August 15, 2026

The Trumps’ Crypto Project Just Got One Step Closer to Becoming a Bank

A regulatory charter for World Liberty Financial could be “the most brazen act of self-dealing our system has ever seen.”

Donald Trump, seated, smiles behind a presidential seal and a tabletop microphone. He is wearing a navy suit jacket and gold-colored tie. To his right sits Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who is clapping and wearing a dark suit jacket and blue striped tie. Behind them a US flag stands.

Trump appears at a March 2025 White House cryptocurrency summit alongside Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, whose department houses the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. Chris Kleponis/CNP/Zuma

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Federal regulators have given President Donald Trump’s family crypto business a conditional approval to operate like a bank. On Friday, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency—led by Trump appointee Jonathan Gould—announced that World Liberty Financial, a crypto venture controlled by the Trump family, was on track to receive a banking charter. This will allow World Liberty Financial to issue its stablecoin tokens—called “USD1″—inside the United States without an intermediary.

“The decision stands to give new powers and federal credibility to a venture in which Trump and his family retain a substantial financial interest,” as Politico‘s Michael Stratford and Declan Harty put it. “It’s also among the most direct official actions that the administration has taken involving the president’s private finances.”

Zach Witkoff, son of Trump’s special diplomatic envoy Steve Witkoff and co-founder of World Liberty Financial, applauded the decision on social media. “Our ambition is clear: to build the most trusted and widely used digital dollar in the world while strengthening the role of the U.S. dollar across the global economy,” he wrote.

The move certainly seems likely to strengthen the pocketbooks of the president and his family: as my colleague Russ Choma reported, Trump made $65 million in 2025 by selling shares in World Liberty Financial. According to his financial disclosures, Trump also made almost $600 million selling stablecoins and other digital assets through World Liberty Financial that year.

Democratic lawmakers are pointing to the regulatory green light as an example of Trump’s corruption. On Friday, as the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency announced the move, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) wrote on social media that “this is the most brazen act of self-dealing our system has ever seen.”

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We see the headlines on a weekly basis: the claw backs in public media, the gutting of The Washington Post, the bending over backwards to appeal to Trump and his allies.

But not here.

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You may be wondering: What does it take to publish an investigation? And what does my donation actually fund? The answers are one and the same: It takes people, resources, and time. And that’s what your donation funds directly.

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