The conditional approval would allow it to bring the issuance and custody of its USD1 stablecoin under its own federally supervised trust bank.
The Trump-family-backed World Liberty Financial has joined other cryptocurrency projects in receiving conditional approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) to establish a national trust bank in the US.
The positive developments led to an immediate price uptick for the underlying token, which was among the top-performing larger-cap alts following a 5.5% surge. However, it was quickly rejected at $0.06.
World Liberty Gets the Conditional Approval
As reported by multiple large media outlets, the OCC granted preliminary condition approval to World Liberty Trust Company, which is the name of the entity that applied for the national trust bank earlier this year. The move changes how the project operates its rapidly growing USD1 stablecoin.
Issuance and custody of the asset have so far been handled with the help of BitGo. Once the new bank becomes operational, though, World Liberty would be able to issue it directly, custody the assets backing it, and provide custodial services under federal supervision.
It’s worth noting that this doesn’t turn World Liberty into a traditional commercial bank, as the trust charter doesn’t allow it to take conventional deposits or make loans.
There are some hurdles before the bank can open. The approval is conditional, not final. It’s still necessary for the project to satisfy OCC requirements, including maintaining at least $20 million in capital, establishing adequate compliance and internal audit systems, and passing pre-opening examinations.
Nevertheless, the conditional approval is still a major milestone given how quickly USD1 has expanded its debut in March 2025. With it, World Liberty joins other industry giants. As reported last year, the OCC conditionally approved Ripple National Trust Bank and Circle’s First National Digital Currency Bank as newly created national trust banks.
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WLFI Pumps and Dumps
The news of the approval resulted in an immediate boost for World Liberty’s native token. It traded at $0.055 yesterday before it shot up to a local peak of $0.06. However, that was short-lived, as it was rejected violently, and it’s currently back to $0.056, meaning a more modest increase of just 2.5%.
WLFI’s market cap stands at $1.8 billion, making it the 42nd-largest cryptocurrency by that metric.
