Ripple Wins National Trust Charter Approval; VanEck Launches Fund With 2% Bitcoin Exposure

Key Facts

Ripple said on October 26, 2026, that its national trust bank had received final approval from the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, following conditional approval in December 2025. The decision grants the bank a national trust charter under federal supervision and does not mean the company has received a traditional commercial bank charter. Approved activities include managing the segregated reserves backing RLUSD, serving as custodian of collateral for its holders, and providing fiduciary custody services for digital assets. Chief Executive Brad Garlinghouse said the approval puts into practice the company's view that "crypto and banks work better together." The charter adds OCC oversight to the currency's regulatory framework, while Ripple said its market capitalization stood at $2.5 billion when the approval was announced.

The OCC's record showed the transaction became effective and complete on October 26, 2026, after the office approved the application on December 12, 2025. The charter limits the bank's operations to trust company activities and related services, and does not allow it to exceed the definition of a bank under the U.S. Bank Holding Company Act. The office also required it to maintain a minimum of $11.7 million in Tier 1 capital during its first three years of operation. The greater of half of its capital or $5.85 million must be allocated to qualifying liquid assets, alongside an amount equal to 180 days of operating expenses held in those assets. The amount allocated for operating expenses cannot be counted twice toward the capital-related liquidity requirements.

Activities such as collateral custody and fiduciary custody of cryptocurrencies are subject to fiduciary duties and standards of conduct, according to the OCC. Comptroller of the Currency Jonathan Gould said in December 2025 that the entry of new institutions into the federal banking sector benefits consumers, industry and the economy. He added that the office would continue to make room for traditional and innovative financial models. Within the RLUSD structure, Standard Custody & Trust Company will continue issuing the currency as a limited-purpose trust company regulated by the New York State Department of Financial Services. Ripple said RLUSD is used in its payments infrastructure and as collateral at Ripple Prime, while the new bank adds federal OCC oversight to the existing regulatory framework.

In a separate development, VanEck announced on October 27 the launch of the Wealth Builder ETF under the ticker WBMO, an active fund combining stocks, bonds and real assets with a digital asset allocation. The fund targets a 2% allocation of its portfolio to digital assets, within a range of 1% to 5%, and gains its bitcoin exposure through a spot bitcoin-traded product. WBMO does not invest directly in digital assets, but can allocate part of its net assets to products linked to them. David Schassler, head of multi-asset solutions at VanEck, said "the traditional 60/40 portfolio was designed for a different investment environment." The company said the fund generally rebalances its portfolio every three months, with flexibility for active trading in response to volatility outside the regular schedule.

The fund's stated gross expense ratio is 0.33% of assets annually, while its net ratio is 0.26% after the waivers outlined by VanEck. The company said WBMO was a new fund that had not begun operations when the adviser questions and answers were published, and therefore had no performance history. It said distributions are expected quarterly and are not guaranteed. The launch puts bitcoin exposure inside a multi-asset fund through a traded product, rather than having the fund buy the currency directly. VanEck says the combination of stocks, bonds, real assets and a digital allocation reflects the investment environment for which the fund's strategy was built.

On technology risks, a CoinDesk report cited a research estimate that more than 6 million bitcoins are in addresses whose public keys have been exposed, potentially making them targets of a future quantum attack. The threat remains theoretical; the report does not describe an ongoing attack or a current economic problem. Google estimated in March that a future quantum computer would need fewer than 500,000 physical qubits to break Bitcoin encryption. In another estimate cited by the report, an attack could take about 62 minutes, compared with an average block time of 10 minutes. The report said that duration would not make the attack fast enough to reliably intercept transactions before they are confirmed.

Alice & Bob researchers expect improvements in hardware and a reduction in the resources needed for an attack to converge in the early 2030s. But the report also says replacing weak signatures across a decentralized network could take years. This puts hardware development estimates in a research time frame, while the risk to addresses with exposed keys differs from an attempt to intercept a transaction during confirmation. In a related European regulatory development involving stablecoins, oversight of USDC in Europe is scheduled to transfer on November 12. The date links regulatory shifts affecting stablecoins at a time when Ripple is expanding federal oversight of its trust bank's activities.