The Digital Chamber pushes back on Sen. Warren’s claim that OCC trust charter approvals for Ripple, Circle, and others violate banking law. The dispute could decide whether crypto firms get federal custody oversight without deposit-taking rules.
Alpha Score of 27 reflects poor overall profile with poor momentum, poor value, weak quality, strong sentiment.
The Digital Chamber has pushed back directly against Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s claim that the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency improperly approved national trust charters for multiple crypto firms. In a Tuesday letter to Comptroller Jonathan Gould, the industry group said Warren misreads the National Bank Act and the OCC’s established charter powers.
The dispute centers on conditional approvals granted last year to Ripple, Circle, Paxos, Fidelity Digital Assets, BitGo, and Coinbase. Warren’s earlier letter to the OCC described those approvals as apparent violations of the National Bank Act. The Digital Chamber, representing more than 250 crypto-related entities, rejected that framing outright.
Warren’s letter argued that the firms were not being held to the same standards as traditional banks. She specifically cited the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins Act (GENIUS Act) as evidence that Congress had not intended to loosen bank requirements for digital asset firms. She said the law does not remove the OCC’s duty to apply standard banking criteria.
The six firms that received conditional approvals from the OCC last year:
Warren warned that these approvals could expose the banking system to risk if crypto firms operate under federal charters without meeting deposit-taking bank requirements. Her letter framed the issue as a financial-stability concern, not merely a technical legal dispute.
Carbone told the OCC that the trust charters fall squarely within the agency’s existing legal powers under the National Bank Act. He said the approvals do not create full-service banks. The firms cannot take cash deposits or issue loans. Instead, they would operate as federally regulated trust banks, allowed to custody customer assets while staying outside the commercial-banking model.
Carbone argued that it would be inconsistent for Congress to create a federal framework for stablecoin issuers through the GENIUS Act while the OCC refused to use its charter authority for firms seeking federal oversight. He said Warren’s description of the approvals as apparent violations misread both the statute and the OCC’s long-running charter powers.
The OCC’s national trust charter is a limited-purpose bank charter. Unlike a traditional bank, a trust bank cannot accept deposits or make commercial loans. Its core business is custody and fiduciary services. That structure is already used by some state-chartered trust companies. The question is whether the OCC can grant that same status to digital asset firms under its current reading of the National Bank Act.
All six approvals remain conditional. The firms still need final clearance before they can operate under the trust-bank structure. That means the OCC has not yet fully determined whether each application meets all requirements. The conditional stage gives the agency room to add conditions or to reject applications if new concerns emerge.
If the charters are finalized, the firms would gain a federal pathway for custody services without being placed in the same category as deposit-taking commercial banks. That distinction matters for capital requirements, examination standards, and resolution planning.
Warren’s financial-stability argument hinges on the idea that crypto firms could use trust charters to avoid the stricter rules applied to banks that hold customer deposits. If a trust bank holds crypto assets and offers staking or lending services, questions about asset segregation and conflict of interest could arise.
The Digital Chamber’s counterargument is that the trust-charter process gives regulators direct oversight of digital asset firms instead of leaving them outside the federal banking framework. Currently, many of these firms operate under state money-transmitter licenses or state trust charters, which have varying levels of scrutiny. A federal trust charter would bring them under the OCC’s examination authority.
If the OCC finalizes the charters without adding new restrictions or conditions beyond the standard trust-bank framework, that would validate Carbone’s reading of the National Bank Act. It would signal that the agency believes its existing authority covers digital asset custody firms.
If the OCC responds to Warren by adding novel conditions or delaying final approvals, that would suggest the agency shares some of her concerns. A stronger signal would be Congress stepping in to amend the National Bank Act or the GENIUS Act to explicitly limit crypto trust charters.
The charter dispute is not happening in isolation. The treatment of stablecoin rewards was a debated issue during work on the GENIUS Act, though lawmakers later resolved that dispute as the bill advanced. The OCC’s role in digital asset regulation has also been a point of tension between banks, lawmakers, and crypto firms.
Senator Warren has positioned herself as one of the most prominent critics of crypto integration with traditional finance. Her objections to the OCC trust charters are part of a broader push to treat digital asset firms like banks for regulatory purposes–or to keep them out of the federal banking system entirely.
The Digital Chamber, for its part, wants the OCC to continue granting trust charters to crypto firms. The group argues that leaving these firms under state regulation alone creates a fragmented oversight landscape and limits the SEC’s and OCC’s ability to monitor risk.
For traders and operators in the crypto sector, the outcome of this dispute could determine whether federal trust charts become a viable on-ramp for institutional crypto custody. If the OCC finalizes the approvals, it may set a precedent for other digital asset firms seeking similar recognition. If the approvals stall or are revoked, firms may need to pursue state charters or wait for new federal legislation.
The next concrete move is the OCC’s response to both Warren’s letter and the Digital Chamber’s rebuttal. A formal opinion from the agency would clarify whether it believes the National Bank Act covers digital asset trust banks as currently structured. Until then, the six firms remain in conditional limbo, and the regulatory battle lines are drawn.
Prepared with AlphaScala research tooling and grounded in primary market data: live prices, fundamentals, SEC filings, hedge-fund holdings, and insider activity. Each story is checked against AlphaScala publishing rules before release. Educational coverage, not personalized advice.