Treasury Greenlights Trump-Linked Crypto Firm Amidst Alarming Conflicts of Interest
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The U.S. Treasury Department has conditionally approved World Liberty Trust Company, a crypto firm co-founded by Donald Trump, to operate as a bank and issue a dollar-pegged stablecoin, raising serious concerns about self-dealing and regulatory capture.
On August 14, the Treasury Department handed a conditional charter to World Liberty Trust Company, a financial entity co-founded by President Donald Trump and his sons, allowing it to function as a bank and issue a stablecoin tied to the U.S. dollar. This decision, which mandates the firm to hold a mere $20 million in capital and hire an internal audit manager, comes as a glaring example of the revolving door between government and private interests. The company, which reported nearly $800 million in revenue for 2025 according to Trump’s own financial disclosure, is now poised to further entrench the influence of the billionaire class in the financial system.
Zach Witkoff, the company’s CEO, claimed the firm aims to create “the most trusted and widely used digital dollar in the world,” a statement that thinly veils the real agenda of consolidating wealth and power among the elite while using the U.S. dollar as a tool for global dominance.
Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) rightfully condemned the charter, calling it “the most brazen act of self-dealing our financial system has ever seen.” She pledged to introduce legislation to combat the corruption that has become endemic under Trump and his allies.
“All of President Trump’s investment holdings are in fully discretionary accounts managed by independent third-party financial institutions,” White House spokesperson Anna Kelly insisted, parroting the usual lines to deflect from the glaring conflicts of interest that plague the Trump family’s business dealings.
The Treasury’s Office of the Comptroller of the Currency attempted to distance itself, noting that career staff—not the comptroller—supervise and enforce banking laws for the new charter. Meanwhile, World Liberty Financial spokesperson David Wachsman claimed that safeguards are in place to separate the Trump family from the trust company’s operations, a claim that does little to assuage concerns about regulatory capture and elite self-enrichment.
“Critics are missing the point: World Liberty Financial is embracing regulation, not avoiding it,” Wachsman said, ignoring the broader context of a system rigged in favor of the wealthy and well-connected.
Industry experts like Christian Catalini of MIT’s Cryptoeconomics Lab noted that the move reflects a trend to bring crypto firms under traditional banking oversight, but warned that future regulatory approaches could change under a different administration—an implicit acknowledgment of the dangers of political interference in financial regulation.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, a Trump appointee, boasted that the department is working to provide “regulatory certainty” for businesses and to maintain the U.S. dollar’s role as a global reserve currency, further cementing the priorities of Wall Street and the billionaire class over those of ordinary Americans.