Bastion Seeks OCC Trust Charter Amid Stablecoin Regulatory Shift

Bastion, a stablecoin infrastructure company founded in 2023 by two former a16z crypto executives, is seeking a national trust bank charter from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC).

The company offers white-label stablecoin issuance, reserve custody, customer wallets, and payments infrastructure for enterprise clients.

Bastion's backers include Coinbase Ventures, Sony Innovation Fund, and Samsung Next, with its latest funding round last year raising $14.6 million.

The OCC has granted conditional approval to five institutions for national trust bank charters, but Bastion is not among them. Instead, it appears to be pursuing a conversion of an existing New York state trust charter into a national trust bank charter.