Ripple applies for US national bank charter as crypto eyes next frontier

Ripple's charter will need to be approved by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, a top banking regulator. An OCC spokesperson confirmed it had received a charter application from the company.

The company is also seeking a Fed Master account that would give it access to the Federal Reserve's payments infrastructure and allow it to hold its stablecoin reserves directly with the central bank, Garlinghouse wrote on X.

Ripple launched its stablecoin, RLUSD, in October last year. While much smaller than dominant players Tether and Circle's USD Coin, RLUSD still ranks among the biggest stablecoins. It has a market value of about $470 million, according to data from CoinMarketCap.