The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency today announced the conditional approval of five national trust bank charters for crypto firms Circle, Ripple, Paxos, Fidelity and BitGo. In light of this news, you may be interested in this recent insight in which Director of Financial Services Thomas Kingsley explains chartering, regulatory arbitrage, and systemic risk with regards to crypto.

He concluded:

The dream is simple: Perform bank-like activities with limited bank-like supervision, regulation, or capital requirements. Crypto firms’ efforts to secure bank and trust charters represent a persistent, strategic attempt to bridge the divide between digital-asset innovation and traditional banking regulation. While regulators remain cautious, industry demand for clearer supervisory pathways is unlikely to diminish. The outcome of this prolonged engagement will shape not only the market for digital-asset services but also the broader evolution of the U.S. regulatory framework as it confronts technologies that challenge long-standing definitions of banking, trust services, and financial intermediation.

Read the analysis.