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Per reporting by Jeff Stein at NOTUS, the Trump-appointed head of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency is expected to approve a national trust bank charter for World Liberty Financial, the stablecoin platform co-founded by President Trump and his sons.
What's the Scoop?
- What's at Stake: A national trust bank charter would let WLFI issue its USD1 stablecoin straight to retail users without routing through a middleman firm like BitGo. It would also let the platform settle transactions internally, taking a cut in the process the way major payment platforms like
PayPal do. - A Rubber Stamp: Former OCC staffers told NOTUS approval is essentially a foregone conclusion, with one describing a denial as "inconceivable." Current OCC head Jonathan Gould has already greenlighted some dozen crypto companies since arriving at the agency, compressing what were once two-year waits down to a 120-day goal.
- Conflict of Interest: Trump holds a 70% stake in an LLC that controls 38% of the holding company that owns WLFI. He reported $57M in personal earnings from the venture covering just 2024, a figure that has likely grown considerably since then. A federal charter would hand that business the implicit credibility of government oversight while simultaneously expanding its capacity to profit from USD1 transactions.
- WLFI's Defense: A company spokesperson told NOTUS that Trump stepped back from any operational role at WLFI upon entering office, that no employees hold government roles, and that charter approval would actually subject the firm to tighter regulatory scrutiny via mandatory OCC oversight and AML compliance.
