The Wyoming Division of Banking is the state banking regulator within the Wyoming Department of Audit, and on tokenisation it is the load-bearing US state regulator for the Special Purpose Depository Institution (SPDI) charter, the precedent state-chartered digital-asset bank framework that the OCC trust-bank chartering programme later picked up. The SPDI charter, codified under the Wyoming Banking Statutes following the 2019 SPDI Act, authorises a state-chartered depository institution focused on digital-asset custody and ancillary banking activities, with Anchorage-style federal trust supervision available as an alternative federal route. Custodia Bank and Kraken Financial are the two SPDI charter holders that have operationalised the framework, with Custodia's denied master-account application against the Federal Reserve and the subsequent litigation producing one of the few public decisions on Federal Reserve tier 3 access for novel charter types. For a tokenisation operator, the Wyoming SPDI route is the precedent state alternative to the OCC trust-bank charter, and the Custodia litigation is the precedent on federal-rails-access questions that the broader OCC trust-bank cohort now faces.
Role in tokenisation
The Wyoming Division of Banking's tokenisation surface has three load-bearing components. First, the SPDI charter framework. Wyoming's SPDI Act, enacted in 2019 (Wyoming Statutes Title 13, Chapter 12), created a state-chartered depository institution authorised to receive deposits and engage in incidental banking activities with a focus on digital-asset custody. The SPDI charter carries a 100% reserve requirement against demand deposits, which materially constrains the institution's lending capacity but eliminates traditional bank credit risk. The framework was the first US state-level chartering programme designed specifically for digital-asset banking and has served as the operational template for several subsequent state and federal chartering experiments.
Second, the Custodia Bank charter and the master-account litigation. Custodia Bank (formerly Avanti Bank) received its Wyoming SPDI charter in October 2020 and applied to the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City for a master account in October 2020. The application was denied in January 2023, with the Fed citing the bank's involvement in digital-asset activities and the absence of federal deposit insurance as risk concerns. Custodia filed suit in the United States District Court for the District of Wyoming alleging that the denial was unlawful; the District Court ruled against Custodia in March 2024, and the Tenth Circuit affirmed on appeal in October 2024 (Tenth Circuit Custodia opinion). The Custodia decision is one of the most consequential public decisions on Federal Reserve tier 3 master-account access and continues to shape the access calculation for OCC trust-bank charter holders and other novel-charter institutions seeking direct Fed access.
Third, the Kraken Financial charter and the operational template. Kraken Financial (the SPDI subsidiary of the Kraken exchange) received its Wyoming SPDI charter in September 2020 and operates a more limited US-state-bank franchise focused on digital-asset custody and exchange-related deposit services. Kraken Financial has not pursued a master-account application on the SPDI charter alone, instead operating through correspondent-banking arrangements. The two-bank cohort (Custodia plus Kraken Financial) is small enough that the SPDI charter has not produced a critical-mass alternative to the OCC trust-bank route, but the framework remains operationally valid for new entrants.
Operating model
The Wyoming Division of Banking's regulatory toolkit on the SPDI framework runs through the chartering process, ongoing supervision, and the SPDI-specific operational requirements. The chartering process requires a multi-million-dollar capital commitment, board and management governance review, business plan evaluation, and operational readiness assessment. The 100% reserve requirement is the most operationally distinctive SPDI feature: the bank holds reserves equal to or exceeding 100% of demand deposits, with the reserves held in cash, government securities, or eligible Federal Reserve account balances. The reserve requirement structurally eliminates the bank-run dynamic that has driven historical bank failures but at the cost of any meaningful lending franchise.
The supervision pattern follows the conventional state-chartered-bank pattern with digital-asset-specific examination overlays. The Division of Banking conducts on-site and off-site examinations covering capital adequacy, asset quality, management, earnings, liquidity, and sensitivity to market risk (the CAMELS framework), with additional examination procedures covering digital-asset custody, key management, transaction monitoring, and AML compliance. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation does not insure SPDI deposits because SPDIs are not FDIC-insured institutions; depositors of an SPDI are exposed to the credit of the bank with the 100% reserve requirement as the structural protection.
The Federal Reserve master-account question is the operational ceiling for SPDI banking. Without a master account, an SPDI must hold reserves through a correspondent bank that has direct Fed access, which introduces an intermediation step in the bank's settlement and reserve-balance management. The Custodia litigation established that the Federal Reserve has substantial discretion to deny master-account applications from SPDI charter holders on safety-and-soundness grounds, and the post-Custodia operating environment is that SPDI master-account access is not assured. The 2022 Federal Reserve master-account access guidelines (the tiered framework) place SPDIs in tier 3 (institutions subject neither to federal insurance nor federal prudential supervision), which is the most stringent tier for access evaluation.
Why it matters
Three structural reasons. First, the Wyoming SPDI charter is the precedent state-level digital-asset banking framework, and the OCC trust-bank chartering programme borrowed substantially from the SPDI framework's structure (a focused custody-and-ancillary-services charter without full deposit-taking and lending) when designing the federal alternative. Without the SPDI precedent, the OCC trust-bank programme would likely have evolved differently. Second, the Custodia litigation is the precedent decision on Federal Reserve master-account access for novel-charter institutions, and the Tenth Circuit's affirmation that the Federal Reserve has substantial discretion to deny applications continues to shape the access calculation for OCC trust-bank charter holders (Anchorage is the test case; Circle, Ripple, BitGo, Paxos, Fidelity Digital Assets are the next-cohort observers). Third, the SPDI framework remains operationally valid for new entrants seeking a state-chartered alternative to the OCC federal route, with state-versus-federal supervision and chartering-cost differentials as the typical decision factors.
The competitive frame is partly the OCC trust-bank charter route (OCC trust bank charter) which has now overtaken the SPDI framework as the most-pursued US digital-asset banking charter, partly other state SPDI-equivalent frameworks (Nebraska's digital-asset depository institution charter, several state trust-charter modifications), and partly the NYDFS limited-purpose trust charter route which remains the most-pursued state alternative on the East Coast. The Wyoming SPDI's structural advantage (the 100% reserve requirement reduces traditional bank-run risk) is offset by the operational disadvantage (the master-account access question and the absence of FDIC insurance), with the post-Custodia environment producing a cooler reception for new SPDI applications than the 2020-2021 cohort had.
APAC angle
The Wyoming SPDI framework was the operational template for the OCC trust-bank chartering programme that several APAC custodians now pursue. Anchorage's Singapore branch, BitGo's Singapore presence, and Paxos's Singapore and Abu Dhabi operations all sit within institutional groups that have either pursued or considered the Wyoming SPDI or OCC trust-bank routes as their US-state regulatory anchor. APAC supervisors evaluating the question of whether to permit state-level digital-asset banking charters have studied the Wyoming framework closely: Singapore's payment-services and trust-company licensing regime, Hong Kong's stored-value-facility and trust-company frameworks, and Japan's trust-bank designation pathways have each been informed by lessons from the Wyoming SPDI and Custodia experiences.
The Custodia master-account litigation is the most-cited US digital-asset banking decision by APAC central banks evaluating the question of how to grant or deny digital-asset bank access to their own central-bank settlement infrastructure. The MAS's posture on access to MEPS+ (the Singapore real-time gross settlement system) for digital-asset institutions, the HKMA's posture on access to CHATS (the Hong Kong real-time gross settlement system), and the BoJ's posture on access to BoJ-NET have all been informed by the post-Custodia US precedent. The structural question (whether central banks should grant direct settlement access to digital-asset-active institutions on the same terms as conventional banks) is unresolved across the APAC central-bank cohort, with the post-Custodia US precedent serving as the cautionary reference rather than the affirmative one.
Recent moves
- 2025-2026. SPDI framework remains operationally valid; OCC trust-bank charter route becomes the more-pursued federal alternative.
- October 2024. Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals affirms District Court decision on Custodia master-account denial (Tenth Circuit Custodia opinion).
- March 2024. United States District Court for the District of Wyoming rules against Custodia in master-account litigation.
- January 2023. Federal Reserve denies Custodia's master-account application.
- October 2020. Custodia Bank (then Avanti Bank) receives Wyoming SPDI charter; files Federal Reserve master-account application.
- September 2020. Kraken Financial receives Wyoming SPDI charter.
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- Wyoming SPDI Act enacted (Wyoming Statutes Title 13, Chapter 12), creating the state-chartered digital-asset depository institution framework.
Open questions
- Whether the SPDI framework attracts new applications post-Custodia, or whether the OCC trust-bank charter route becomes the dominant US digital-asset banking pathway.
- Whether Custodia or any subsequent SPDI applicant pursues alternative legal theories or legislative remedies for Federal Reserve master-account access.
- The interaction with OCC trust-bank holders that also pursue or consider Wyoming SPDI charters; the operational practice for entities holding both has yet to be established.
- Whether the Wyoming Legislature amends the SPDI Act to address structural constraints identified through the Custodia and Kraken Financial operating practice.
- Agentic commerce posture. The Wyoming Division of Banking has not published on AI agents holding SPDI deposits or transacting on SPDI-operated digital-asset rails.