New York State’s top financial regulator has granted the first license to a Bitcoin exchange, allowing it to open legally to customers across the country.

The exchange, itBit, said Thursday morning that it was beginning to take on customers in the United States immediately after receiving a banking trust charter from New York State’s Department of Financial Services and its superintendent, Benjamin M. Lawsky, who has been trying for some time to bring new rules to the fledgling virtual currency industry.

In addition to the new license, itBit, which has offices in New York and Singapore, also announced on Thursday that it had won $25 million in new financing and had appointed three prominent board members: Sheila C. Bair, the former chairwoman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation; Bill Bradley, the former New Jersey senator; and Robert H. Herz, a Morgan Stanley director.

The trust company charter gives itBit a banklike status and appears to make it the winner in a race among Bitcoin exchanges to become the first to be fully regulated in the United States.