OCC Grants Preliminary National Bank Charter to Onchain Settlement Startup Backed by Major VC

A startup specializing in onchain settlement has obtained preliminary approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to operate as a nationally chartered bank. The company raised $25 million in seed funding ahead of the regulatory milestone, backed by a prominent venture capital firm.

The OCC charter, if fully granted, would allow the institution to operate under federal banking supervision while building infrastructure designed around onchain transaction settlement. This positions it at the intersection of traditional banking regulation and blockchain-based payment rails.

For the XRP ecosystem, the development is relevant context. Ripple and the XRP Ledger have long targeted institutional onchain settlement as a core use case. A federally chartered bank explicitly built around onchain settlement validates the broader market thesis that blockchain settlement infrastructure is gaining legitimacy with U.S. regulators.

The preliminary nature of the approval means additional regulatory steps remain before the charter is finalized. However, OCC preliminary approvals represent a significant threshold and are not routinely granted to speculative or underdeveloped applicants.

This is one of several signals in recent months pointing toward U.S. regulators becoming more willing to extend traditional banking frameworks to blockchain-native firms, a trend that could influence how Ripple and XRPL-based institutions are treated going forward.