World Liberty Financial, the cryptocurrency venture backed by President Donald Trump and his family, has received conditional preliminary approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) to establish a national trust bank. The decision marks a major step toward bringing the company's stablecoin business under direct federal banking supervision.

World Liberty Trust Company

The proposed institution, World Liberty Trust Company, would concentrate on digital-asset services rather than traditional banking. Under the conditional approval, the company could issue and manage its USD1 stablecoin, oversee the dollar reserves supporting the token, and provide digital-asset custody services.

The charter would not, however, authorize the bank to accept traditional deposits or make conventional loans. Before final approval is granted, World Liberty must also satisfy conditions covering capital, staffing, governance, and other regulatory requirements.

USD1, which launched in March 2025, has grown rapidly and now has more than $4 billion in circulation, making it one of the largest dollar-backed stablecoins on the market, though it still trails the dominant tokens, Tether's USDT and Circle's USDC. The new structure would allow World Liberty to bring stablecoin issuance and reserve management directly within a federally regulated entity.

Political scrutiny intensifies

The approval comes amid intense political scrutiny of World Liberty Financial over its connections to the Trump family. Critics, including Democratic lawmakers, have questioned whether those relationships create conflicts of interest at a time when the federal government is overseeing the company's banking application.

Concerns have also focused on foreign ownership and investments linked to the United Arab Emirates, including a reported $2 billion commitment from Abu Dhabi state-linked investor MGX that was settled in USD1. Regulators have maintained that the charter review followed established supervisory procedures.

The conditional approval nevertheless places World Liberty among a growing group of cryptocurrency companies seeking federal trust bank charters, a broader trend that reflects the industry's push to integrate stablecoins and digital-asset custody into the traditional U.S. financial system. Anchorage Digital received the first OCC national trust charter for a crypto firm in 2021, and Circle, the issuer of USDC, has announced plans to form its own national trust bank. The push has accelerated since the GENIUS Act, signed into law in July 2025, created the first federal framework for payment stablecoins and required issuers to operate under federal or state regulation.

World Liberty now faces the next stage of regulatory review. If it satisfies the OCC's conditions and receives final approval, the company would gain a federally supervised banking structure for its expanding USD1 ecosystem, an outcome that would also add to the record on how the OCC supervises digital-asset trust banks as the new stablecoin rules take effect.