🚨 JUST IN: The OCC just approved conditional national trust bank charters: Ripple. Paxos. BitGo. Fidelity Digital Assets. Circle. A national trust charter means federal supervision, 50-state reach, and the credibility to custody assets for ETFs, treasuries, and institutions without the patchwork of state licenses. --- Comptroller Gould said this week the agency received 14 de novo charter applications this year - nearly as many as the previous 4 years combined. The regulatory posture has completely flipped. And part of me wonders what happens in a few years if that flips again. --- You can't expect this to be plain sailing for these companies. The states and bank lobby may yet tie this up in lawsuits. And getting a charter is hard. Keeping a charter is harder. --- Still this is a positive development for those who worry about the safety and soundness of stablecoins. OCC oversight means there is a greater chance of spotting bad things before they happen. And a sign of the maturity of the industry.