USDCoinbase Wins Conditional OCC Approval, Backs x402 Open Governance
Federal trust charter and internet payments push advance together
TL;DR
- Coinbase said it received conditional approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to form Coinbase National Trust Company, while stressing it is not becoming a bank.
- Coinbase also joined the Linux Foundation to launch the x402 Foundation, shifting the payment protocol into community governance for internet-native and AI-driven transactions.
- The two moves position Coinbase deeper inside U.S. financial regulation and more broadly inside open standards for machine-to-machine commerce.
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Coinbase said on April 2 that it received conditional approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to form Coinbase National Trust Company, a federally chartered national trust entity meant to bring its custody and market infrastructure business under a more unified federal framework. The company separately joined the Linux Foundation to launch the x402 Foundation, placing the x402 protocol under open governance as Coinbase pushes deeper into both regulated financial infrastructure and internet-native payments.
Federal trust charter remains conditional
The OCC approval is not final. Coinbase still must satisfy the regulator’s conditions before the charter becomes fully operational, with the remaining work described as focused on compliance capability, governance standards, risk controls and other federal supervisory expectations. Coinbase said the structure would allow national operations with less reliance on fragmented state approvals while preserving existing state permissions, including its New York Department of Financial Services BitLicense.
Coinbase said the charter does not turn the company into a commercial bank and does not authorize retail deposit-taking, lending or fractional reserve banking. “This charter is about bringing federal regulatory uniformity to the custody and market infrastructure business we have been building for years,” Coinbase said. Brian Armstrong also said Coinbase is bringing the “infrastructure of crypto” under federal oversight but is not “becoming a bank.”
The OCC decision followed a roughly six-month review process and placed Coinbase alongside Ripple Labs, Circle and BitGo as crypto firms pursuing or receiving similar charter-related approvals. The development also arrived during an active policy debate in Washington, where Coinbase had earlier withdrawn support for a crypto market structure bill over a provision that would bar platforms from paying rewards on idle stablecoin balances, while Chief Legal Officer Paul Grewal was cited as optimistic that congressional gridlock could ease.
Market reaction tied directly to the charter news was modest but positive. Coinbase shares rose 2.22% in after-hours trading after closing 0.88% lower at 171.46 during Thursday’s regular session.
x402 moves to open governance
Coinbase also joined the Linux Foundation to launch the x402 Foundation after contributing the protocol so it would no longer sit under a single-company umbrella. The x402 protocol was launched in 2025 by Coinbase’s developer platform and revives the HTTP 402 “Payment Required” status code to let websites and APIs request and receive payment during normal web interactions before granting access to content or services.
The Linux Foundation described its role as providing a neutral, nonprofit base for the project. Linux Foundation leadership said, “The internet was built on open protocols,” and added that the x402 Foundation would provide an “open, community-governed home” so the standard can evolve with “transparency, interoperability, and broad participation across the ecosystem.” Coinbase engineering leadership said the company would remain closely involved after the handoff. Erik Reppel, head of engineering for the Coinbase Developer Platform, said, “Coinbase is a founding member and the original creator of the protocol,” adding that Coinbase and Base are part of the initial participant group guiding x402’s move into an open-source model.
Coinbase tied the protocol directly to AI commerce. Shan Aggarwal, chief business officer at Coinbase, said, “Agents are going to buy, sell, and transact on our behalf. They will need a payment rail that’s open, interoperable, and doesn’t require a human clicking confirm purchase,” before adding, “That’s x402, and now it’s governed by the community.” Brian Armstrong framed the same shift more broadly, saying, “There will be more AI agents transacting online than humans very soon.”
The coalition behind x402 extends beyond crypto companies. Participating or supporting organizations named in the context include Google, Microsoft, Amazon Web Services, Stripe, Visa, Mastercard, Shopify, Cloudflare, Circle, Base, Polygon Labs, Solana Foundation, Thirdweb, KakaoPay and American Express. James Tromans of Google Cloud said, “The shift toward agentic commerce requires cloud infrastructure that is as open as the protocols it supports,” describing the effort as a push toward interoperable standards for secure, AI-driven transactions across platforms.
Early usage signals were also tied to the protocol’s expansion. Solana Foundation said it was among x402’s earliest adopters and that Solana accounted for nearly 65% of x402 transaction volume this year. Rishin Sharma said the foundation wants to expand pay-per-request models using stablecoins and bring in more developers, merchants and agents. The context also said developers are already testing x402 in AI-linked tools, World is integrating it into tools for proving agents represent real people, and MoonPay’s Open Wallet Standard is adding support for the protocol.
This article has been refined and enhanced by ChatGPT.
