Crypto Industry Fights Senator Warren’s Claim That Coinbase, Ripple Bank Charter Approvals Are Illegal Days after a Sen.
Elizabeth Warren said the Treasury Department’s recent spate of bank charter approvals for crypto firms may be illegal, industry leaders are forcefully pushing back on the characterization
On Tuesday, the Digital Chamber, a top crypto industry trade group, implored the Trump Treasury Department to stand by its recent decision to begin granting national trust bank charters to crypto firms for the first time. “We strongly encourage the OCC to defend these charter approvals and continue developing clear supervisory expectations for trust banks,” the group said in a letter to Jonathan Gould, the powerful head of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). In the last year, the OCC has granted national trust bank charters to facilitate crypto-related activities for numerous companies, including Coinbase, Circle, Ripple, Paxos, BitGo, Fidelity, Crypto.com, Stripe, and Protego. Last week, Sen.
Warren (D-MA) blasted the approvals, arguing they violated America’s banking laws and amounted to the Trump administration allowing crypto firms to use restrictive trust charters to perform wide-ranging banking functions. She said such a policy shift posed systemic threats to the U.S. banking system. National trust companies, which are regulated with less scrutiny than traditional banks, generally offer fiduciary services (manage assets on another’s behalf) but do not accept customer deposits.