World Liberty Financial said it wants to bring USD1 stablecoin payments to major online businesses, expanding the token’s use beyond the World Liberty app itself. The plan was outlined Wednesday during a panel at Token2049 in Singapore.
WLFI CEO Zach Witkoff and co-founder Zak Folkman joined Mesh co-founder and CEO Bam Azizi for the stablecoin-focused discussion. During the session, Azizi announced a partnership between Mesh and WLFI that would allow USD1 holders to spend the stablecoin across Mesh’s merchant network. The rollout is scheduled for this quarter.
WLFI says the same payment rails could reach large Web2 companies
Folkman said the company is already planning to deploy the same technology with some of the largest Web2 businesses in the market, not just inside the World Liberty app.
“Beyond the use of the World Liberty app itself, we are already in plans to roll out this exact same technology to some of the largest Web2 businesses that are in the marketplace,” Folkman said.
Cointelegraph’s photo caption identified Folkman as speaking during the stablecoin panel in Singapore on Wednesday. The image was credited to Aubrey Paller/Cointelegraph.
USD1 is currently issued by BitGo
WLFI is a crypto venture backed by US President Donald Trump’s family. Its USD1 stablecoin is designed to hold a $1 value and is issued by BitGo. According to the report, reserves consist of cash, US government money market funds and other cash equivalents.
CoinGecko data cited in the article showed USD1 had a market capitalization of $4.45 billion at the time of writing.
Company wants to assume issuance itself
The report said the US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency granted conditional approval in August for WLFI to establish a national trust bank intended to issue dollar-backed stablecoins and custody digital assets.
Witkoff said that approval would allow WLFI to take over issuance of USD1.
“Today we’re issuing through BitGo,” he said. “With this trust charter, we’ll be able to take on that responsibility ourselves.”
Approval drew criticism from lawmakers
Senator Elizabeth Warren criticized the conditional approval, alleging conflicts of interest tied to the Trump family’s relationship with WLFI. Warren and other senators introduced the Ending Presidential Corruption in Banking Act in response.
The OCC said its leadership and staff acted consistently with their statutory duties and ethical obligations when reviewing the application.
At the panel, Witkoff described the conditional approval as something WLFI achieved “in spite of some of the attacks against us,” referring to criticism from mainstream media and politicians.