World Liberty Financial co-founders and others ring the Nasdaq opening bell in August. Paola Chapdelaine for WSJ
World Liberty Financial, the Trump family’s flagship crypto venture, said that one of its entities has applied for a national banking license, joining the rush of crypto companies seeking broader access to mainstream finance.
World Liberty Trust filed its de novo application Wednesday with the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. An arm of the Treasury Department, the OCC charters, regulates and supervises all national banks.
A banking charter would allow World Liberty Trust to issue and safeguard USD1, the dollar-backed stablecoin that World Liberty launched last year. The stablecoin, whose reserves are currently custodied with BitGo, has a market value of $3.4 billion in part because USD1 tokens were used by a third-party investor to buy a $2 billion stake in the crypto exchange Binance.
Word Liberty’s application comes after the Trump administration approved in December bank charter applications from BitGo as well as those from Fidelity Digital Assets, Circle Internet Group CRCL -5.02crease; red down pointing triangle, Ripple and Paxos.
Trust banks differ from full banks in that they generally can’t take deposits or make loans. Banking lobby groups, however, have argued that granting trust charters could heighten systemic risk and undermine the credibility of the charter itself.
In time, World Liberty’s trust company plans to offer crypto custody and stablecoin conversion services. It intends to serve institutional customers, including crypto exchanges, market makers, and investment firms.
President Trump helped launch World Liberty in late 2024. The entity was billed as a decentralized finance, or DeFi, project that would help match crypto investors eager to borrow and lend from, and trade with, one another. The borrowing, lending and trading features haven’t become available yet.
A charter could help World Liberty develop and launch products faster by removing dependencies on third-party providers, said Mack McCain, general counsel of World Liberty Financial, who will serve as the chief trust officer for World Liberty Trust Company.
Critics have said World Liberty and the USD1 stablecoin pose a major conflict of interest for President Trump, who pardoned Binance’s founder Changpeng Zhao last year.
“We structured this trust company intentionally to avoid conflicts of interest,” said Zach Witkoff, who would become the president and chairman of World Liberty Trust Company.
Witkoff said President Trump and his family hold a nonvoting interest in the trust company, and they will not serve as executives or exercise day-to-day control of the business.
Witkoff, son of presidential envoy Steve Witkoff, co-founded World Liberty Financial along with President Trump’s three sons: Eric Trump, Donald Trump Jr. and Barron Trump.
World Liberty said the trust bank will be structured to comply with the Genius Act, the landmark stablecoin bill that was signed into law by President Trump last summer. The company said the trust bank’s operations will follow anti-money-laundering and sanctions screening requirements.
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