BREAKING: Trump Official Smashes Banking Barrier, Greenlights Ripple & Crypto.com for National Charters
WASHINGTON, March 18, 2026 – In a seismic shift for digital asset markets, Trump Administration Comptroller of the Currency Jonathan Gould has actively pushed major crypto firms into the U.S. banking system, removing the single biggest bottleneck keeping institutional capital on the sidelines. Gould has reportedly approved national banking charters for firms including Ripple and Crypto.com while moving to rescind Biden-era guidance that required banks to seek approval before handling digital assets, effectively ending the 'Chokepoint 2.0' regulatory era and granting crypto direct access to Federal Reserve payment rails.
What the Trump Administration’s Banking Crypto Push Actually Involves
The OCC’s old approach was simple. Want to touch crypto? Get written permission first. That nonobjection requirement acted as a pocket veto, killing bank-crypto partnerships before they started.
Gould is flipping the default. Permissible unless prohibited. Firms like Ripple can now build banks directly, bypass third-party intermediaries, and settle transactions through the Federal Reserve via FedNow or Fedwire. Lower costs. Faster settlement. No middleman.
The policy aligns with the President’s Working Group on Digital Asset Markets, which mandates a stablecoin integration report by July 2025. The OCC is not waiting for legislation. It is using existing authority to front-run the process.
BREAKING: Banks just REVEALED where crypto's REAL ENDGAME is!
Caitlin Long, CEO of Custodia Bank, says the REAL PRIZE isn't today's $313 BILLION in Stablecoins — it's the $5.7 TRILLION in U.S Demand Deposits that are about to be turned into "Tokenized Bank Deposits"
pic.twitter.com/W4gCOUZIRy
The timing is driven by two things. Political capital and competitive panic.
The crypto industry spent over $250 million electing pro-innovation candidates in 2024. With up to 278 pro-crypto members now in Congress, the political will to obstruct has evaporated. Agencies are racing to align.
The offshore threat is the other pressure point. Stablecoin liquidity has been bleeding to jurisdictions with clearer rules. The EU’s MiCA framework is moving fast. The OCC is trying to onshore that liquidity before Europe captures it permanently.
The administration is not being subtle about any of this. The wall is coming down fast.
The $3 Trillion Opportunity — and the Risk Banks Face
The stakes for traditional banks are existential.
Crypto firms with national charters are no longer just clients. They become direct competitors for deposits. Five major regional banks already saw this coming and launched the Cari Network, a private blockchain payment rail, specifically to defend their settlement market share.
Today marks a new chapter for U.S. banking.
The Cari Network, developed alongside five regional banks, is building a new platform to bring tokenized deposits onchain.
Secure. Private. Within the regulatory perimeter. Powered by ZKsync’s Prividium. pic.twitter.com/TZYafawLV9
The prize everyone is fighting over is a projected $3 trillion stablecoin market by 2030. Banks that cannot custody crypto or settle stablecoin payments directly will lose the fastest growing segment of the payments industry to fintech challengers. That is not a small loss.
The risk for crypto is the flipside of the same coin. A regulatory backlash is possible. The banking lobby is already arguing that crypto banks will not face the same capital requirements as traditional lenders. If Congress moves to level the playing field too aggressively, the utility of these new charters gets strangled before it can be realized.
The green light is on. But the road still has obstacles.
