The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency said political or personal financial ties will not influence its procedural review of World Liberty Financial’s banking charter application.
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has rejected a proposal by U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren to suspend the review of World Liberty Financial’s application for national trust bank charter. She had sought to pause the move until US President Donald Trump sold his stake in the cryptocurrency platform.
Jonathan Gould of the OCC confirmed on Friday that WLF’s application will be evaluated based on existing regulatory standards and stressed that political or personal financial ties will not influence the bank’s procedural review of bank formation.
“The OCC intends to act on this obligation, not your demands,” he said in response to Warren’s Jan. 14 letter.
“The OCC charter application process should be a nonpolitical and bipartisan process, and under my leadership it will be.”
Mr Gould added that WLF applications will undergo the same “rigorous review” as any other applications received by WLF.
Warren’s criticism was based on the fact that the president, his son Eric, Donald Trump Jr., and Barron are listed as founders of World Liberty, and that the platform has generated billions of dollars in paper wealth for their families.
WLF filed its application on January 7th to expand its cryptocurrency business, including allowing it to issue, store, and exchange USD1 (USD1) stablecoins on its own, rather than relying on third-party providers such as BitGo.
Related: BitGo’s IPO is unstable as stock price falls below offering price
USD1 is already widely used for cross-border payments, settlements, and treasury operations, and has become the 6th largest stablecoin with a market capitalization of $4.2 billion since its launch in March 2025.
Crypto industry struggles to secure banking approvals
Until now, it has been difficult for crypto companies to secure national trust bank approval.
However, a breakthrough came in December when the OCC granted five conditional approvals to Circle, Ripple, Fidelity Digital Assets, BitGo, and Paxos, demonstrating the currency regulator’s willingness to expand cryptocurrency services to TradFi.
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