A trust firm connected to the Trump family’s cryptocurrency venture, World Liberty Financial, has moved a step closer to becoming a federally chartered bank.
On Friday, the Treasury Department’s Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, or OCC, issued conditional approval for World Liberty Trust Company to form a bank under a national charter. If finalized, the approval could allow the company to create and oversee its own stablecoins directly, rather than depending on an outside intermediary.
World Liberty Trust Company is tied to World Liberty Financial, the crypto business launched in 2024 by President Trump’s sons together with the sons of Steve Witkoff, who serves as the Trump administration’s special envoy to the Middle East. According to World Liberty Financial’s website, 38% of the company is owned by “an entity affiliated with Donald J. Trump and certain of his family members.”
The proposed bank charter has quickly drawn pushback from Democrats, who argue that giving banking authority to a company linked to the Trump family raises serious conflict-of-interest concerns.
“This creates the awkward situation of the OCC needing to police World Liberty, which has an affiliation with the president’s family,” said Austin Campbell, a professor at New York University’s Stern School of Business. “It is pretty unprecedented.”
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the Massachusetts Democrat, denounced the decision as a “brazen act of self-dealing.” On Saturday, Warren and several Democratic colleagues announced plans to introduce legislation that would bar the president, vice president and their relatives from “owning or controlling a bank.”
World Liberty has maintained that safeguards are in place to keep Trump family members from being involved in the bank’s operations while Mr. Trump remains in office.
In response to a request for comment, a World Liberty spokesperson said the trust company’s national charter “will ensure robust and permanent regulatory supervision from the OCC, a federal banking regulator, that will outlast the Trump administration.”
“Critics are missing the point: World Liberty Financial is running towards regulation and continuous oversight, not away from it,” the spokesperson said.
The White House and Trump Organization did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Crypto has been an extremely lucrative business for the president, with financial disclosures showing that he made at least $1.4 billion on crypto ventures alone last year. While Mr. Trump hosted a gala last year with top investors for his cryptocurrency business, he has said he is not involved in its day-to-day operations.
World Liberty’s trust company would still need to meet several requirements before it is granted final approval to become a bank.
Aimee Picchi
