23 of 40 New Bank Charter Applications Now Involve Digital Assets, OCC Says

Comptroller of the Currency Jonathan Gould said the OCC has received 40 applications for new bank charters since President Trump took office, roughly the last 18 months, and that 23 of them involve some form of digital asset activity ^[4][5]. He called that an eightfold increase over the four years of the Biden administration ^[6], which means the composition of the de novo pipeline has changed before the rulebook those applicants will operate under is finished ^[1][7].

The arithmetic is worth doing slowly. Twenty-three of 40 is 57.5% of new charter applications ^[15]. Taking Gould's eightfold figure at face value implies about three digital-asset-linked charter applications across the entire four-year Biden term ^[19]. Because the comparison windows are unequal, the raw multiple understates the change in run rate: 23 applications in 18 months is roughly 1.3 per month, against about 0.06 per month in the prior four years, a factor of about 21 ^[20]. Gould, speaking in a fireside chat at the Wyoming Blockchain Symposium in Jackson Hole ^[3], said that looking further out at the pipeline it is "becoming ordinary course" for business plans to integrate payment stablecoins ^[14].

The rule those plans depend on is not done. The OCC published a 376-page proposal in February seeking comment on GENIUS Act implementation ^[7], and Gould said the agency began work on the rule before the bill was signed ^[2] and "will have a final rule out by November" ^[1]. GENIUS was signed in July 2025 ^[10] with a January 2027 effective date ^[8], and agencies have until Jan. 18 to finalize regulations ^[12]. On that timetable, the final rule arrives roughly two months before the deadline it has to beat ^[18]. Gould said he expects the OCC could begin processing applications from stablecoin issuers starting in 2027 ^[9]. The OCC is not alone in the obligation: GENIUS requires rules from Treasury, the FDIC and the Federal Reserve Board as well ^[11], and according to Cointelegraph several regulators published proposals and collected feedback without issuing final rules by July, a gap it describes as a source of regulatory uncertainty for issuers ^[13].

Gould framed the supervisory job in institutional terms rather than novelty ones, saying stablecoin oversight returns the OCC to its 1860s mission of ensuring that reserve assets backing national bank notes were of consistent quality ^[17]. He also said the agency is "witnessing the birth of a new industry" in payment stablecoins ^[16]. The operator's read is narrower: the OCC is telling the market that reserve asset quality, not blockchain design, is what examiners will be looking at.

What to watch. First, the November rule text, since 23 filed applications were built against a proposal, not a final standard ^[5][7]. Second, conversion: applications are not charters, and the agency has already granted at least one adjacent approval, a trust charter for a Trump family crypto company, per Cointelegraph ^[21]. Third, whether the incoming pipeline stays stablecoin-heavy once the compliance cost is priced ^[14], and whether the other three agencies close their own gap before Jan. 18 ^[11][12].