Caitlin Long

Caitlin Long is the CEO and founder of Custodia Bank, a Wyoming-chartered special purpose depository institution (SPDI), and one of the most prominent advocates for crypto banking reform in the United States.

She has become a central figure at the intersection of digital assets, banking law, and regulatory policy, known for challenging what she describes as regulatory discrimination against crypto-native financial institutions.

Through Custodia and her public advocacy, Long has played a defining role in debates over access to Federal Reserve infrastructure, stablecoin issuance, and the future of compliant crypto banking.

Origin and Background

Long began her career in traditional finance, spending more than two decades at major institutions, including Morgan Stanley, where she worked in pension management and capital markets. She is a graduate of Harvard Law School and the University of Wyoming, combining legal training with deep experience in financial infrastructure.

She entered the cryptocurrency space in the early 2010s and quickly gained recognition for her focus on custody, settlement risk, and systemic fragility in traditional financial markets. In 2018, she co-founded Avanti Bank, later rebranded as Custodia Bank, to build a fully regulated bank designed from the ground up for digital assets.

Key Highlights

• Founded Custodia Bank as one of the first U.S. banks purpose-built to custody digital assets and issue tokenized deposits under state banking law.
• Helped shape Wyoming’s crypto-friendly legal framework, including laws recognizing digital assets as property and enabling SPDIs.
• Became a leading public critic of “Operation Chokepoint 2.0,” arguing that U.S. regulators were informally pressuring banks to cut off crypto businesses.
• Brought national attention to Federal Reserve access issues by challenging the denial of Custodia’s master account application, sparking industry-wide debate on fair access to payment rails.
  

As Long has repeatedly argued, “Banking is a utility and denying access to payment systems is effectively denying the right to compete.”

Impact on the Industry (2025)

By 2025, Caitlin Long is widely viewed as one of the most influential policy voices in U.S. crypto banking. Her critiques of fractional reserve practices, stablecoin reserve opacity, and regulatory inconsistencies gained renewed relevance following multiple bank failures and ongoing debates about stablecoins.

Custodia’s high-reserve, bankruptcy-remote model, despite operating without Federal Reserve master account access, has become a reference point in discussions around risk management, narrow banking, and on-chain settlement.

Long’s willingness to challenge regulators publicly has made her both controversial and indispensable in shaping serious policy conversations around the integration of crypto with the financial system.

Looking Ahead (2026 and Beyond)

Looking forward, Long is positioned to remain a key figure as lawmakers revisit stablecoin legislation, Fed access rules, and the role of state-chartered banks in a digitized financial system.

Whether or not Custodia ultimately gains direct access to the Federal Reserve, its structure and legal battles have already influenced how future crypto banks will be designed.

As traditional finance continues to converge with tokenized assets, Caitlin Long’s insistence on legal clarity, full-reserve banking, and systemic risk reduction is likely to shape the next phase of crypto banking reform, particularly in the U.S.