A national banking regulator appointed by Donald Trump has given conditional approval for a branch of the Trump family’s cryptocurrency venture to receive a bank charter, a move that could help the business attract bigger customers and generate significantly more revenue.
The approval is historic: It appears to be the first time a company owned by the family of a sitting U.S. president has been allowed to operate with bank status. The development is already drawing scrutiny from Democratic lawmakers, who have raised alarms about possible conflicts of interest.
In a letter released Friday, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency cleared World Liberty Trust Co. to issue a U.S. dollar-backed stablecoin. According to the company’s website, 38% of the organization is owned by “an entity affiliated with Donald J. Trump and certain of his family members.”
World Liberty Financial, identified as the sponsor of the newly approved trust, had previously depended on BitGo, an outside crypto services firm, to supply a stable digital currency. With Friday’s conditional approval, the Trump family-linked crypto business can now bypass that intermediary and offer the service on its own.
Cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin have long been known for sharp price swings, making them less practical for companies or investors moving large sums of money.
Stablecoins, by contrast, are designed to track steadier assets such as the U.S. dollar or gold. That makes them more appealing for high-value transactions and, according to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, they can be marketed for payments, money transfers or as a way to store value.
The OCC’s decision effectively gives the Trump-affiliated company the ability to function like a bank for certain digital asset services, issuing cryptocurrency to customers for transactions. In practice, clients would swap U.S. dollars for the stablecoin, with related earnings flowing directly to the Trump family’s crypto operation.
The president’s family has already benefited substantially from World Liberty Financial. Based on the token’s value at the time, the company generated roughly $5 billion in its first days after going public, while continued investments from wealthy individuals and foreign nations have helped support its market value.
Trump himself has made more than $1.4 billion in business revenue from his family’s crypto ventures, according to his released financial disclosures.
White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly has maintained that the president “only acts in the best interests of the American public,” and said that no conflict of interest exists in part because the president’s assets are held in a blind trust managed by his children. Typically, a blind trust would operate with an independent trustee.
“President Trump’s assets are in a trust managed by his children,” Kelly said. “There are no conflicts of interest.”
State-backed Abu Dhabi investment firm MGX invested another $2 billion in the company in May 2025, promising to use the Trump family’s USD1 stablecoin in large transactions with crypto exchange company Binance.
The deal later came under scrutiny when the Trump administration then agreed to supply the UAE with highly coveted American-made AI chips despite prior administration concerns that they may make their way to China.
“We thank MGX and Binance for their trust in us, and I think it’s only the beginning,” World Liberty Financial co-founder Zach Witkoff said after announcing the deal, alongside the president’s son Eric Trump at a crypto convention in Dubai.
Witkoff is the son of the president’s special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff.
Ranking Member of the Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., urged the OCC to halt approval of Trump-linked business ventures, writing a letter to the comptroller in January. As an executive branch office, the president has ultimate authority over the OCC, though the office considers itself independent.
“For the first time in history, the president of the United States would be in charge of overseeing his own financial company,” Warren wrote.
Following the OCC’s preliminary approval, Warren described the decision as the “most brazen act of self-dealing our financial system has ever seen.”
“I’m introducing a bill to stop this kind of unprecedented corruption,” Warren said in a post on social media.
“The Comptroller and staff acted consistently with their statutory duties and ethical obligations with respect to the Application,” the OCC wrote Friday. “OCC staff reviewed this Application in accordance with the agency’s established policies and procedures.”
The charter application will not be fully approved until some conditions are met, including increasing the company’s capital, the OCC said.
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