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FollowingOpenReserve Bank received preliminary approval from the OCC to establish a full-service National Bank in Salt Lake City.
OpenReserve Bank, supported by well-known investors such as Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), received preliminary conditional approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) on September 2 to establish a full-service National Bank in Salt Lake City, Utah. This move marks an important step for the native blockchain startup, but it still needs to meet a number of regulatory conditions before it can officially open.
Key Conditions for Approval
Under the rules, the proposed bank must raise at least US$210 million in initial paid-in capital after deducting organizational and pre-opening expenses, and maintain a Tier 1 leverage ratio of at least 12% for the first three years of operation. OpenReserve must complete capital raising within 12 months of receiving conditional approval and start banking within 18 months, otherwise the approval will automatically expire.
In addition, before it can officially operate, OpenReserve must also meet the pre-opening requirements set by the OCC and obtain final approval, obtain deposit insurance eligibility with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), and apply to hold Federal Reserve stock.
The proposed full-service bank, led by@a16zcrypto and raised in a US$25 million seed round, aims to provide tokenized deposits and digital asset custody services, and plans to establish a subsidiary dedicated to stablecoin issuance. The OCC letter states that the bank plans to establish a wholly-owned subsidiary responsible for the issuance, custody, conversion and payment of U.S. dollar reserve-backed stablecoins, although the subsidiary has not yet submitted a formal application to regulators.
Broader transformation of the U.S. crypto banking industry
OpenReserve Bank chose the traditional all-national licensing route rather than the trust banking route adopted by most crypto companies. This option paves the way for it to issue stablecoins while providing protected deposits and regular loans.
OpenReserve was founded in 2025 by Diwakar Choubey and Richard Correia, and its core architecture is based on programmable ledgers and native on-chain settlement systems. The OCC's initial approval provides the bank with a regulatory path to issue dollar-linked digital assets to support transactions and settlements outside traditional banking hours.
The OCC's decision follows a series of conditional approvals for crypto agencies led by Jonathan Gould, the Comptroller of the Currency. Gould has said entities engaged in innovative technology should have access to becoming federally regulated banks. Previously, the agency had granted conditional approvals for National Trust Bank licenses to crypto companies such as Coinbase, Paxos, BitGo, Ripple and Circle; on the same day, Revolut received similar recognition.
OpenReserve filed an OCC license application in April 2026 and won preliminary approval in less than five months.
