Senator Elizabeth Warren has raised concerns regarding recent approvals for national trust bank charters granted to cryptocurrency companies by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) during the Trump administration. In a letter addressed to Comptroller Jonathan Gould, she expressed fears that these approvals contravene the National Bank Act and jeopardize the safety and soundness of the U.S. banking system.
Warren emphasized that these entities resemble “crypto banks” seeking to bypass essential regulatory safeguards and obligations associated with traditional banking. The OCC has given national trust banking charters to nine firms and their affiliates, including prominent names like Coinbase, Ripple, and Fidelity since Donald Trump regained office last year.
National trust companies operate under less stringent regulations compared to conventional banks and have restrictions on the types of services they can offer. Typically, these companies focus on fiduciary services, such as managing assets but do not accept customer deposits. The recent uptick in applications for national trust banking charters has been influenced by the passage of the GENIUS Act, which is centered on stablecoins—cryptocurrencies pegged to the U.S. dollar.
In her correspondence, Warren criticized the intentions of these companies, stating they appear to aim for activities beyond their fiduciary scope, potentially involving payment facilitation, lending, and other operations closely associated with deposit-taking. She has requested detailed information from the OCC regarding the nature of activities that national trust companies are permitted to engage in and whether any of them involve non-fiduciary operations.
Furthermore, Warren has sought to uncover any communications between OCC officials and President Trump or his associates concerning the approvals of these crypto-focused bank applications, pointing to a potential conflict of interest and the need for greater transparency.
The senator previously clashed with Gould during a Senate hearing in February, where she pressed him about a pending application from World Liberty Financial, a crypto company connected to the Trump family. Gould’s refusal to delay or deny the application led Warren to label him an “accomplice” to alleged corruption.
At a recent event, co-founder of World Liberty Financial, Zach Witkoff, indicated that the company is nearing conditional approval from the OCC, further intensifying the scrutiny on the agency’s decision-making processes regarding crypto-related banking charters.
