OCC Sets $10M Capital Floor for Catena Trust Bank

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency granted Catena Labs preliminary conditional approval on Sept. 18 to organize Catena Trust Bank, N.A. The order confines the institution to trust-company operations and does not authorize it to open.

The regulatory terms are specific. Catena must hold at least $10 million of tier 1 capital before opening, with the greater of half that amount or $5 million held in eligible liquid assets. The bank must also separately maintain 180 days of operating expenses in eligible liquid assets during its first three years. The OCC may modify, suspend or rescind the approval before opening if an interim development warrants action, according to the Defiant’s coverage of the order.

The approval places Catena in a group of recent digital-asset-focused charters. The OCC order cites "preliminary approvals for Foris DAX and Bridge in 2026 and for Ripple and First National Digital Currency Bank in December 2025, as well as a conditional approval involving BitGo." Before this wave, Dwyer, White & Williams LLP noted in an August 4 blog post that Anchorage Digital was the principal crypto-focused entity operating under a national trust bank charter.

As of March 31, OCC-supervised uninsured national trust banks reported $7.7 trillion in assets under administration, split between $2.1 trillion in custody and safekeeping accounts and $5.6 trillion in fiduciary accounts, according to the OCC order. For stablecoin activities, the OCC’s proposal for payment stablecoin issuers requires identifiable, segregated reserves, a condition the GENIUS Act implementing rules will enforce once effective. The approval stands until the OCC determines an interim development warrants action.