Warren: OCC illegally granted nine crypto trust charters

Sen. Elizabeth Warren wrote to Office of the Comptroller of the Currency Comptroller Jonathan Gould on May 18, accusing the agency of illegally approving at least nine national trust charters for crypto companies and demanding full charter records and related communications by June 1.

Warren identified the chartered entities as Ripple National Trust Bank; Paxos Trust Company; First National Digital Currency Bank, linked to Circle; Fidelity Digital Asset Services; Bitgo Bank and Trust N.A.; Foris DAX National Trust Bank, a Crypto.com affiliate; National Digital Trust Company, associated with Protego; Bridge National Trust Bank, related to Stripe; and Coinbase National Trust Company.

In the letter, Warren said the firms’ business plans include staking, lending, trading, payments and stablecoin services. She wrote those activities fall outside the narrow set of fiduciary trust operations defined by the National Bank Act, which limits trust companies to roles such as trustee, executor, administrator or guardian and does not authorize deposit-taking or traditional bank lending while exempting such trusts from federal deposit insurance, Community Reinvestment Act obligations and Bank Holding Company Act restrictions.

Warren described the approvals as a form of regulatory arbitrage and wrote, “These companies are effectively crypto banks that want to evade the fundamental safeguards and obligations that come with being a bank.” She asked the OCC to produce full charter applications and confidential exhibits for the nine approved firms and any pending applications, along with legal analyses, internal breakdowns of fiduciary versus non-fiduciary activity volumes, and OCC analyses of how the 2025 GENIUS Act for stablecoins interacts with the National Bank Act.

The senator also requested all emails, text messages, meeting summaries and call transcripts between OCC officials and President Trump, his immediate family, or anyone acting on their behalf about the nine approvals. Warren set a June 1 deadline for the materials and said the records will inform whether Congress should increase oversight.

The OCC has defended limited-purpose national trust charters as consistent with its authority to supervise custody, settlement and digital asset services. The agency pointed to prior interpretive letters dating to 2021 and to a rule it finalized on March 2, 2026, that addresses chartering limited-purpose national trust banks.

Warren referenced past crypto industry failures, including FTX and Silvergate, and cited consumer protection and financial stability concerns in framing her records request. She is the ranking member of the Senate Banking Committee.