The approval, announced Friday, allows Circle to operate as Circle New York Trust and directly custody the multibillion-dollar reserves backing USDC. The move builds on the BitLicense the company secured from the same regulator in 2015 and arrives just weeks after the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency approved Circle's application to establish a national trust bank. "Earning a New York trust charter has been a longstanding objective for Circle," CEO Jeremy Allaire said in a statement. "This charter reflects over a decade of regulatory commitment and positions USDC within a strong, respected framework as digital dollars become central to the global financial system." The new charter fundamentally alters Circle's operational structure. Previously, the company relied on external commercial banks to hold the assets backing USDC, exposing it to third-party banking…

Circle now operates under a dual licensing structure, holding both the New York state trust charter and a conditional federal charter from the OCC. That combination places the company under overlapping state and federal oversight, a posture designed to reassure both regulators and institutional partners. The regulatory milestone caps a busy period for Circle. Earlier in July, the OCC approved the company's application to form a national trust bank, enabling it to shift key USDC operations under a federal banking framework and offer digital asset custody services. More recently, Circle acquired IBM's blockchain patent portfolio, adding nearly 1,000 patents covering blockchain technology, financial services, and enterprise software. The company plans to deploy those patents across USDC, the Circle Payments Network, and its Arc blockchain. Despite the string of positive…