{"id":29725,"date":"2026-05-26T14:42:52","date_gmt":"2026-05-26T14:42:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/crypto-lobby-pushes-back-on-warren-backs-occs-stablecoin-charters\/"},"modified":"2026-05-26T14:43:05","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T14:43:05","slug":"crypto-lobby-pushes-back-on-warren-backs-occs-stablecoin-charters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/crypto-lobby-pushes-back-on-warren-backs-occs-stablecoin-charters\/","title":{"rendered":"Crypto lobby pushes back on Warren, backs OCC\u2019s stablecoin charters"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div class=\"post-detail__content blocks\">\n<p class=\"is-style-lead\">Leading crypto trade groups are rallying behind the U.S. banking regulator in a bid to blunt Senator Elizabeth Warren\u2019s claim that national trust charters for firms like Coinbase, Ripple, and Circle are illegal under federal banking law.<\/p>\n<div id=\"cn-block-summary-block_7da15f92612b8bbaafba8125b4db9b63\" class=\"cn-block-summary\">\n<div class=\"cn-block-summary__nav tabs\">\n        <span class=\"tabs__item is-selected\">Summary<\/span>\n    <\/div>\n<div class=\"cn-block-summary__content\">\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The Digital Chamber has written to OCC Comptroller Jonathan Gould urging him to stand by national trust bank charters granted to crypto and stablecoin firms.<a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/decrypt.co\/369000\/crypto-industry-fights-warren-claim-coinbase-ripple-bank-charters-illegal\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"><\/a><\/li>\n<li>Warren argues those approvals violate the National Bank Act and hand \u201ccrypto banks\u201d bank\u2011like powers without bank\u2011level safeguards, demanding full charter records by June 1.<\/li>\n<li>Industry groups counter that Congress effectively blessed OCC oversight of stablecoin issuers through the GENIUS Act and that these entities do not take FDIC\u2011insured deposits, so they are not traditional banks.<\/li>\n<\/ul><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><!-- .cn-block-summary --><\/p>\n<p>According to reporting from\u00a0<a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/decrypt.co\/369000\/crypto-industry-fights-warren-claim-coinbase-ripple-bank-charters-illegal\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Decrypt<\/a>, the Digital Chamber has sent a letter to Comptroller Jonathan Gould urging the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to \u201cstand firm\u201d on its decision to grant national trust bank charters to crypto-focused firms, including Coinbase National Trust Company, Ripple National Trust Bank and Circle-affiliated entities. The letter comes days after Warren, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, accused the OCC of \u201cillegally\u201d approving at least nine crypto trust charters in a way that she says flouts the National Bank Act and threatens the safety of the U.S. banking system.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">JUST IN: Crypto lobby spending leans heavily Republican, with tens of millions more directed to GOP candidates and elections than to Democrats. Potential implication: partisan policy dynamics could influence regulatory risk and industry lobbying leverage. <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/search?q=%24CRYPTO&amp;src=ctag&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">$CRYPTO<\/a>? <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/oNpR8c4g2e\">pic.twitter.com\/oNpR8c4g2e<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Bpay News (@bpaynews) <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/bpaynews\/status\/2058898926191735285?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">May 25, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p>In a May 18 letter to Gould, Warren argued that since December 2025 the OCC has approved \u201cat 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,\u201d naming Ripple, Circle, Paxos, Fidelity Digital Asset Services, BitGo, Crypto.com\u2019s Foris DAX, Stripe\u2019s Bridge, Protego and Coinbase among the beneficiaries. She warned that these firms are \u201ceffectively crypto banks that want to evade the fundamental safeguards and obligations that come with being a bank,\u201d and set a June 1 deadline for the OCC to hand over all applications, legal analyses and any communications with President Trump or his family tied to the approvals.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"genius-act-becomes-a-legal-shield-for-stablecoin-c\">GENIUS Act becomes a legal shield for stablecoin charters<\/h2>\n<p>The Digital Chamber\u2019s response leans heavily on the Guiding and Establishing National Innovations for U.S. Stablecoins Act\u2014the GENIUS Act\u2014which President Trump signed into law in July 2025 as the first federal framework for U.S. dollar\u2011backed payment stablecoins. As summarized in Decrypt\u2019s coverage, the group argues that \u201cCongress has effectively authorized the OCC to extend bank charters to stablecoin businesses through the GENIUS Act,\u201d and that, as a result, national trust charters for entities like Circle and other payment stablecoin issuers are not some unlawful end\u2011run but a direct implementation of congressional intent.<\/p>\n<p>Under the GENIUS Act, a new category of \u201cpermitted payment stablecoin issuer\u201d is created and placed under primary OCC supervision, with the agency empowered to license, regulate and examine both bank and non\u2011bank stablecoin issuers. The OCC followed up in February 2026 with a proposed rule to implement the GENIUS Act, setting out how national trust charters and other licenses would apply to stablecoin activities and stressing that federal qualified issuers will be \u201clicensed, regulated, examined, and supervised exclusively by the Comptroller.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Crucially for the industry\u2019s argument, national trust charters do not allow these firms to accept FDIC\u2011insured deposits or conduct traditional commercial lending. The Digital Chamber points to that limitation in its letter, saying the chartered firms \u201cdo not accept FDIC\u2011insured deposits and therefore are not engaged in traditional banking operations,\u201d framing them instead as custodians and payment stablecoin issuers operating under a bespoke federal regime.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"a-proxy-fight-over-who-gets-to-be-a-bank-in-crypto\">A proxy fight over who gets to be a \u201cbank\u201d in crypto<\/h2>\n<p>Warren\u2019s camp insists this is semantics. Her letter argues that the OCC is using limited\u2011purpose trust charters and GENIUS Act authority to give crypto firms \u201cbank\u2011level privileges without bank\u2011level accountability,\u201d including activities such as staking, lending, trading and stablecoin issuance that go beyond what the National Bank Act allows for national trust banks. She warns that this \u201cregulatory shortcut\u201d could create systemic risk if a stablecoin issuer or large crypto custodian were to fail, without the capital, liquidity and resolution tools that apply to full\u2011service banks.<\/p>\n<p>    <!-- .cn-block-related-link --><\/p>\n<p>Industry groups, by contrast, are treating Warren\u2019s attack as an existential threat to the only federal on\u2011ramp that has actually started to work for large crypto firms. The Digital Chamber\u2019s letter, alongside comments filed by the Blockchain Association on the OCC\u2019s GENIUS rulemaking, frames national trust charters and PPSI licenses as a hard\u2011won path to supervised status for stablecoin and custody providers that previously faced a patchwork of state money\u2011transmitter and trust licenses.<\/p>\n<p>What is really at stake here is not just the legality of a handful of charters, but who gets to define the perimeter of the U.S. banking system in the stablecoin era. If Warren succeeds in scaring the OCC into retreat, Coinbase, Ripple, Circle and peers could see their most promising federal charter avenue narrowed or revoked, pushing them back toward state\u2011level regimes and reinforcing her broader \u201canti\u2011crypto army\u201d posture. If the OCC and its allies hold their ground, the GENIUS Act will have done more than bless stablecoins; it will have quietly created a new class of non\u2011deposit\u2011taking, OCC\u2011supervised crypto institutions that look, move and lobby a lot like banks\u2014even if they insist, for now, that they are something different.<\/p>\n<p>    <!-- .cn-block-related-link --><\/p><\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Leading crypto trade groups are rallying behind the U.S. banking regulator in a bid to blunt Senator Elizabeth Warren\u2019s claim that national trust charters for firms like Coinbase, Ripple, and&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9012,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29725","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cryptocurrency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29725","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29725"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29725\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29726,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29725\/revisions\/29726"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}