Galaxy seeks its own trust bank charter, four years after dropping BitGo

Galaxy Digital is moving back toward a federally supervised custody setup after its earlier attempt to reach that capability through BitGo did not go through. The national trust bank charter path places the company inside the OCC framework, which is the federal route for firms that want bank-style oversight without becoming a traditional deposit-taking bank. BitGo’s own federal charter is part of the backdrop here, because it shows the custody business has already been structured into a bank-like model once before.

If Galaxy National Bank is approved, the company would be able to place custody, trading, advisory work, and staking under one federal umbrella instead of keeping those functions more separately organized. That would matter for institutions that use Galaxy because it changes the regulatory wrapper around services they already rely on. It also gives the company a clearer banking identity at a time when digital asset firms are still trying to fit into U.S. supervisory rules.

The bigger issue is the push to turn crypto infrastructure into federally chartered banking infrastructure. That can make digital asset services look more familiar to institutions and regulators, but it also pulls them deeper into a system built around bank oversight, compliance, and custody controls. For a business like Galaxy’s, the trade-off is between operational flexibility and the discipline that comes with the OCC’s framework.

What is still unresolved is whether the OCC will approve the application and what conditions, if any, would come with it. The filing alone does not tell readers how the agency will view Galaxy’s mix of custody, trading, advisory, and staking inside one trust bank. It also remains open whether the proposed New York bank would change how Galaxy structures those services once the review is complete.

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