Leading crypto trade groups are rallying behind the U.S. banking regulator to counter Senator Elizabeth Warren's claims that national trust charters for firms like Coinbase, Ripple, and Circle are illegal under federal banking law. According to reports from Decrypt, the Digital Chamber has written to OCC Comptroller Jonathan Gould urging him to stand by national trust bank charters granted to crypto-focused firms. This defense comes after Warren accused the OCC of illegally approving at least nine crypto trust charters in a way that flouts the National Bank Act and threatens the safety of the U.S. banking system.
In a May 18 letter to Gould, Warren argued that since December 2025, the OCC has approved at least nine national trust charters for crypto companies engaging in activities beyond what's permitted by law. As reported by Decrypt, she named Ripple, Circle, Paxos, Fidelity Digital Asset Services, BitGo, Crypto.com's Foris DAX, Stripe's Bridge, Protego and Coinbase among the beneficiaries. Warren set a June 1 deadline for the OCC to hand over all applications, legal analyses and communications with President Trump or his family tied to the approvals, warning these firms are effectively crypto banks that want to evade fundamental safeguards and obligations of traditional banking.
The Digital Chamber's response centers on the Guiding and Establishing National Innovations for U.S. Stablecoins Act (GENIUS Act), which President Trump signed into law in July 2025. According to Decrypt coverage, the group argues that Congress has effectively authorized the OCC to extend bank charters to stablecoin businesses through the GENIUS Act, creating a new category of permitted payment stablecoin issuer under primary OCC supervision. The OCC followed up in February 2026 with a proposed rule implementing the GENIUS Act, emphasizing that federal qualified issuers will be licensed, regulated, examined and supervised exclusively by the Comptroller. However, Warren argues that the new law doesn't change the National Bank Act framework.
Critically for the industry's argument, national trust charters do not allow these firms to accept FDIC-insured deposits or conduct traditional commercial lending. As reported by Decrypt, the Digital Chamber points to this limitation, stating the chartered firms do not accept FDIC-insured deposits and therefore are not engaged in traditional banking operations, framing them instead as custodians and payment stablecoin issuers operating under a bespoke federal regime. Industry groups counter that these entities do not take FDIC-insured deposits, so they are not traditional banks.
The Digital Chamber, which represents more than 250 crypto-related entities, has directly rejected Warren's legal characterization in a letter to Comptroller Jonathan Gould. According to The Block, TDC CEO Cody Carbone stated that "the characterization of these approvals as 'apparent violations' of the National Bank Act misreads both the statute and the OCC's longstanding charter authority." Carbone argued that it would be incongruous for Congress to establish a new category of federally regulated stablecoin issuer while the OCC declined to exercise its chartering authority. A growing number of crypto firms have sought OCC approval to operate as federally regulated trust banks, with last year's conditional approvals including Ripple, Circle, BitGo, Fidelity Digital Assets, and Paxos. If they receive final approvals, these firms would be able to hold customers' assets but wouldn't be able to accept cash deposits or make loans.
