From First to Proven: Anchorage Digital’s Consent Order Is Lifted

On January 13, 2021, Anchorage Digital made history when the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC)—the foremost federal banking regulator in the United States—granted us a national bank charter to serve as a full-scale digital asset bank, providing custody, trading, settlement, governance, and other regulated services for institutions.

Anchorage Digital was the first crypto company to be awarded this status, and in the 1,681 days that have passed since, we have remained the only crypto company to hold the distinction. 

When we applied for that charter, we knew what we were signing up for: the path forward was uncharted for any crypto company, and at the time, many in our industry—and most of Washington—felt that digital assets and regulation were like oil and water. We embarked on that path not because it was easy, but because we knew it was the right long-term move for the industry—laying the foundation for trust, safety, and durability in the years ahead.  And in an industry intent on “going to the moon”, the seeming impossibility of our federal charter mission lit a fire under us from the start. 

In the 1,681 days that have since passed, we have built what has become the world’s most regulated digital asset bank, investing immense resources into products and people who would come to define the industry standard for crypto compliance. In that time, we received—and have now resolved—feedback from regulators as we set the standard for federally-chartered custody of digital assets. But these 1,681 days are not defined by a single regulatory action, but rather by the hundreds of thousands of man-hours in risk and regulatory specialization, tens of millions of dollars in compliance infrastructure investment, hundreds of dedicated meetings with our regulator, dozens of expert hires, and annual OCC exams—all in service of the nation’s first-of-its-kind federal banking charter.

And by the nature of being first, we have a nearly five-year head start in becoming the best. 

The most recent of those 1,681 days have been marked by a movement that would have once been unthinkable: A wave of companies following in our footsteps, applying for national bank charters of their own—validation that the path we pioneered is, and forever will be, the right one for our industry.

We welcome the competition. As we’ve long said, when it comes to crypto, no one bank can go at it alone. Today, we can say that with the ultimate affirmation in our long-held vision for our industry’s future. With our consent order lifted, we’ve proven definitively that crypto and federal oversight are not mutually exclusive—and can in fact be stronger working in tandem. 

Anchorage Digital is proud to play our role in ensuring the United States remains a global leader in finance by responsibly expanding access to digital assets and reinforcing the resilience of our financial system. As crypto and blockchain move further into the mainstream, these technologies are no longer experiments on the fringe—they are catalysts for new opportunities. Ones that deliver real benefits to consumers: enabling more efficient and secure financial infrastructure, creating more innovative products, protecting global U.S. dollar dominance, and opening new pathways for investors, partners, and institutions. Done right, they don’t just strengthen markets; they strengthen America’s ability to compete, to innovate, and to lead on the world stage.

I want to thank every person who makes up Anchorage Digital, and for the immense work and unwavering resolve it took to get us to where we are today. Our federal banking charter was never for the acclaim of being first; it was to meet what we saw as an inevitable surge of demand from institutions looking to build the future of finance with crypto. That surge is now both undeniable and unstoppable, and there is no better company to meet the moment—one day at a time—than Anchorage Digital. 

Onward to 1,682.

-Nathan McCauley, Co-Founder and CEO of Anchorage Digital