Stablecoin banks get US licenses, even if customers are robots

TL;DR: The OCC continues to approve national trust bank charters for crypto infrastructure firms, including Bastion, Agora, and Catena, which is building a bank for AI agents. Meanwhile, Senate opposition to CLARITY’s stablecoin rewards provisions had broader Republican backing than previously known.

Key Takeaways:

Brief History: The CLARITY Act (H.R. 3633) is a U.S. bill introduced in 2025 to establish a clearer regulatory framework for digital assets and define the roles of the SEC and CFTC. It passed key House committees in June 2025 and advanced to House consideration in July.

Timeline Box to the CLARITY Act

• May 2024: The House passed FIT21, laying the groundwork for new rules governing digital assets.
• June 10, 2025: House committees advanced the CLARITY Act in bipartisan votes, moving the bill toward a full House vote.
• July 2025: The House passed the CLARITY Act, sending the market-structure bill to the Senate.
• May 2026: The Senate Banking Committee advanced its version of the CLARITY Act after months of negotiations.
• September 10, 2026: Updated text released: Sen. Cynthia Lummis released another updated version ahead of the planned September 15 Senate vote.
• September 14, 2026: Senate Republicans released a revised version after incorporating dozens of Democratic proposals.
• September 15, 2026: The Senate failed to advance the CLARITY Act in a 49–50 vote, leaving the legislation stalled.

America’s federal bank regulator keeps doling out new bank licenses to stablecoin infrastructure firms, including one whose customers won’t be human.

The list of new banks getting a thumbs-up from the Treasury Department’s Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) just keeps growing. The latest recipients include stablecoin infrastructure provider Bastion, whose application for a national trust bank charter was conditionally approved on September 18.

Once final approval is secured, Bastion Platforms National Trust Company will be a one-stop federally regulated shop offering stablecoin custody & wallets, payment infrastructure, and white-label issuance. Bastion CEO Nassim Eddequiouaq said, “We’ve built Bastion for this moment from day one. Institutional adoption is accelerating, but we’re still in the early innings.”

Bastion is eager to add some of these enterprises and institutions to its client list. Bastion’s current stablecoin roster includes Sony Bank, a subsidiary of which (Connectia Trust) received conditional OCC approval of its own U.S. bank charter application in July.

Bastion’s approval requires its new bank to maintain a minimum of $6 million in tier 1 capital, and at least half of this must be held in eligible liquid assets for its first three years of operation.

Bastion simultaneously announced several executive appointments, including new director Michael Patterson, who previously served as chief compliance officer at bankrupt crypto lending platform Genesis. (Before you panic, Patterson was hired after Genesis’s reckless practices came to light.)

Also receiving conditional approval is infrastructure provider Agora, issuer of the AUSD stablecoin (market cap: $230 million). Agora CEO Nick van Eck celebrated the news on X, calling the OCC approval of Agora National Trust Bank “a tremendous milestone in our journey.”

Once its bank is established, Agora plans to transition AUSD issuance from its Agora Bermuda offshoot to the new New York-based bank. The bank will be required to maintain a minimum of $10 million in Tier 1 capital, 50% of which must be in eligible liquid assets.

Two comment letters from banking trade groups expressed unease with the “insufficiency of public information” in Agora’s application, while also complaining about the lack of time in which to “meaningfully comment” on the application. The OCC rejected these concerns, saying it had enough info to make “an informed decision.”

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I’m sorry, Dave, I can’t cash that check

But by far the most interesting OCC approval went to Catena Labs and its Catena Trust Bank. Catena describes itself as “a governance and banking platform for AI agents” that utilizes the Model Context Protocol, an open-source interface between artificial intelligence (AI) large language models and external tools.

Catena issued a statement celebrating the OCC having approved “a national trust bank built for AI agents.” Catena said it’s building “a financial institution for AI agents and the businesses that put them to work … Agents will find ways to earn and spend that nobody has thought of yet. We’re building the institution that can safely say yes to them.”

Catena, which is led by USDC stablecoin issuer Circle (NASDAQ: CRCL) co-founder Sean Neville, said becoming a trust bank will mean “taking responsibility for how customer assets are held and managed, alongside the controls on how agents use them.”

While the OCC’s approval letter doesn’t so much as mention AI, comment letters from banking groups expressed concern that Catena’s “proposed activities do not align with OCC precedent with respect to fiduciary activities conducted by national trust banks.” The OCC said it wasn’t worried.

Like Agora, Catena’s new bank will be required to maintain a minimum of $10 million in Tier 1 capital, 50% of which must be in eligible liquid assets. Now all we need to do is hope some AI agent doesn’t go rogue, ‘break out’ of its defined boundaries, and pull a bank job. (Worst. Oceans. Movie. Ever.)

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Banks had more anti-CLARITY GOP support than

Banks might not have been able to dissuade the OCC from approving crypto bank applicants, but they may have played a much bigger role in defeating a different nemesis on Capitol Hill.

The U.S. Senate reconvened on Tuesday, one week after rejecting its digital asset market structure bill (the CLARITY Act). While the crypto sector has knives out for Democrats for voting against the bill as a bloc, three Republicans (technically four, but Thom Tillis had his reasons) also voted against CLARITY. However, these GOP ‘no’ votes may have had less to do with President Trump’s ‘ethics’ challenges and more to do with the banking sector’s concerns over stablecoin rewards.

Turns out GOP support for limiting crypto asset platforms’ capacity to offer outsized yield/rewards/interest on stablecoins extended well beyond the three non-Tillis senators who voted ‘no’ last week (Jerry Moran of Kansas, Maine’s Susan Collins, and Missouri’s Josh Hawley). 

This week, Punchbowl News’ Brendan Petersen pointed out that just before CLARITY’s September 15 vote, Moran quietly filed a proposed amendment to CLARITY that would tweak the bill’s stablecoin ‘yield’ section (10404) to better reflect the banking sector’s wishes.

While stablecoin issuers are already banned from offering ‘yield’ to token holders under the GENIUS Act, banks feared banking customers would transfer their deposits to digital asset exchanges and other non-issuing crypto platforms if CLARITY didn’t stipulate a similar prohibition.

Section 10404 in CLARITY’s final draft included a ban on paying interest or yield on a stablecoin balance that’s “economically or functionally equivalent to the payment of interest or yield on an interest-bearing bank deposit.” The amendment proposed changing this (in all relevant instances) to “substantially similar to the manner in which depository institutions pay interest or yield.”

Moran’s amendment had 11 co-sponsors, six of whom were Republicans. They include Collins and Hawley, Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski, Mississippi’s Cindy Hyde-Smith, John Cornyn of Texas, and Utah’s John Curtis. As Punchbowl’s Pedersen noted, “crypto had even deeper GOP problems in the Senate than previously known.”

Agreeing with this view is Tim Hite, a former senior counsel for Rep. French Hill (R-AR), the architect of the House of Representatives’ version of CLARITY that passed last year. Hite observed that “a lot of people said [CLARITY’s defeat] was all about ethics. If this amendment was filed with this level of support, it’s safe to say it wasn’t all about ethics. It would’ve caused an uproar at the 11th hour.”

It’s unclear whether the four GOP co-sponsors of Moran’s amendment, who nonetheless voted ‘yes’ on CLARITY on the Senate floor, would have cast the same vote if it hadn’t become so obvious so early on that the bill was doomed. While Cornyn is retiring, Hyde-Smith is facing re-election in November, and she may have decided it’s not worth facing a crypto campaign financing firing squad by voting ‘no’ when the bill in question is doomed anyway.

Hite issued a warning to the crypto sector, which is now looking to go scorched-earth on Democrats in the November midterm elections. CLARITY’s 49-50 vote “doesn’t necessarily offer an accurate gauge of R support moving forward … crypto needs to reevaluate its advocacy.”

Coinbase (NASDAQ: COIN) CEO Brian Armstrong’s CLARITY advocacy was largely focused on the stablecoin issue, and he was recently criticized for reportedly speaking with senators in “a tone that some people working on the bill felt was inappropriate.” Armstrong accused those making these claims of “regurgitating bank lobby talking points.”

Hite’s warning notwithstanding, Armstrong seems unlikely to change his tune now, having effectively declared war on Senate Democrats and those hoping to become one. Tuesday brought the first poisoned fruits of what the Coinbase-supported Fairshake political action committee claims is the beginning of a $30 million campaign against a single Dem candidate. Will this partisan advocacy come back to haunt the crypto sector in January? Stay tuned.

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FAQs:

What is the OCC approving?
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency is conditionally approving national trust bank charters for digital-asset infrastructure companies, including Bastion, Agora, and Catena.

What is Bastion’s new bank?
Bastion Platforms National Trust Company is a proposed federally regulated bank focused on stablecoin infrastructure. Its planned services include stablecoin custody and wallets, payment infrastructure and stablecoin issuance.

What is Catena Trust Bank?
Catena Trust Bank is a proposed national trust bank designed to support AI agents and businesses that use them. Catena describes its platform as providing governance and banking infrastructure for AI agents.

What is Agora planning for AUSD?
Agora plans to transfer AUSD stablecoin issuance from its Bermuda-based entity to Agora National Trust Bank in New York.

Why are banks concerned about stablecoin rewards?
Banks fear stablecoin rewards could encourage customers to move deposits from traditional banks to crypto platforms.

How much GOP support did Moran’s amendment get?
Sen. Jerry Moran’s proposed amendment to CLARITY’s stablecoin rewards provision had 11 co-sponsors, including six Republicans. The Republican support included Susan Collins, Josh Hawley, Lisa Murkowski, Cindy Hyde-Smith, John Cornyn, and John Curtis.

What happened to the CLARITY Act?
The Senate rejected the CLARITY Act on September 15 in a 49-50 vote. The legislation faced opposition from Democrats as well as several Republicans. Debate has since focused on stablecoin rewards provisions, banking-sector concerns and disagreements over the bill’s broader political and policy implications.

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