Over the past two years, several United States encryption companies have started to apply for or take NTA plates in a centralized manner. According to the article, such licences do not amount to traditional retail banking qualifications, but they are particularly important for stabilizing currency issuers and hosting operations by integrating the management of digital asset trusts and stable currency reserves into the federal regulatory system.

The trust bank is primarily a trustee.

The so-called encrypted trust bank is essentially a licensed institution centred on the custody and fiduciary services of assets. Unlike ordinary commercial banks, it does not focus on the absorption of deposits and the granting of loans, but on the maintenance of assets, the management of reserves and the corresponding fiduciary responsibilities on behalf of clients.

This is also the reason why many encryption companies have chosen a trust bank path. For them, the core compliance needs are often not retail lending, but the safe holding of digital assets and the provision of supervised hosting arrangements for a reserve for stable currency.

What's a license for?

National Trust Bank licences are issued by United States federal-level banking regulators. Upon receipt of the licence plate, the encryption company may, under federal supervision, carry out hosting operations and, to the extent permitted by the rules, manage stable currency reserves and provide partial payment for related services.

More crucially, enterprises can directly trust their own assets and reserves without having to rely entirely on third-party banks. The article also mentioned that such federal licences were expected to reduce the compliance burden on enterprises that had applied for transfer plates on a state-by-state basis in the past.

  • Direct hosting of digital assets and stable currency reserves
  • Helping to replace some of the state-level transfer licence arrangements
  • Improved service to institutional clients

The license plate does not amount to full bank eligibility.

However, the boundaries of such licence plates are equally clear. The National Trust Bank is not able to absorb current or savings deposits, as is the case with ordinary retail banks, without federal deposit insurance.

At the same time, it does not usually have the credit authority of traditional commercial banks. In other words, even if the encryption company enters the banking system through a trust licence, the main acquisition is the trust, reserve management and regulatory identity, rather than the full banking capacity.

The Fed's account is the bigger target.

According to the article, the real and more significant target is the Fed's account. With access to this account, the agency would have direct access to the United States Central Bank payment system and deposit reserve funds directly with the Federal Reserve.

For the issuer of the stable currency, this means that the chain of reserve management may be further shortened and the dependence of bank intermediaries may decline. This would also enhance its position in the payment and liquidation system for the trustees.

To date, there has been no real access to the Fed's accounts by encrypted original companies. This step is considered to be a higher threshold for more convergence between encryption companies and the traditional banking system than for trust plates.

There has been a significant increase in applications in the last two years.

It is mentioned that in 2025 and 2026, companies such as Ripple, Circle, Paxos, Fidelity Digital Assets have acquired or advanced conditional NTA licences.

This trend reflects the fact that the encryption industry is trying to place the most critical hosting and storage links within a more stable regulatory framework. For the stabilization of currency operations, the status of compliance has been raised by licence plates; and further access to central bank payment infrastructure remains a more topical issue in the next phase.