Kraken parent Payward applies for OCC national trust charter, eyes $20bn valuation raise

Payward, the parent company of cryptocurrency exchange Kraken, has applied to the US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency for a national trust charter, in a move that would put a major crypto-native firm under federal banking supervision for the first time.

If granted, the charter would let Payward establish a new entity called Payward National Trust Company (PNTC) to offer custody and related services for digital assets. The pitch is institutional: PNTC would serve clients that require a federally regulated qualified custodian, a category that increasingly includes pension funds, asset managers and corporate treasuries looking at digital assets but unable to use a non-bank counterparty.

Alongside the charter application, Payward disclosed that it is seeking to raise capital at a $20 billion valuation, with proceeds expected to fund the build-out of the regulated custody business.

"Our long-held belief has always been that the right path forward for digital assets runs through robust, transparent regulation," said Payward and Kraken Co-CEO Arjun Sethi. "A national trust company provides the certainty institutions require and establishes the infrastructure to build the next generation of custody."

The application puts Payward on the same regulatory path that Anchorage Digital took when it became the first federally chartered crypto bank in 2021, and that Circle and others have signalled interest in pursuing. For traditional banks, the read-across is that the line between crypto exchanges and regulated financial institutions continues to narrow at the custody layer. For Payward, a national trust charter would convert its existing exchange and custody infrastructure into something institutions can transact with directly, without the intermediary risk that has so far constrained adoption.