Trump Family Crypto Firm Wins Preliminary Approval from Trump Administration to Start a Bank

AP Photo/Altaf Qadri

The Trump family’s crypto business received preliminary approval on Friday from President Donald Trump’s own administration to become a federally chartered bank.

World Liberty Financial announced that the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), an independent bureau under the Treasury Department and thus the executive branch, had granted conditional approval for World Liberty Trust to operate as a national trust bank.

The company must still satisfy regulatory conditions and undergo a final OCC examination before opening for business, the Wall Street Journal reported in breaking the story.

If ultimately approved, the bank would be able to issue, redeem and safeguard USD1, World Liberty’s dollar-backed stablecoin, which launched last year and now has a market value of roughly $4 billion. National trust banks generally cannot accept deposits or make loans in the same way as traditional banks.

Trump and his sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, helped launch World Liberty in 2024 as a decentralized-finance venture promising borrowing, lending and trading services.

The venture has also proved lucrative for Trump. His latest annual financial disclosure showed he received about $515 million from sales of World Liberty Financial tokens and another $65 million from sales of equity in its holding company, according to CNBC.

World Liberty’s application has meanwhile faced criticism from Democrats over potential conflicts of interest, but the White House has previously insisted that “neither the President nor his family has ever engaged – or will ever engage – in conflicts of interest.”

World Liberty Trust chairman Zach Witkoff, whose father Steve Witkoff serves as the president’s Middle East envoy, defended the regulatory process, said that the company had submitted “probably one of the most thoroughly reviewed applications in the history of the OCC”, according to The Journal.

“We answered all of the regulator’s questions, and we accepted the significant obligations and ongoing scrutiny that come with the national charter,” Witkoff said. “If we were looking for less oversight, we would not have chosen federal supervision.”

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