Trump Family-Linked Trust Gets Bank Charter Approval Amid Memecoin Concerns
The Trump family's World Liberty Trust Company has received preliminary approval from the Treasury Department to establish a bank charter. This development could potentially allow the entity to issue and manage stablecoins without relying on an intermediary.
World Liberty Trust was founded by Donald Trump's sons in 2024, along with Steve Witkoff, who served as President Trump's envoy for the Middle East. The trust company is affiliated with the Trump family and has 38% ownership tied to an entity related to Donald J. Trump and his family members.
Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren has called this move a 'brazen act of self-dealing' and plans to introduce a bill to prevent the President, Vice President, and their family members from owning or controlling a bank. She is also joining forces with fellow senator Richard Blumenthal to request a federal investigation into Trump's memecoin.
The senators are concerned that Trump's memecoin scheme may have been used to enrich insiders while hundreds of thousands of buyers suffered steep losses. The cryptocurrency, launched in January 2025, briefly reached a market value of around $9 billion but has since fallen sharply from its peak, with a current market capitalization of approximately $368 million.