the more immediate problem: a 140-company consortium called Open Standard announced a rival stablecoin on June 30 that is specifically designed to redistribute the reserve income Circle depends on to survive.
CRCL shares surged as much as 16% intraday on the news, briefly touching $72.85, before analysts started publishing and enthusiasm faded. By midday, more than half those gains had evaporated.
Circle National Trust is a national trust bank, a category that has existed in U.S. law since the National Bank Act of 1864 and was clarified most recently by an OCC Final Rule issued February 27, 2026. National trust banks hold and manage assets in a fiduciary capacity. What they cannot do is accept deposits from the public, make loans, or offer checking accounts. No FDIC insurance attaches to a national trust bank.
At opening, Circle National Trust will provide exactly one service: fiduciary digital asset custody for Circle itself and its affiliates. The OCC’s approved business plan carves out a future path — the bank may eventually offer custody services to a limited number of institutional clients, specifically banks, other financial institutions, and regulated derivatives organizations.
The charter is also designed to eventually support management of the USDC Reserve — the approximately $73.2 billion in cash and short-term U.S. Treasury securities that back every USDC token in circulation. USDC itself will not be issued by Circle National Trust; issuance will continue through Circle’s existing entities.
Before Friday, Anchorage Digital Bank was the only crypto-native firm that had ever held an OCC national trust charter. A national trust charter carries federal preemption of state licensing requirements under the National Bank Act. “Circle National Trust is authorized to open on or after July 10, 2026,” a Circle spokesperson told American Banker.
Ten days before Friday’s OCC approval, on June 30, 2026, Open Standard unveiled Open USD (OUSD), a dollar-backed stablecoin backed by more than 140 companies including Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Stripe, Coinbase, BlackRock, BNY, Standard Chartered, and Google. CRCL fell approximately 17% that day.
Open USD flips Circle’s reserve income model. USDC is backed 1:1 by cash and short-term U.S. Treasuries. Circle holds the reserve pool — currently approximately $73.2 billion — and earns the prevailing short-term interest rate on those assets. The GENIUS Act prohibits stablecoin issuers from paying that interest to token holders, so all of it accrues to Circle and its distribution partners. Open USD partners who adopt and distribute OUSD receive nearly all the reserve earnings after a small management fee.
Circle’s OCC approval lands eight days before the GENIUS Act’s implementing rules are due from six federal agencies — the OCC, FDIC, NCUA, Treasury, FinCEN, and OFAC. All major comment periods closed as of June 9, 2026, leaving the agencies in a final-sprint rulemaking with the July 18, 2026 statutory deadline. If the agencies meet that deadline, the GENIUS Act framework becomes effective approximately 120 days later, around mid-November 2026.
The GENIUS Act defines compliant payment stablecoins as neither securities nor commodities and mandates 1:1 reserves, monthly independent audits, and Bank Secrecy Act compliance obligations. Issuers crossing $10 billion in market cap must transition to OCC federal oversight within 360 days. Circle already crossed that threshold long ago and is now the most federally regulated issuer in the market.
Coinbase is simultaneously an OUSD founding partner and Circle’s single largest distribution partner. Under the Circle-Coinbase commercial agreement established in 2023, Coinbase receives 100% of the reserve income from USDC held directly on its platform and splits off-platform income 50/50 with Circle. That agreement is reportedly up for renewal in August.