OCC clears a Trump-linked trust bank for USD1, and BitGo loses the issuer seat

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency on Thursday granted preliminary conditional approval to World Liberty Trust Company, National Association, a Florida-based national trust bank tied to World Liberty Financial, the crypto venture backed by President Donald Trump and his family ^[1]. The consequential part is not the charter itself but the plumbing it rearranges: according to the OCC's decision letter, the new bank intends to issue and redeem the USD1 stablecoin, taking that role over from BitGo, currently USD1's exclusive issuer and custodian ^[2].

That is a change in who holds the reserves and who has the fiduciary duty attached to them. The proposed bank would sit in Bay Harbor Islands, Florida ^[3], provide digital-asset custody as a fiduciary, and allow custody clients to convert approved stablecoins into USD1 ^[4]. Zachary Witkoff, a World Liberty co-founder, is listed as organizer, director and president ^[5].

The charter is narrower than a bank licence. As a trust bank it will not take deposits, will not carry FDIC insurance, and will not, for now, seek a Federal Reserve master account ^[11]. It also committed to staying outside the definition of a "bank" under the Bank Holding Company Act ^[12]. The conditions attached include a $20 million minimum capital requirement and a mandate to comply with the GENIUS Act, the stablecoin law enacted last year ^[6].

Worth noting for anyone reading this as a regulatory upgrade: BitGo is itself among the digital-asset firms the OCC has already cleared for national trust charters, alongside Circle, Ripple, Paxos and Fidelity ^[13]. So USD1's issuance is moving from one federally chartered trust company to another, with the difference being ownership rather than supervisory category ^[14]. World Liberty applied for its charter earlier this year ^[7].

The objections were about who owns it. The OCC said it received comments flagging potential conflicts of interest involving the president, his family, the Witkoffs and Emirati investors in World Liberty, plus questions about the Emoluments Clause ^[8]. The regulator largely dismissed those as outside the scope of its review, noting that World Liberty Financial itself is not a party to the application ^[9]. Passivity commitments filed with the letter were signed by Eric Trump for one investing entity ^[10]. Senator Elizabeth Warren has separately called the OCC's crypto charter approvals illegal, arguing the firms function as banks while sidestepping the safeguards that status requires ^[15].

Nothing moves on the day of the letter. The approval is preliminary and conditional, and the bank has 18 months to open ^[16], which means the handover from BitGo is a future event rather than a completed one ^[17].

Watch three things. First, whether the $20 million capital condition is met with a straightforward equity injection and who provides it, since the passivity commitments define how much influence each investor is allowed to exert ^[6][10]. Second, whether the new entity's custody-to-USD1 conversion feature draws USD1 issuance volume from clients who were previously BitGo customers ^[4][2]. Third, whether the trust bank later applies for a Fed master account, which it has declined to pursue for now ^[11]; that would move it from a custody vehicle to something closer to a settlement participant, and it is the point at which Warren's objection stops being theoretical ^[15].