A U.S. banking lobby group petitioned the agency that issues federal bank charters, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, to reject Coinbase’s application for a trust charter, arguing that the crypto exchange fails to meet requirements in several categories.
The Independent Community Bankers of America, an influential group focused on the policy needs of thousands of smaller institutions, authored this latest attempt by the US banking industry to raise objections to the crypto industry’s forays into overlapping territory once completely controlled by traditional bankers. Its Tuesday letter to the OCC said it “strongly” opposed Coinbase’s effort, which it said failed “on several independent grounds, each of which is disqualifying under the OCC’s statutory charter standards.”
This follows a similar effort last week by Wall Street lobby group the Bank Policy Institute, opposing trust filings by several other crypto-related firms, including Ripple, Circle and Paxos. BPI also directly targeted Coinbase in a further effort on Monday.
The ICBA letter argues that Coinbase’s trust bank would struggle to operate at a profit in a bear market, the OCC would face difficulty safely dissolving the trust if it failed, and that Coinbase National Trust Co. would rely on “demonstrably flawed risk and control functions.” The organization also argued that the OCC’s so-called interpretive letter, which was used as the basis for the exchange’s application, was not properly issued.
The ICBA asked that the national banking regulator deny Coinbase’s application or at least expand the parts of Coinbase’s application materials that are available to the public and hold a public hearing to examine it. BPI made a number of similar allegations about the other companies.
Paul Grewal, Coinbase’s general counsel, posted a response on social media X, accusing the bankers of “trying to dig regulatory moats to protect their own.”
“Imagine opposing a regulated trust charter because you prefer crypto to remain … unregulated,” he wrote. “That is ICBA’s position.”
An OCC spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment on ICBA’s letter.
The largest US-based digital asset exchange – whose CEO, Brian Armstrong, has been a routine guest at the White House at recent crypto-political events – sought the charter last month in an effort to expand services such as payments and settlements and to ease the requirements its new financial services face for approvals in 50 separate state jurisdictions. The company said it had no designs on being a full-service bank.
“This filing does not meet statutory charter standards, poses compound safety and health risks, and will set a dangerous precedent for the fabric of the U.S. banking system,” according to the letter, signed by ICBA’s Brian Laverdure, senior vice president of digital assets and innovation policy.
The OCC has its permanent chief at the helm following the confirmation of Jonathan Gould, who was a former Bitfury chief legal officer and has been a critic of the crypto sector’s treatment of banks reluctant to do business with the new industry. Gould is among only a handful of pro-crypto President Donald Trump’s financial regulators to be confirmed by the Senate so far, even as the first year of the president’s four-year term winds down.
Read more: Wall Street joins consumer advocates to call for GENIUS Act edit on Stablecoins
UPDATE (November 4, 2025, 19:24 UTC): Adding response from Coinbase posted on X.
UPDATE (November 4, 2025, 20:40 UTC): Adds additional letter from BPI regarding Coinbase.
