Warren Challenges OCC Over Crypto National Trust Charters

Sen. Elizabeth Warren has challenged the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency’s recent approvals of crypto-related national trust charters, opening a congressional oversight fight over whether the banking regulator has allowed digital-asset firms to take on powers reserved for more tightly regulated banks.

Multiple outlets reported May 18 and 19 that Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat and a longtime crypto critic, sent a May 18 letter to Comptroller of the Currency Jonathan Gould questioning a string of OCC approvals and demanding the underlying charter applications and legal analyses. According to CoinDesk and Cointelegraph, Warren wrote that the OCC had “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.” Coverage of the letter said the firms included Circle, Ripple, Paxos, BitGo, Fidelity Digital Assets, Crypto.com, Stripe’s Bridge, Protego and Coinbase.

The challenge targets a recent wave of OCC actions. On Dec. 12, 2025, the agency said it had issued conditional approvals for five national trust bank charter applications: First National Digital Currency Bank, tied to Circle; Ripple National Trust Bank; and conversions involving BitGo, Fidelity Digital Assets and Paxos. OCC corporate decisions issued in early 2026 also documented conditional approvals involving Bridge, Crypto.com and Protego. Coinbase separately announced on April 2 that it had received conditional OCC approval for Coinbase National Trust Company.

At the center of the dispute is a specialized kind of bank charter. A national trust bank is an OCC-chartered national bank limited to trust-company operations and closely related activities. It is not the same as a full-service commercial bank that takes FDIC-insured deposits and makes ordinary commercial loans. Warren’s argument, as described in published reporting, is that the OCC has used trust charters to let crypto firms “act like full-service national banks, while evading the suite of restrictions, safeguards, and obligations” that apply to those banks.

That legal question matters because the OCC’s own approvals rely on the National Bank Act, the main federal law governing national banks. Warren is not simply objecting to crypto expansion in general; she is arguing that the activities described in the approved applications go beyond what trust banks are allowed to do under that law. The OCC, by contrast, has said in its public corporate decisions that the activities are being approved subject to conditions, supervisory requirements and ongoing oversight.

Those corporate decision documents describe business lines that extend beyond basic safekeeping of digital assets. Depending on the applicant, the proposed activities include custody of crypto and fiat assets, settlement services, staking-as-a-service, token and issuer services, and some lending or borrowing arrangements structured as fiduciary activity. That mix is central to Warren’s complaint that the charters may be permitting bank-like services under a narrower legal framework.

The firms named in reporting span some of the best-known companies in the sector. Circle is the issuer of the USDC stablecoin. Ripple is the blockchain payments company behind XRP-related products. Coinbase is the largest publicly traded U.S. crypto exchange. Paxos, BitGo, Fidelity Digital Assets, Crypto.com, Bridge and Protego have each sought or received attention for federal trust-bank approvals as crypto firms increasingly pursue nationwide regulatory footing.

The oversight challenge comes as federal crypto and stablecoin regulation changed in 2025, making federal charters more valuable to digital-asset companies seeking a single national supervisor instead of a patchwork of state licenses. That has raised the stakes of the OCC’s chartering decisions, especially when those approvals could shape how crypto firms expand into payment, custody and other quasi-banking services.

At the time of the reporting, the OCC had not publicly released a response specifically addressing Warren’s letter. Several outlets said the agency did not immediately respond to requests for comment.