US Digital-Asset Charter Paths · 2025–2026 Evidence Matrix

TL;DR

There is no single federal-versus-state “arbitrage” score. An OCC national trust charter, Wyoming SPDI charter, New York BitLicense or limited-purpose trust charter, and Texas money-transmission determination confer different powers and obligations. None of them automatically grants a Federal Reserve master account, nationwide exemption from every state law, stablecoin-issuer approval or authority for every digital-asset product. The earlier Nevada AB 466 “digital asset bank” path was incorrect: Nevada’s 2023 AB 466 concerned crisis intervention and did not become such a charter. Custodia’s Tenth Circuit merits and rehearing proceedings have ended, but its Supreme Court certiorari petition in No. 26-62 remains pending as of 2026-07-30.

Wiki route

This entry sits under fintech index. Read it with OCC national trust-bank verified update, GENIUS Act implementation, and US crypto licensing multi-layer.

Verified path comparison

The table uses the OCC decisions index, Wyoming SPDI page, NYDFS virtual-currency page, and Texas Supervisory Memorandum 1037. It intentionally omits generic timelines, capital ranges and approval probabilities because official requirements and institution-specific conditions vary.

Wyoming SPDI · verified scope

The Wyoming Division of Banking describes an SPDI as a state-chartered institution that conducts fully reserved banking. It states that fiat customer deposits must be backed by at least 100% unencumbered liquid assets and that FDIC insurance is not required, although an SPDI may apply for it.

The Division’s SPDI call-report page is the correct current source for reporting institutions. It listed Custodia Bank, Kraken Bank and N3XT as of the March 2026 reporting period. That list does not support the earlier claim of roughly ten chartered or in-process SPDIs, and Two Ocean Trust should not be described as an SPDI without a matching official record.

Custodia · Federal Reserve access is separate

The Federal Reserve Board denied Custodia’s membership application on January 27, 2023. On October 31, 2025, the Tenth Circuit affirmed that a Reserve Bank has discretion to deny an otherwise eligible institution’s master-account request, and rehearing was denied on March 13, 2026. Those appellate-court proceedings are complete. The Supreme Court docket for No. 26-62 records a certiorari petition filed July 10 and docketed July 14, 2026, with a response due August 13. The certiorari petition remains pending as of 2026-07-30.

The decision demonstrates that state-charter eligibility and actual access to Federal Reserve services are separate questions. It does not support predictions about what Congress or the Federal Reserve will do next, and this entry removes the earlier probability tree and named-correspondent speculation.

Nevada AB 466 · correction

The Nevada Legislature’s AB 466 record identifies the 2023 bill as legislation concerning crisis intervention; the final status report records that no further action was taken. It did not create a digital-asset-bank charter.

Accordingly, this entry removes the claimed Nevada charter, capital threshold, lending flexibility, approved-charter count and gaming-sector advantage. Nevada may have generally applicable banking, trust, money-transmission or digital-asset laws, but those must be cited by their actual statute or regulator record rather than attributed to AB 466.

New York · two authorization paths, not an “exodus” proxy

NYDFS’s virtual-currency business page explains that a firm conducting covered virtual-currency business activity involving New York or a New York resident may apply for a BitLicense or for a New York Banking Law charter with approval to conduct that activity. It also publishes a current regulated-entity list.

That list includes authorizations granted in 2024, 2025 and 2026, so it does not support the page’s prior broad claim of an accelerating 2025–2026 exodus. Individual withdrawals or enforcement actions cannot establish the direction of the entire regime without a defined population and time series. The page therefore removes the unsupported firm histories, cost ranking and growth-venue prediction.

The two New York paths are also not identical: NYDFS says a limited-purpose trust company can exercise fiduciary powers and conduct money transmission in New York without a separate New York money-transmitter licence, while a BitLicensee cannot rely on those same charter powers. Neither path is a federal OCC charter.

Texas · activity-based money-transmission analysis

The Texas Department of Banking’s revised Supervisory Memorandum 1037, dated January 28, 2025, applies the Money Services Modernization Act to virtual-currency activity. It says that a sovereign-currency-pegged, reserve-backed stablecoin carrying a redemption right is “money or monetary value” under the statute. Whether a business conducts money transmission depends on how it receives and makes value available, and non-stablecoin arrangements require case-by-case analysis.

SM 1037 is not a Texas digital-asset-bank charter, a blanket custody approval or evidence that Texas is cheaper, faster or more permissive than another state. It also does not support the earlier claims about corporate relocations, mining infrastructure or reciprocity.

Federal and state authority must be tested activity by activity

OCC Interpretive Letters 1170, 1172 and 1174 address certain activities of OCC-supervised banks. IL 1183 removed the special prior-non-objection process formerly imposed by IL 1179, but it did not convert every activity into a nationwide exemption from every state requirement.

Likewise, a state charter or licence does not determine Federal Reserve access or federal stablecoin-issuer status. The relevant institution, product, customer location, custody model, movement of fiat and tokens, and specific state law must all be mapped before reaching a pre-emption or licensing conclusion.

Decision questions instead of a ranking

A firm should compare pathways using questions that can be answered from a rule, decision or licence:

1. What legal entity will hold customer fiat and digital assets?
2. Is the activity deposit-taking, custody, exchange, issuance, redemption or money transmission?
3. Which customers and states are in scope?
4. Does the regulator record authorize that activity for this entity?
5. Is the institution conditionally approved, finally approved, active or merely an applicant?
6. Does another federal or state regulator retain jurisdiction?
7. Is Federal Reserve access actually approved?
8. If a stablecoin is involved, is issuer status separately established under applicable federal and state law?

Generic speed, capital and “best for” tables obscure these questions and have been removed.

Scope boundary

This page is not a fifty-state survey. It covers only pathways supported by the official records above. It does not rank states as permissive, innovative, pragmatic or politically durable, and it does not infer a legal advantage from taxation, energy policy or political statements. California, Florida, Tennessee, Arizona, New Hampshire, Colorado and Illinois require separate statute- and activity-specific research before being added to the matrix.

Multi-licence structures · verification rule

A corporate group can hold different licences through different legal entities, but a group-level brand name is not proof that every affiliate may perform every activity. A current “licence stack” must identify:

• the exact legal entity;
• regulator and licence or charter type;
• effective date and current status;
• approved activity and customer scope; and
• any conditional decision, operating agreement or product-specific approval.

The earlier firm table mixed applications, conditional approvals, charters, money-transmitter licences and foreign registrations at brand level. It has been removed rather than presenting an unverified snapshot.

Federal Reserve access · current legal boundary

Custodia supplies the relevant current evidence: the Board denied its membership application in 2023, the Tenth Circuit affirmed Reserve Bank discretion over the master-account request in 2025 and denied rehearing in 2026, and a certiorari petition is now pending. Those events do not establish a universal rule that every state-chartered institution will be denied, nor do they create access for an OCC-chartered institution. Each institution’s actual Federal Reserve status must be checked independently.

This entry does not assign probabilities to the pending Supreme Court petition, legislation, administration changes or future account grants.

Evidence-maintenance checklist

Before adding or changing a row:

1. cite a current regulator register, statute, decision or court opinion;
2. identify the exact entity rather than only the brand;
3. distinguish an application, conditional approval, final approval and active status;
4. separate charter powers from money transmission, product approval and stablecoin-issuer status;
5. check Federal Reserve and deposit-insurance status independently;
6. avoid generic timelines, capital ranges and political ratings; and
7. date-bound every entity-status claim.

Industrial-bank or ILC structures are outside this page’s verified set. They should be added only after a separate FDIC- and state-source review, not from analogy to an OCC trust bank or SPDI.

Related

• Wiki Index
• fintech index
• OCC National Trust Bank Route · Bridge's Preliminary Conditional Approval
• Digital Public Infrastructure and Digital-Currency Export
• CFTC vs SEC Crypto Jurisdiction Dispute · Commodity-Security Dichotomy
• GENIUS Act implementation
• US Crypto Asset Exchange Business Multi-Layer Licensing System
• Strategic-buyer acquisition pattern immediately before a regulatory-legislation window
• GENIUS Act Section 18: Comparison of Foreign Regulatory Regimes

Sources

• Wyoming Division of Banking SPDI framework
• Wyoming SPDI call reports
• Federal Reserve denial of Custodia membership application (January 27, 2023)
• Tenth Circuit opinion in Custodia Bank v. Federal Reserve (October 31, 2025)
• U.S. Supreme Court docket No. 26-62, Custodia Bank, Inc. v. Federal Reserve Board of Governors, et al.
• NYDFS virtual-currency business licensing and regulated entities
• Texas Department of Banking Supervisory Memorandum 1037 (January 28, 2025 revision)
• Nevada Legislature AB 466 record (2023)
• Nevada Assembly legislation status report for the 2023 session
• OCC Interpretive Letter 1183 (March 7, 2025)
• OCC interpretations and decisions index