A quiet shift inside the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency is allowing major US crypto firms to swap state money-transmission licences for slimmed-down national trust bank charters that come with minimal federal oversight and immunity from much of what state regulators can do, according to an investigation by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists published on Friday.
The move is the product of a recent reinterpretation of federal banking rules by the OCC, the federal regulator responsible for national banks. National trust charters had historically been issued to investment managers and private equity firms that did not perform conventional banking activity. Crypto firms were not on that list. Under the new reading they are, and the change has begun to ripple through the patchwork of state regulation that has policed digital asset money flows since the early days of the industry.
Linda Conti, superintendent of Maine's Bureau of Consumer Credit Protection, told the ICIJ that the practical result for state regulators is sweeping. "We will not be able to address consumer complaints," Conti said in an email. "We will not be able to ask any questions of these entities."
Maine's loss of authority is not theoretical. Following a surge in cryptocurrency scams, the state had begun requiring crypto firms to verify the ownership of certain digital wallets that customers were sending money to, a rule designed to stop victims from paying scammers. Coinbase, one of the world's largest exchanges, objected in a letter to federal authorities last September, arguing that Maine's rule was unconstitutional and that it "threatens the very purpose" of core features of cryptocurrency that offer users deep privacy. Coinbase has since converted to a national trust charter bank and, according to Conti, no longer needs to comply with the Maine wallet-verification rule.
Coinbase is not the only firm using the new route. Through a records request, the ICIJ obtained a letter sent to Conti's office by Fidelity Digital Assets, the crypto arm of investment giant Fidelity, which recently converted to a national trust charter bank and asked Maine to update its money transmission licence status to "Terminated – Surrendered / Canceled." Fidelity Digital Assets did not provide comment for the ICIJ story.
The regulatory architecture matters. Traditional banks sit under a consortium of overseers that can include the OCC, the Federal Reserve, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and state regulators in the states where they operate. National trust charter banks are generally overseen by the OCC alone. By switching, a crypto firm trades a complex map of state licences for a single federal supervisor whose remit on consumer protection is narrower than the patchwork it replaces.
The traditional banking industry is not happy about the new pipeline. The Guardian reported in March that the Bank Policy Institute, which represents most of the largest US banks, was considering legal action against the OCC over the decision, arguing that giving charters to crypto firms creates an "unlevel playing field" between deposit-taking lenders and digital asset companies that do not face the same prudential rules.
State attorneys general and state banking commissioners have spent years building expertise in policing dirty money flows through crypto, often pursuing enforcement actions where federal regulators have been slower to act. Stripping that authority shifts more of the burden onto the OCC just as the office's resources for crypto supervision have been redirected. The ICIJ separately reported in February that the IRS has cut staff at the office that examines dirty money safeguards at cryptocurrency exchanges.
For the firms now sliding under federal-only oversight, the upside is a single regulator and a clean rulebook. For state consumer-protection officials like Conti, the downside is the loss of the day-to-day enforcement tools they have used to claw back funds for scam victims. "We will not be able to address consumer complaints," she said again, summarising what the new regime means in practice.
The political backdrop is unmistakable. The Trump administration has framed its crypto policy as making the United States the "digital asset capital of the world," and Friday's reporting suggests the OCC's reinterpretation is one of the most consequential steps so far in that direction. Whether the change holds will depend on whether the Bank Policy Institute or state regulators succeed in challenging it in court.