U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren has launched a scathing attack on the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), accusing the regulator of violating the National Bank Act by granting national trust charters to at least nine cryptocurrency firms that she deems "unqualified" and operating beyond federal statute.
In a letter sent to Comptroller Jonathan Gould, the Massachusetts Democrat and ranking member of the Senate Banking Committee demanded detailed legal justifications for the approvals, which now cover prominent companies such as Coinbase, Paxos, Ripple, BitGo, and Fidelity Digital Asset Services. Warren argues that these crypto trusts "appear to far exceed the narrow scope of activities permitted by law," effectively rewriting the National Bank Act through administrative action.
The senator’s intervention follows a year of OCC decisions that opened federal trust paths for digital asset custody, settlement, and "riskless principal" trading—a model Warren contends is tantamount to allowing crypto firms to "evade the fundamental safeguards and obligations that come with being a bank." Her letter highlights how the companies, instead of pursuing full-service national bank status with its higher regulatory bar, are using the narrower trust charter to engage in deposit-like stablecoin activities, payments, and lending—functions she says are "closely related to deposit-taking."
Warren also demanded records of any communications between the OCC and President Donald Trump or his family members, specifically citing the pending charter for World Liberty Financial Inc., a crypto venture in which Trump and his family hold a stake. This request deepens the political dimension of the clash, which comes amid the administration’s broader push to create a crypto-friendly regulatory environment.
OCC chief Gould has previously insisted that charter reviews are "apolitical and nonpartisan," but Warren’s new demands—including disclosure of the legal analyses underpinning each approval—set up a major test of how far U.S. banking law can be stretched to accommodate crypto infrastructure before Congress must step in. The outcome could have sweeping implications for the future of crypto custody, stablecoin issuance, and institutional adoption in the United States.
