Citadel Securities and Fidelity just made their clearest move yet to rebuild crypto like Wall Street

EDX Markets’ bid for a federal trust bank charter is not just another crypto expansion story. It is a live test of whether Wall Street-backed firms can move more of crypto’s custody and settlement stack inside the U.S. banking perimeter. Citadel Securities, Fidelity, and Schwab-backed EDX wants to bring equity market structure to crypto through a federal trust bank EDX Markets’ application for a federal trust bank charter opens a more consequential question than whether another large financial consortium wants deeper exposure to digital assets. The sharper question is whether some of the firms that helped shape modern U.S. equity market structure are now trying to impose a similar functional separation on crypto, with custody, settlement, collateral management, and fiduciary asset handling pulled into a federally supervised banking perimeter. That framing comes directly from EDX Trust’s application to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency . The filing argues that traditional financial markets evolved around specialized roles, brokers, exchanges, market makers, clearing institutions, and custodians, while digital asset markets developed around vertically integrated venues where execution, custody, and balance sheet functions often sit under one roof. Why this matters: If this model wins approval and real flow, more of crypto’s back-end infrastructure could move away from all-in-one exchanges and toward federally supervised institutions. That would matter for who controls custody, how trades settle, and which firms become the preferred route for institutional capital. EDX’s proposal attempts to redraw that map. Order matching would remain with EDX Markets, while the proposed national trust bank would handle custody, fiduciary asset management, settlement-related functions, and riskless principal activity. Related Reading The Fed is readying to punish banks for holding Bitcoin as US crypto tensions boil over Basel’s thresholds and punitive risk weights can make direct Bitcoin exposure prohibitively expensive even when it’s legally permitted. Mar 13, 2026 · Gino Matos For a market still defined by the aftershocks of concentrated exchange risk, that distinction gives the filing its real weight. The application points to a bid to move a meaningful share of crypto infrastructure away from all-in-one venue design and toward a modular structure that institutions already understand. The names behind EDX add force to that interpretation. Citadel Securities, Fidelity, and Charles Schwab backed the venue at launch, and the proposed trust bank lands at a moment when the federal charter process is starting to look like a competitive lane rather than an isolated regulatory experiment. The OCC’s digital assets licensing applications page shows that EDX Trust joined a growing queue of pending applicants in March, alongside firms such as Morgan Stanley Digital Trust, zerohash, and Revolut Bank US. That follows the OCC’s December announcement that it had conditionally approved five digital asset-related national trust bank charters, including applications tied to Ripple, Fidelity Digital Assets, BitGo, and Paxos . The competitive significance lies in the pattern. Federal trust bank status is starting to look like an emerging layer of institutional crypto infrastructure, one that could shape who gets to intermediate regulated capital and who remains outside the most defensible perimeter. That gives EDX’s filing a broader significance than a standard custody expansion. The application describes a model built around end-of-day net settlement for spot trades, rather than the heavily prefunded arrangements common across large parts of crypto trading. EDX argues that this structure could improve capital efficiency and reduce the operational burden on institutional participants. The target users in the filing make the ambition clear: broker-dealers, futures commission merchants, registered investment advisers, corporations, and other regulated intermediaries whose participation depends on custody arrangements, counterparty controls, and supervisory familiarity. Viewed through that lens, the filing signals an attempt to build a crypto market structure that can carry institutional flow on a larger scale, with federal oversight sitting closer to the assets and the settlement process than crypto venues historically allowed. Related Reading Congress has only weeks left to convince banks on crypto CLARITY Act or risk losing it to midterms Congress must resolve stablecoin yield impasse or leave it to regulatory interpretation amidst intense banking pressure. Mar 16, 2026 · Oluwapelumi Adejumo Diagram comparing integrated crypto exchange model with modular institutional structure, showing custody, execution, and settlement separated into specialized components Why the filing points to crypto plumbing, not another access story The most revealing part of EDX’s application is the way it defines the market problem. The document spends fa