The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has given preliminary conditional approval to World Liberty Trust Company, National Association, bringing the Trump-linked World Liberty Financial closer to operating under a federal national trust bank charter.
The Aug. 14 OCC letter says the agency found that the proposed charter met applicable regulatory and policy standards for conditional approval. World Liberty Trust must satisfy additional requirements before receiving final authorization, and the OCC can withdraw its preliminary approval if those conditions are not met.
The decision offers World Liberty Financial a potential route into the federally supervised banking system for services tied to its USD1 stablecoin, including issuance and redemption, fiat conversion, and crypto custody. It does not yet permit the firm to operate as a fully chartered national trust bank.
A federal route for USD1 operations
World Liberty Financial created the trust company earlier this year as part of its application for an OCC license. The company has said the proposed bank would serve institutional customers such as market makers, exchanges, and investment firms.
A national trust bank charter could give the company a federal framework for handling customer assets and settlement services linked to USD1. Stablecoin issuers have historically relied on state trust charters, money-transmitter licenses, bank partnerships, or combinations of those arrangements. An OCC charter would place the trust company under direct federal supervision rather than leaving its core operations primarily to a patchwork of state-level regimes.
World Liberty Financial describes USD1 as a dollar-pegged stablecoin with a market capitalization of roughly $4 billion, placing it behind larger rivals such as Tether’s USDT and Circle’s USDC. The company’s stated objective is to support a stablecoin that can move between blockchain-based markets and conventional dollar payment rails.
Zach Witkoff, co-founder of World Liberty Financial and son of U.S. Middle East special envoy Steve Witkoff, said in a Friday post on X that the company intended to build “the most trusted and widely used digital dollar in the world while strengthening the role of the U.S. dollar across the global economy.”
The conditional approval does not validate that ambition, but it places World Liberty Financial among a growing group of crypto companies pursuing federal banking oversight as a way to support stablecoin and custody businesses.
OCC expands charter access for crypto firms
The OCC has also issued conditional approvals to several established crypto companies during the past year, including Coinbase, Paxos, BitGo, Ripple, and Circle, according to the regulator’s chartering actions.
Jonathan Gould, the Comptroller of the Currency, has argued that companies using crypto and other emerging technologies should have a path to become federally supervised banks when they can meet the same standards expected of other charter applicants. Before becoming Comptroller, Gould served as chief legal officer at blockchain infrastructure company Bitfury.
That position has helped reshape the debate around crypto bank charters. The central question is increasingly whether firms can meet capital, governance, compliance, cybersecurity, liquidity, and risk-management expectations, rather than whether a blockchain-based business model should be excluded from the federal chartering process outright.
For stablecoin issuers, a trust-bank structure may be particularly useful. Stablecoins depend on timely issuance and redemption, reliable reserve management, and operational controls that work during periods of heavy demand. A federally supervised entity could help institutional counterparties assess those functions within a familiar regulatory model, although the exact conditions imposed on World Liberty Trust have not been detailed in the material provided.
Political scrutiny surrounds the application
The application has drawn criticism from Democratic lawmakers because of World Liberty Financial’s connections to President Donald Trump and his family.
In January, Senator Elizabeth Warren, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, wrote to Gould asking the OCC to pause consideration of World Liberty Financial’s application until Trump divested from the business and addressed potential conflicts of interest.
Warren argued that approving a charter tied to the President’s company would put the OCC in the position of supervising and enforcing banking laws against an entity connected to the administration, while also making regulatory decisions that could affect its commercial prospects.
Financial disclosures released in June reported that Trump had received millions of dollars connected to World Liberty Financial, according to the supplied materials. The disclosure has sharpened questions about how the OCC will demonstrate independence in its handling of the company’s application and any future supervisory relationship.
The OCC’s conditional approval indicates that those objections did not stop the agency’s review from moving forward. It does not resolve the political debate surrounding the charter, which is likely to continue as World Liberty Trust works toward final approval.
Final approval remains a consequential hurdle
Conditional approval is a meaningful procedural step, but it is not the end of the chartering process. The OCC commonly requires applicants to complete organizational, capital, management, compliance, and operational commitments before a bank may open.
For World Liberty Financial, those next steps will determine whether its proposed stablecoin infrastructure becomes an operating federally chartered trust bank or remains a preliminary plan. The company would need to demonstrate that it can run custody, conversion, redemption, and compliance systems in line with the OCC’s requirements.
The case also adds pressure to the emerging divide within the stablecoin market. Firms with access to bank charters or regulated trust structures may find it easier to offer services to large financial counterparties seeking clear supervisory accountability. Companies operating under less centralized licensing arrangements could face tougher questions from customers about reserves, governance, redemption practices, and legal protections.
World Liberty Financial now has a conditional federal endorsement, but its ability to translate that approval into a functioning national trust bank will depend on meeting the OCC’s remaining requirements under unusually close political and market scrutiny.
For deeper context on WLFI’s regulatory path and dollar ambitions, read this detailed WLFI analysis next.
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