Anchorage Digital — America's Only Federally Chartered Crypto Bank
Anchorage Digital Bank received the only federal OCC national bank charter for a crypto institution in January 2021, holding $50B+ in custody for institutional clients including banks, hedge funds, and sovereign wealth funds.
Multi-Party Computation (MPC) for Custody
Multi-Party Computation (MPC) is a cryptographic technique that splits a private key into shares distributed across multiple parties, enabling institutional-grade digital asset custody without any single point of key compromise — the dominant security architecture for regulated digital asset custodians.
OCC — National Bank Digital Asset Activities and the SAB 121 Reversal
The OCC granted the only federal bank charter to a crypto institution (Anchorage Digital, 2021) and issued landmark interpretive letters in 2020-2021 authorizing national banks to provide crypto custody, hold stablecoin reserves, and use blockchain for payment activities.
Qualified Custodian
A Qualified Custodian is an institution legally authorized to hold client assets on behalf of SEC-registered investment advisers — a requirement that historically excluded most crypto-native firms but is expanding to include digital asset custodians following SAB 121's reversal and OCC charter approvals.