Federal regulators are opening more avenues for crypto companies to operate under US rules, while congressional investigators are asking to see the records behind those decisions. Lawmakers want to know how regulators justified new trust charters, how crypto companies handled compliance and what dealings they had with people tied to President Donald Trump’s administration.
On Nov. 9, Coinbase announced that its national trust company had received final approval to open. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency granted preliminary conditional approval in April. The company said the charter gives its custody business a consistent federal framework.
Lawmakers had been questioning how federal regulators were using their existing authority to expand crypto companies’ reach. In a May 18 letter to the OCC, Sen. Elizabeth Warren challenged at least nine crypto trust-charter approvals, including Coinbase’s earlier conditional…
