The Digital Chamber is pushing the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to stand behind its crypto trust-bank charter approvals after Sen. Elizabeth Warren challenged the agency’s authority and warned that several firms may be trying to act like banks without taking on full bank obligations.
Warren’s May 19 Banking Committee release said the OCC has approved at least nine national trust charters for crypto companies since December 2025. Her objection centers on whether planned activities by firms such as Coinbase, Ripple, Circle-linked First National Digital Currency Bank, BitGo, Paxos, Fidelity Digital Assets, Crypto.com’s Foris DAX, Stripe’s Bridge and Protego fit within the narrower legal scope of national trust companies.
The OCC’s own records show the charter wave clearly. In December, the agency conditionally approved de novo national trust bank charters for Ripple National Trust Bank and First National Digital Currency Bank, while also approving conversions for BitGo Bank & Trust, Fidelity Digital Assets and Paxos Trust Company. In April, the OCC granted preliminary conditional approval for Coinbase National Trust Company to establish a new national trust bank.
Trust Charter Debate Moves Beyond One Agency
The dispute now turns on what a crypto-facing trust bank can legally do. These charters are not ordinary commercial bank licenses. They do not automatically authorize broad deposit-taking or general lending. They can, however, place custody, fiduciary services and related digital-asset operations under federal OCC supervision, which is exactly why major crypto firms have pursued them.
Warren’s position is that the approvals may stretch the National Bank Act beyond its intended trust-company limits. The Digital Chamber’s position is that firms seeking OCC supervision are moving toward federal oversight rather than away from it, and that political pressure should not force the agency to back away from legally reviewed approvals.
The timing also intersects with stablecoin regulation. The GENIUS Act became law in July 2025 and created a federal framework for payment stablecoin issuers. That has made charter access more important for firms building custody, reserve, issuance and settlement infrastructure around regulated stablecoins. The OCC’s digital-assets licensing page also shows that the pipeline is still active, with additional digital-asset applications under review.
CryptoAdventure’s breakdown of who really runs stablecoin settlement explains why these structures matter for issuers, custodians and payment rails. Broader U.S. policy shifts have also fed the stablecoin supercycle as regulated dollar tokens become a larger part of crypto market infrastructure.
The next pressure point is Warren’s June 1 records deadline. If the OCC releases applications, legal analyses or communications tied to the approvals, the market will get a clearer view of whether national trust charters become crypto’s preferred U.S. compliance route or the next major battleground between banking watchdogs, stablecoin issuers and Washington’s crypto critics.
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