OCC rejects Zerohash's trust bank application; Morgan Stanley's crypto partner plans to refile with narrower scope.
Regulation & Gov ·
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has rejected Zerohash's application for a federal trust bank charter. Zerohash, which operates as an infrastructure partner to Morgan Stanley, intends to resubmit with a more limited operational scope following the denial.
A national trust bank charter from the OCC permits a company to act as a fiduciary and custodian on a nationwide basis, placing it under federal examination and capital requirements. For crypto and digital asset firms, such a charter addresses a key institutional barrier: many hedge funds, registered investment advisers, and broker-dealers restrict custody arrangements to entities with recognized federal regulatory oversight, which an OCC charter provides in ways that state-level trust licenses typically do not.
The rejection and planned reapplication suggest that Zerohash's initial charter proposal faced obstacles in its current form. The mechanics of the narrower refiling strategy—what specific services or operational parameters the company will scale back—remain unclear, as does the OCC's stated rationale for the initial denial.