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Story: OpenReserve Secures OCC Preliminary Charter Backed by $25M from Andreessen Horowitz

By James Thorp

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What the OCC Preliminary Approval Actually Means. Preliminary approval isn't a green light to open for business.

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Onchain Banking and the Broader Shift. The financial sector has been watching blockchain settlement technology for a while now.

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What OpenReserve Has to Do Next. Full operational status is still a ways off. OpenReserve needs to demonstrate it can meet federal…

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OpenReserve Holdings got the nod. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency handed the company preliminary approval for a national bank charter built around onchain…

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The approval didn't come out of nowhere. OpenReserve closed a $25 million seed round first, with Andreessen Horowitz among the backers.

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Preliminary approval isn't a green light to open for business. It's closer to a conditional yes — the OCC is saying it's willing to charter OpenReserve as a national bank, but…

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What the approval does do is lock in OpenReserve's position. It's hard to get even this far.

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The onchain settlement angle is what makes OpenReserve different from a standard digital bank application.

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OpenReserve's bet is that demand is there. Digital asset transactions need banking rails that actually match the speed and structure of blockchain.

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More context: Revolut Secures Conditional US Bank Charter After 11 Years of Pursuit

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That's probably why Andreessen Horowitz wrote the check. The firm has backed enough crypto infrastructure companies to know where the bottlenecks are.

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And the OCC's willingness to engage with OpenReserve's application fits a broader pattern. Regulators have been more open to crypto-native banking applications than they were a…

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Full operational status is still a ways off. OpenReserve needs to demonstrate it can meet federal banking standards — capital requirements, compliance frameworks, risk…

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The company hasn't said when it expects to get there. No timeline, no specific milestones made public.

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Related: Sanders-Casar Ban Artificial Superintelligence Act Proposes 20-Year Prison Terms

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