Eric Trump has agreed to step back from decision-making at World Liberty Financial's proposed national trust bank while the crypto business works through the federal approval process.

Eric Trump, World Liberty co-founder Zak Folkman, and Emirati investor Hamad Khalfan Ali Matar Alshamsi each signed separate commitments through companies connected to them. The agreements keep all three investors away from bank management decisions.

The commitments became public when World Liberty won preliminary approval late last week. They address the company's ties to the Trump family and overseas money as its affiliate pursues a federal bank charter.

Such arrangements are known as passivity commitments. According to World Liberty, the purpose of these structures is to ensure that particular investors do not control the trust bank. The device has long been used in banking when an investor wants to hold a large stake without taking on the legal responsibilities that come with control. Lawyers said the case is considered different because, apart from a foreign investor with connections to the royal family of Abu Dhabi, one of the parties is the son of the country's president — a distinction that also applies to other aspects of financial business.

World Liberty keeps major investors away from management while regulators review the bank

World Liberty spokesman David Wachsman said the company expects to remain under federal oversight for years.

"World Liberty is intentionally running towards regulation and permanent supervision, not away from it. Before full approval and for many years afterward, the World Liberty Trust Company will fully cooperate with the OCC, a federal regulator, and will adhere to all other applicable laws and regulations," Wachsman said.

The OCC — the Treasury Department office that charters and supervises national banks — is also the authority behind national trust charters, which cover custody and fiduciary activities rather than deposit-taking.

The proposed crypto bank has drawn more scrutiny than other such proposals in view of World Liberty's ownership associations. Before Donald Trump took office as president of the country, World Liberty agreed to sell 49% ownership to a business associated with Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed, brother of the UAE president.

Trump and his family also hold financial interests in World Liberty. The company says none of them work there as officers, directors, or employees. The White House rejects claims that Trump's business interests amount to a conflict of interest or that he uses presidential power to enrich himself.

Federal reviews for bank charters involve detailed checks on the finances of organizers and directors. World Liberty's filing lists Zach Witkoff, son of presidential envoy Steve Witkoff. It also names Scott Alper, an executive at the Witkoff Group, along with Robert Witkoff, Steve's brother.

A federal charter would move USD1 issuance and nearly $4 billion of reserves inside World Liberty

The charter would let World Liberty directly hold the assets supporting USD1, its dollar-backed stablecoin. That setup would allow the company to keep issuance and reserve management within the same organization rather than depend on outside arrangements.

USD1 is worth nearly $4 billion by market value, according to CoinGecko, making it one of the world's largest stablecoins, though it remains far smaller than the market leaders, Tether's USDT and Circle's USDC. Stablecoin issuers now also operate under the GENIUS Act, the federal stablecoin law signed in July 2025, which requires payment stablecoins to be backed by high-quality liquid assets and sets monthly public reserve disclosures.

The filing also lands during a wider shift in federal policy toward crypto banking. Jonathan Gould, the U.S. Comptroller of the Currency, said after taking office that approving new bank charters would be one of his priorities. That differed from the Biden administration, which had been far less welcoming toward charter requests from digital-asset firms.

World Liberty is part of that group. Ripple, Paxos, and Fidelity Digital Assets all won conditional trust bank approvals in 2025. Crypto firms have taken the trust-company route before: Anchorage Digital received the first national trust charter granted to a crypto company in 2021. Coinbase (NASDAQ: COIN) received comparable conditional approval earlier this year. Those decisions give the companies a route toward running regulated trust banks, but each still has federal requirements to meet before receiving full authorization.

Trump's administration has also moved deeper into digital-asset policy. On Wednesday, Trump met top executives from crypto companies at the White House. The meeting took place as the Securities and Exchange Commission works on finishing a broader regulatory structure for the industry.

World Liberty now faces the remaining steps in that process. Regulators still have to decide whether the company can bring USD1's reserve setup inside a federally supervised banking business.