The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency granted preliminary conditional approval Thursday for World Liberty Trust Company, National Association, a proposed trust bank that would take over issuance and custody of USD1, the dollar-pegged stablecoin tied to President Donald Trump's crypto venture, World Liberty Financial. The regulatory path looks clear on the institutional merits. The risk is the political architecture around it: the OCC placed conflict-of-interest questions outside its review's scope, and critics argue it should not have.
The proposed institution would be headquartered in Bay Harbor Islands, Florida, with Zachary Witkoff, a World Liberty co-founder, listed as organizer, director, and president. Passivity commitments filed with the approval letter were signed by Eric Trump for at least one investing entity. The bank would absorb the issuance and redemption role currently held by BitGo, which serves as the exclusive issuer and custodian of USD1, and would provide digital-asset custody as a fiduciary, along with the ability for custody clients to convert approved stablecoins into USD1.
The OCC attached conditions. The bank must meet a $20 million minimum capital requirement and comply with the GENIUS Act, the stablecoin legislation enacted last year that has pushed a wave of crypto firms toward similar charters. As a trust bank, the institution won't accept deposits, carry FDIC insurance, or seek a Federal Reserve master account for now, and it committed to remaining outside the definition of a "bank" under the Bank Holding Company Act. World Liberty applied for the charter earlier this year. The bank has 18 months to open.
The conflicts the OCC set aside
The OCC received comments during its review flagging potential conflicts of interest involving the president, his family, the Witkoffs, and Emirati investors in World Liberty Financial. Commenters also raised questions about the Emoluments Clause. The regulator largely dismissed those concerns as outside the scope of its review, noting that World Liberty Financial itself is not a party to the application. That framing keeps the review trained on the applying entity and not the relationships around it. Whether that separation holds as a legal matter is a different question.
The counterargument belongs to Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who has called the OCC's crypto charter program illegal, arguing the approved firms function as banks while sidestepping the protections that status requires. That challenge predates this approval and is not resolved by it. On balance, the OCC has now cleared national trust charters for Circle, Ripple, Paxos, Fidelity, and BitGo alongside World Liberty. The line to watch is whether Warren's objections gain legal traction before World Liberty's 18-month window to open expires.