The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) granted conditional approval on Friday, August 14, 2026, to World Liberty Trust Co. to operate as a national trust bank, according to [ABC News](https://abcnews.com/Business/trump-linked-crypto-venture-world-liberty-trust-granted/story?id=135668756). The decision marks the first time in US history that a company owned by the sitting president's family has been granted bank status.
World Liberty Trust Co. is 38 percent owned by "an entity affiliated with Donald J. Trump and certain of his family members," according to its website, as reported by ABC News.
The charter is not a traditional banking license. A national trust bank is a limited-purpose institution that cannot make loans or accept federally insured deposits. What it can do, according to ABC News and Cryptonomist, is issue and redeem the USD1 stablecoin directly, manage the reserves that back the token and offer digital asset custody services on a national basis. World Liberty Financial, the listed sponsor of the trust, has so far relied on the third-party crypto company BitGo for stablecoin services: the approval allows the Trump family's business to cut out the middleman and provide the service directly.
The approval is conditional. The OCC said the charter application will not be fully approved until some conditions are met, including increasing the company's capital, and added that "the Comptroller and staff acted consistently with their statutory duties and ethical obligations with respect to the Application," ABC News reports.
The decision drew immediate criticism from Senator Elizabeth Warren (Democrat, Massachusetts), ranking member of the Senate Banking Committee. Warren, who urged the OCC in a January letter to halt approval of Trump-linked business ventures, described the decision as "the most brazen act of self-dealing our financial system has ever seen" and said she is introducing a bill to stop such operations. "For the first time in history, the president of the United States would be in charge of overseeing his own financial company," she wrote in January.
The Trump family also holds 22.5 billion governance tokens of World Liberty Financial, according to Cryptonomist. The same outlet reports that Trump disclosed nearly 600 million dollars in income from World Liberty token and equity sales in 2025, part of more than 1.4 billion dollars in total crypto-related earnings; ABC News puts Trump's 2025 earnings from crypto ventures at over 1.4 billion dollars.
Sources
- ABC News – "Trump-linked crypto venture World Liberty Trust granted bank status" (primary): https://abcnews.com/Business/trump-linked-crypto-venture-world-liberty-trust-granted/story?id=135668756
- Cryptonomist (EN) – "Trump Crypto Bank Approval Spurs Regulatory and Ethical Debate" (secondary): https://en.cryptonomist.ch/2026/08/15/trump-crypto-bank-approval/
