Anchorage Digital CEO Calls for Broader Crypto Banking Market and Offers Core Technology

Tokenized deposits represent commercial bank deposits as blockchain tokens and remain liabilities of the bank, unlike stablecoins backed by independent issuers. Anchorage Digital, the first federally chartered crypto bank in the United States, is entering the market with technology that allows traditional banks to retain their existing accounting and compliance frameworks while offering instant, programmable onchain fund transfers.

Anchorage Digital announced its Tokenized Deposits infrastructure on June 22, 2026. The platform runs alongside banks’ core systems and reconciles onchain BDA balances with deposit DDAs, supporting real-time payments and settlement 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. The company said deployment could take as little as a few weeks and that customers’ personal data would remain within their banks. It did not disclose the investment amount, initial banking partners or transaction volumes.

Anchorage Digital is a regulated crypto bank that provides digital-asset custody and stablecoin issuance support to businesses. The stablecoin consortium backed by Robinhood and Kraken involves multiple competing interests. Anchorage's ability to remain neutral could therefore affect other companies' willingness to work with it and shape the market's competitive landscape.

Anchorage Digital CEO Nathan McCauley said the company would relinquish its leading role in the stablecoin group and move behind the scenes to realign incentives and avoid favoring any particular issuer. About 20 companies are currently discussing stablecoin partnerships with Anchorage. The report did not disclose the date of the withdrawal, the value of any partnerships or when the change would formally take effect.

Anchorage Digital Bank, a unit of Anchorage Digital, is the first federally chartered digital asset bank in the United States. As companies deploy AI agents to handle payments, procurement and treasury management, the ability to subject nonhuman agents to identity, authorization and compliance controls has become critical to putting agentic commerce into practice.

Anchorage Digital launched Agentic Banking on May 5, 2026, in partnership with Google Cloud, combining AI intelligence with regulated financial rails. The system allows users to define agent identities, spending limits, permissions and audit trails, with settlement in stablecoins and fiat currencies. CEO Nathan McCauley expects the sector to grow into a $1 trillion industry.

Anchorage Digital Bank received a national trust bank charter from the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency in January 2021, becoming the country’s first federally chartered crypto bank. Michael Saylor-led Strategy has continued to finance additional Bitcoin purchases. Its STRC preferred stock has no maturity date and ranks ahead of MSTR common stock in liquidation, giving institutions indirect exposure to Bitcoin-related risk through a U.S. dollar-denominated yield instrument.

Anchorage Digital disclosed on February 25, 2026, that it had added STRC, launched by Strategy in July 2025, to its balance sheet. It did not disclose the number of shares purchased or the amount invested. STRC had a par value of $100 and an annualized dividend rate of 11.25% at the time, with cash payments made monthly and the rate adjusted each month. Strategy held 717,722 Bitcoin worth about $46.64 billion.