Galaxy seeks its own trust bank charter, four years after dropping BitGo

Galaxy Digital (NASDAQ: GLXY) has applied for a national trust bank charter from the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC).

Galaxy tried to obtain that same regulated custody capability back in 2021 by acquiring BitGo, but that custodian went on to secure its own federal charter first.

Why did Galaxy try to buy BitGo?

Galaxy Digital (NASDAQ: GLXY) has applied for a national trust bank charter from the U.S. OCC. Getting that approval will allow the firm to hold and manage client assets and act as a qualified custodian under federal supervision.

Galaxy previously tried to gain that capability in May 2021, when it agreed to buy BitGo (NYSE: BTGO) in a deal it valued at roughly $1.2 billion.

Mike Novogratz, Galaxy’s founder and CEO, said back then that the deal was a way to turn his firm into a single platform for institutions entering crypto. BitGo shareholders were set to receive 33.8 million newly issued Galaxy shares plus $265 million in cash. BitGo at that point held more than $40 billion in assets under custody and served over 400 institutional clients.

However, the plan fell apart. On August 15, 2022, Galaxy said it was exercising a contractual right to abandon the acquisition, blaming BitGo for missing a July 31 deadline to deliver audited 2021 financial statements, per a filing with the SEC. No termination fee was paid.

BitGo disputed Galaxy’s version of events and said that Galaxy had promised a $100 million reverse break fee. BitGo sued for that amount, with its lawyers calling Galaxy’s reasoning “absurd.”

On June 9, 2023, Delaware Court of Chancery Vice Chancellor J. Travis Laster threw out BitGo’s claims for good, ruling that Galaxy had a “clean termination right.”

BitGo has said it would appeal and maintained that the agreement was ended wrongfully.

When did BitGo apply for a bank charter?

While the two sides fought over the failed merger, the OCC gave conditional approval to five crypto trust charters, and BitGo was one of them. It got full, unconditional approval on January 29, 2026, just days after going public on the New York Stock Exchange as BTGO at $18 a share.

Of the five charters approved in December 2025, only BitGo and Circle (NYSE: CRCL) were up and running as national trust banks by late August 2026. Fidelity, Paxos, and Ripple were still waiting. Cryptopolitan reported that Ripple won final approval on October 26, 2026.

Earlier in October, Cryptopolitan reported that the OCC was sued by the Independent Community Bankers of America for giving crypto firms bank-like charters without making them follow full bank rules.

Comptroller Jonathan Gould noted that 23 out of the 40 new bank applications the agency received in a period of about 18 months were related to digital assets.