Sen. Elizabeth Warren has accused Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) chief Jonathan Gould of breaching banking law by approving national trust charters for cryptocurrency firms. In a letter sent Monday, Warren said the OCC has “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,” which she says may violate the National Bank Act.
Warren asked Gould to produce full applications for crypto firms the OCC approved or conditionally approved since December 2025. She named Coinbase, Crypto.com’s parent company, Ripple, Stripe, BitGo, Circle, Fidelity Digital Assets, Protego Holdings and Paxos. She also requested communications between the OCC and former president Donald Trump, members of his family and White House officials.
“These companies are effectively crypto banks that want to evade the fundamental safeguards and obligations that come with being a bank,” Warren wrote, adding that the OCC’s actions enable regulatory arbitrage and pose risks to consumers, the safety and soundness of the banking system, and the separation of banking and commerce.
As ranking member of the Senate Banking Committee, Warren has frequently criticized regulatory moves she views as entangled with political or commercial interests tied to Trump. She recently pushed for provisions in the CLARITY Act during committee markup and urged Gould to delay consideration of a charter application from World Liberty Financial, a crypto venture linked to the Trump family that filed for a charter in January.
Cointelegraph contacted the OCC for comment but did not receive an immediate response.
Separately, Payward — the parent company of crypto exchange Kraken — filed for a national trust charter with the OCC on May 8. Payward said the charter would let it provide fiduciary custody and related services primarily for digital assets through the Payward National Trust Company.
A national trust bank charter typically authorizes fiduciary and custodial services without permitting traditional deposit-taking or commercial lending. That narrower activity set means trust-chartered entities can operate under different regulatory requirements than full-service banks, a distinction at the heart of Warren’s complaint.
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