Senator Warren criticizes OCC over Ripple, Coinbase and other crypto trust charters

U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren has accused Comptroller of the Currency, Jonathan Gould, of "improperly" granting national trust charters to companies that she says do not qualify under the National Bank Act.

“(S)ince December 2025, you have approved at least nine national trust charters for crypto companies that intend to engage in activities that appear to go far beyond the narrow set of activities permitted by law. These companies are effectively crypto banks that want to evade the fundamental safeguards and obligations that come with being a bank,” Sen. Warren said in a letter dated Monday, May 18. 

In her letter, Warren highlighted several recently granted approvals, including digital asset firms Ripple, Circle, Paxos, Fidelity, BitGo and Coinbase. At the end of last year, the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency granted conditional approvals to an initial set of five firms that applied for the federal charter needed to become trust banks.

Circle’s conditionally approved application for a national trust bank charter is tied to a new entity named First National Digital Currency Bank. The OCC has since granted conditional approval to Stripe subsidiary Bridge, Coinbase, Crypto.com, and others, while considering applications from other digital asset firms.

While the charters do not allow these firms to take FDIC-insured deposits or engage in traditional commercial lending, they may assist firms running stablecoin businesses under the GENIUS Act framework passed into law last summer.

In February, the American Bankers Association, a banking advocacy group, called on the OCC to ease up on granting crypto firms national bank charters, citing unresolved risks in receivership protocols and a lack of finalized federal oversight. 

“Your decision to facilitate this regulatory arbitrage not only conflicts with federal law, it also poses serious risks to consumers, the safety and soundness of the banking system, and the separation of banking and commerce," Warren said. "Many of the business plans do not include specific fiduciary trust activities and none imply that bona fide fiduciary trust activities would be the primary business of the trust company."

Warren, a Democrat, is the Ranking Member of the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee.