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A cryptocurrency venture backed by President Donald Trump has applied for a US banking licence that would broaden its access to the traditional financial system.
The Trump family’s World Liberty Financial (WLF), which counts the president as co-founder emeritus, on Wednesday said it had applied for a national bank trust charter from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, a department of the Treasury that regulates financial institutions.
A banking licence would further expand the Trump family’s rapidly growing crypto empire, which the Financial Times previously reported reaped more than $1bn in pre-tax profits in one year.
Zach Witkoff, a co-founder of WLF, said: “A national trust charter will allow us to bring issuance, custody and conversion together as a full-stack offering under one highly regulated entity.”
Gaining a charter would enable a new WLF entity called World Liberty Trust to issue and custody its USD1 stablecoin, a crypto token intended to match the value of the US dollar, the company said. National trust banks cannot provide loans or take direct deposits.
It would also allow WLF to operate under a single regulator, the OCC, rather than apply for licences from individual states, and help it to comply with the Genius Act. The legislation, approved by Congress last July, tightens the regulation of stablecoins.
WLF’s banking application comes a month after the OCC conditionally approved charter applications from five other crypto companies, including payments group Ripple and digital asset custodian BitGo, which currently issues and safeguards USD1.
The crypto venture was set up in late 2024 by the president’s three sons and the sons of Trump’s special envoy for peace negotiations, Steve Witkoff. WLF runs two tokens, a tradeable token called WLFI and USD1, which has a total market value of about $3.3bn.
WLF is one of several crypto projects the president and his family have launched over the past year, with Trump having embraced digital trading cards, stablecoins, tokens and a so-called decentralised finance platform while running the world’s largest economy.
Days before returning to office, Trump launched memecoins tied to himself and his wife Melania. He has since pardoned several crypto executives who had pleaded guilty to criminal charges and appointed industry-friendly officials to top regulatory jobs.
The president declared a personal income of $57.3mn from World Liberty Financial in his latest financial disclosure, which only covers the 2024 calendar year.
Mack McCain, WLF’s general counsel, who is named as the “trust officer” in its application, said: “The OCC has supervised trust activities for over a century. [World Liberty Trust] will operate under that same framework, with segregated customer assets, independent reserve management and regular examination.”
Alt5 Sigma, a separate US-listed crypto venture backed by the Trump family, last month fired its auditor after the FT inquired about the accounting firm’s lack of a licence.
Alt5 Sigma in August signed a deal to buy tokens issued by WLF, with Eric Trump joining as a board observer.
