Trump's Crypto Bank Gets OCC Nod While Sheikh Tahnoon Holds the Other Half 🏦

World Liberty Financial, the crypto venture tied to President Trump, has received preliminary conditional approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to launch a federally chartered national trust bank, according to reporting from the Wall Street Journal as cited by Cryptonews. The proposed institution would issue, redeem, and safeguard USD1, the dollar-backed stablecoin World Liberty launched last year. The OCC's action is preliminary and conditional and does not constitute a final banking charter.

According to Wu Blockchain, citing the Journal, Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed al Nahyan, the UAE's national security adviser, and co-investors hold a 49% stake in WLTC Holdings, the holding company for World Liberty Financial's new bank. The stake represents the largest single ownership position in that structure. World Liberty did not immediately respond to requests for comment outside U.S. business hours.

The development links World Liberty's stablecoin operations to a federally chartered trust bank, an arrangement that would subject portions of the USD1 reserve and custody infrastructure to OCC supervision. Details of the conditional approval, including outstanding requirements before a final charter could be issued, were not disclosed in the reporting. The Journal first reported the OCC's preliminary approval earlier this month.

World Liberty Financial launched USD1 in 2025 as part of a broader push into dollar-pegged digital assets, with the project positioning itself around compliance and institutional use cases. The entry of a federally chartered trust bank into the stablecoin custody and issuance stack would mark a step beyond the partnerships and state-level trust structures commonly used by other U.S. stablecoin issuers.

The ownership overlap between a Trump-linked venture and a UAE royal-family-affiliated investor is likely to attract additional regulatory and congressional scrutiny as the application moves through the OCC process. The 49% stake disclosed by Wu Blockchain places Sheikh Tahnoon and co-investors as the single largest holders in the holding company, ahead of the Trump family's interests in the venture.