Key Takeaways:
The Digital Chamber pushed back against Sen. Elizabeth Warren's claim that the OCC's approval of national trust bank charters for nine crypto firms violates banking law, urging the regulator to stand by its decisions.
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has granted national trust bank charter approvals to nine crypto companies and their affiliates over the past year, including Coinbase, Circle, Ripple, Paxos, BitGo, Fidelity, Crypto.com, Stripe, and Protego. The approvals allow these firms to offer federally regulated digital asset custody, staking, and trade settlement services for the first time.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) last week argued the approvals violated the National Bank Act, saying the companies "look like crypto banks, not trust companies" and pose "serious risks" to the safety of the U.S. banking system. In a letter to Comptroller Jonathan Gould, she said the Trump administration was allowing crypto firms to use restrictive trust charters to perform wide-ranging banking functions under lighter regulation.
"The business plans include language that suggests the companies intend to engage in non-fiduciary custodial activities, facilitating payments and lending activities, and conducting stablecoin activities closely related to deposit-taking," Warren wrote.
Industry pushes back
The Digital Chamber, a top crypto industry trade group, responded Tuesday with a letter urging the OCC to "defend these charter approvals and continue developing clear supervisory expectations for trust banks." CEO Cody Carbone argued that Congress' passage of the GENIUS Act last year — which legalized stablecoin issuance under federal regulation — implicitly authorized the OCC to expand banking privileges to stablecoin businesses.
"It would be deeply incongruous for Congress, on an overwhelmingly bipartisan basis, to establish a new category of federally regulated stablecoin issuer while the OCC stood by and declined to exercise its chartering authority," Carbone wrote.
The trade group also noted that approved companies like Coinbase and Ripple are not taking deposits insured by the FDIC, pushing back on arguments that stablecoin payment and lending activities fall outside the scope of a national trust company.
The stakes for stablecoins
National trust companies generally offer fiduciary services — managing assets on another's behalf — but do not accept customer deposits. They are regulated with less scrutiny than traditional banks. The crypto firms that received approvals want to facilitate the issuance, redemption, and custody of stablecoins and the funds backing them.
The battle over whether stablecoin-related activities should be treated like traditional banking has dominated crypto policy debates in Washington this year. The banking lobby has urged lawmakers to curtail the ability of stablecoin companies to offer incentives that compete with bank savings accounts, arguing such firms do not comply with rigorous banking regulations. Lawmakers ultimately sided with the crypto industry.
Warren has requested the OCC provide detailed information about the approved charters, including whether the regulator allows national trust companies to engage in non-fiduciary activities. She also requested copies of all correspondence between OCC officials and President Trump and his family regarding the approvals.
The dispute comes as the Trump administration pushes to integrate digital assets into traditional financial infrastructure. On Tuesday, Trump signed an executive order directing the Federal Reserve to review whether crypto and fintech firms should get direct access to Fed master accounts — the payment accounts that allow institutions to settle directly through the central bank.
The OCC's Gould and Warren clashed publicly in February at a Senate hearing over a pending national trust bank application from World Liberty Financial, the Trump family's crypto venture. Gould refused to say he would delay or deny the application, leading Warren to accuse him of being "an accomplice" to presidential corruption.
World Liberty co-founder Zach Witkoff said this month the company is "in the final stages" of receiving conditional OCC approval.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.
