Senator Elizabeth Warren sent a letter on May 19, 2026, to Comptroller of the Currency Jonathan Gould accusing his agency of granting national trust charters to at least nine crypto companies that do not qualify under the National Bank Act — and warning that the approvals threaten core principles that have kept banking and commerce separate for decades.
Warren, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, named Coinbase, Circle, Ripple, Stripe, BitGo, Crypto.com, Fidelity Digital Assets, Protego Holdings, and Paxos as recipients of charters the OCC has approved or conditionally approved since December 2025. Kraken's parent, Payward, filed its own application on May 8, 2026, with more applications reportedly pending.
What a national trust charter is — and isn't
A national trust bank charter is issued by the OCC under 12 U.S.C. 27(a) of the National Bank Act. It allows an institution to operate as a trust company — holding and managing assets on behalf of clients in a fiduciary capacity — under federal rather than state supervision. It is not a full commercial bank charter: a national trust bank does not take insured deposits, does not have access to FDIC deposit insurance, and is not subject to the Bank Holding Company Act and the broader prudential requirements that apply to full-service national banks.
That narrower regulatory footprint is central to Warren's complaint. Her letter argues the OCC has been approving charters for firms whose intended activities go well past traditional trust and fiduciary work — into stablecoin issuance, stablecoin reserve management, crypto custody at scale, and payments. The Independent Community Bankers of America made the same argument in a letter to the OCC after Coinbase received its conditional approval in April 2026, saying the application "fails to meet requirements of the National Bank Act."
Warren's legal argument
The letter's core claim: the OCC "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." Warren frames this as a violation of the National Bank Act, which limits national trust company activity to the "operations of a trust company and activities related thereto."
She also raises what she describes as a systemic concern: a national trust bank, once chartered, can apply for a master account at a Federal Reserve Bank, giving it access to the Fed's payment infrastructure. That access, Warren's letter argues, would let the named firms plug into central bank plumbing without carrying the obligations — FDIC insurance, capital requirements under the Bank Holding Company Act, consumer protection rules — that apply to FDIC-insured institutions. Her letter states: "Allowing national trust companies to act like full-service national banks, while evading the suite of restrictions, safeguards, and obligations that apply to full-service national banks, would pose clear risks to consumers, create conflicts of interest, undermine the separation of banking and commerce, and threaten the safety and soundness of the banking system."
The Bank Policy Institute, a trade group representing large banks, made a parallel argument before the approvals and had urged the OCC to reject the pending applications, noting that the applicants "propose to engage in activities such as managing stablecoin reserves, facilitating payments and taking deposits" — activities it said go beyond what a trust charter permits.
The OCC's posture under Gould
The OCC's December 12, 2025 conditional approvals for Ripple's First National Digital Currency Bank, BitGo Bank & Trust, Fidelity Digital Assets, and Paxos Trust Company were the opening wave. Coinbase received its conditional approval on April 2, 2026 — the OCC's Corporate Decision No. 1370 names the proposed entity as "Coinbase National Trust Company, New York, New York."
Gould, who came to the OCC under the Trump administration, has made expanding the federal banking perimeter for crypto an explicit priority. In March 2026, the OCC finalized a rule that replaced "fiduciary activities" in its chartering regulation with the broader phrase "operations of a trust company and activities related thereto" — a change designed to codify non-fiduciary custody and stablecoin-related activities as permissible trust bank work. The agency rejected calls for a moratorium on applications when it issued that rule.
What the firms are saying
Coinbase's chief legal officer Paul Grewal publicly confirmed the April conditional approval, noting the company still needs final OCC sign-off before operating under the charter. No company response to Warren's May 19 letter was publicly available at time of publication. Circle, Ripple, and the other named firms did not issue public statements in response to the letter.
What Warren is demanding
Her letter asks Gould to provide the full charter applications, conditions of approval, and related OCC communications for all nine named firms, plus any communications between the OCC and President Trump, members of his family, and White House officials regarding the approvals.