Anchorage Digital, the first federally chartered crypto bank in the U.S., expanded its TRON Network support this week to include native staking for TRX and custody for TRC-20 assets. Institutions can now stake TRX directly through Anchorage's regulated platform to earn protocol rewards, while also holding TRC-20 tokens — including the vast majority of Tether's USDT supply, which exceeds $90 billion on TRON.
What the expansion includes
Anchorage already added custody for TRON earlier this year, letting institutions hold TRX via its regulated bank and its Porto self-custody wallet. The new staking feature lets clients earn rewards generated by the TRON protocol, though payouts vary based on validator selection and platform fees. The move brings TRON's ecosystem — over 392 million accounts, 14 billion transactions, and $26 billion in total value locked — into Anchorage's compliance-first framework.
TRON hosts the largest circulating supply of USDT, making it a key network for stablecoin transfers and DeFi activity. CEO Nathan McCauley said the expansion allows institutions to "engage more deeply with TRON in a compliant way." For a bank valued at $4.2 billion and backed by Andreessen Horowitz, GIC, Goldman Sachs, KKR, and Visa, adding staking to an already custody-supported chain is a natural next step — especially as institutional demand for yield on digital assets grows.
TRON's side of the deal
Justin Sun, TRON's founder, framed the partnership as a bridge. "Secure, regulated infrastructure helps turn institutional interest into participation," he said. TRON DAO, the community-governed organization behind the network, launched in 2017 and its MainNet went live in May 2018. The network now processes billions in USDT daily, and having a federally chartered bank offer staking could pull in more conservative capital.
Anchorage hasn't said whether it plans to add staking for other TRC-20 assets beyond TRX, or if it will integrate with TRON's DeFi protocols. For now, the bank is focused on onboarding institutional clients to the new staking service. With TRON's TVL at $26 billion and growing, the question is how much of that locked value will flow through regulated custody rails.
