World Liberty Trust Company, the banking arm of the Trump family-linked crypto venture World Liberty Financial, has received preliminary conditional approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency for a national trust bank charter. The OCC's letter, dated Friday, found that World Liberty Trust's application — submitted in January — meets the regulator's initial policy and structural requirements, though the company still cannot begin operating until it satisfies a further set of conditions and secures final approval.
If it clears that second stage, World Liberty Trust would be authorized to issue and redeem the USD1 stablecoin, hold the reserve assets backing it, and provide digital-asset custody for institutional clients. Notably, the charter would not let it accept federally insured deposits or make conventional loans — the same limited scope the OCC has now extended to a growing list of crypto-native applicants.
Part of a Broader OCC Pattern
World Liberty Trust joins Ripple, BitGo, Fidelity Digital Assets, Paxos and Crypto.com parent Foris DAX on the list of digital-asset firms that have secured preliminary national trust charters from the OCC, according to the agency's own decision letter. The approval effectively slots World Liberty into a regulatory track that stablecoin issuers have been racing toward all year, as federal chartering offers a path to operate across state lines without negotiating separate money-transmitter licenses in each one.
Political Backdrop Adds Scrutiny
The Trump family's financial ties to World Liberty Financial have made every regulatory milestone for the venture a subject of outsized attention, given that the OCC is itself a federal agency operating under the current administration. Critics have pointed to the appearance of a conflict of interest; supporters counter that the application was evaluated under the same standards applied to Ripple and the other approved issuers. The approval also lands as the White House deepens its direct engagement with the industry more broadly — a meeting between Trump and crypto executives is already on the calendar for next week — underscoring how closely intertwined political and regulatory tracks have become in digital-asset policy this year.
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For USD1 specifically, a trust charter would mark a meaningful step toward institutional legitimacy, giving the stablecoin a federally regulated custodian for its reserves rather than relying solely on state-level arrangements. World Liberty has not said how long it expects the remaining conditions to take, but the broader pattern among comparable OCC approvals this year suggests final sign-off, if granted, would likely follow in a matter of months rather than weeks.
