EDX Markets Files for Federal Trust Bank Charter
EDX Markets' proposed entity EDX Trust would handle custody, settlement, and fiduciary asset management for institutional crypto participants, separating trading operations from asset custody.
Key Takeaway
Wall Street's play for crypto custody infrastructure goes through federal banking charters, not unregulated exchanges.
EDX Markets filed for a federal trust bank charter in March, positioning its proposed entity EDX Trust to handle custody, settlement, and fiduciary asset management for institutional crypto participants.
The application landed at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency's pending queue alongside Morgan Stanley Digital Trust, Revolut Bank US, and zerohash. Five firms already cleared the conditional approval stage in December — Ripple, Fidelity Digital Assets, BitGo, Paxos, and zerohash.
EDX Markets argues that regulated institutions need infrastructure they can route trades through without taking on the operational and governance risks of vertically integrated exchanges. The filing outlines a functional separation model: EDX Markets handles order matching, while EDX Trust would manage custody of digital assets and fiat balances, settlement, and riskless principal activity.
The trust bank would target broker-dealers, futures commission merchants, registered investment advisers, corporations, and other regulated intermediaries. EDX Trust's proposed end-of-day net settlement for spot trades aims to improve capital efficiency and reduce the operational burden of heavily prefunded arrangements.
Citadel Securities, Fidelity, and Charles Schwab backed EDX Markets at launch. Citadel has been pushing for institutional crypto market structure through multiple regulatory channels, including comment letters to the SEC on tokenized U.S. equity securities and DeFi trading protocols filed in late December 2025.
This article was written based on reporting from CryptoSlate.
