CBS News reported:
The Treasury Department's Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) on Friday granted preliminary approval to World Liberty Trust Company to establish a bank charter, a move that would allow it to issue and manage its own stablecoins without relying on a middleman.Trump II co-founded World Liberty Financial in fall 2024 as he ran for a second Presidential term.
"This creates the awkward situation of the OCC needing to police World Liberty, which has an affiliation with the president's family," said Austin Campbell, a professor at New York University's Stern School of Business. "It is pretty unprecedented."
The Guardian noted:
World Liberty's bank will not be allowed to pay its depositors, the companies and individuals who buy its stablecoins, any interest.
The bank, however, can earn interest for itself by putting the cash it collects from those depositors into high-quality liquid investments – US government-backed treasury bonds.
So the Treasury is incentivized to approve a future buyer of its bonds. Right now Treasury Chief Scott Bessent needs help pressing down interest rates. Eric and Zach to the rescue.
Trump II's family holds 38% of World Liberty. A UAE sovereign wealth fund owns 49%.
Banking Dive reported:
The bank will be governed by a five-member board which will include CEO and Chairman Zach Witkoff; Scott Alper, president and chief investment officer at Witkoff Group; Robert Witkoff, former co-chief investment officer of insurance firm Chubb Co.; Jeffrey Weiner, former CEO of accounting firm Marcum LLP; and Erin Baskett, a member of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority’s board of governors.
World Liberty Trust will issue and redeem USD1, manage the reserve backing USD1, and conduct digital asset custody services for institutional customers.
The major users of USD1 are also Middle East sovereign wealth funds. Reuters reported in May 2025:
A stablecoin launched by Donald Trump's World Liberty Financial crypto venture is being used by an Abu Dhabi investment firm for its $2 billion investment in crypto exchange Binance, one of World Liberty's co-founders said on Thursday.
Fortune added:
When first launched, the company had no products—except for a cryptocurrency that it sold to investors for $550 million. In March, the company launched its own stablecoin, or cryptocurrency pegged to underlying assets like the U.S. dollar.
The coin got an immediate bump in market capitalization after MGX, another venture firm tied to the Abu Dhabi royal family, invested $2 billion into the crypto exchange Binance with USD1, the stablecoin.Maybe they can name it Phoenix Bank as it is rising fast towards the sun. When that Co-founder Emeritus hairpiece catches fire things may get very ugly. Until then party like its the late 1920's under the Great Trumpsby.
