Earlier this month, the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, or OCC, granted World Liberty Financial conditional preliminary approval to form a federally chartered national trust bank. The proposed bank would issue, redeem, and custody USD1, the dollar stablecoin the company launched last year.
On Thursday, The Wall Street Journal reported the ownership structure behind the bank. The largest stake belongs to Abu Dhabi royal Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed al Nahyan and his co-investors, who hold 49% of WLTC Holdings, the bank holding company, through an entity called StringZ Holding RSC. Trump family-linked entities hold 38%.
Tahnoon is the United Arab Emirates’ national security adviser and the brother of the country’s president. He oversees a funding empire of more than $1.3 trillion drawn from both personal and state-linked money. Some Western media outlets have referred to him as the “spy sheikh.”
The same 49% stake appeared earlier in World Liberty itself
This is not Tahnoon’s first appearance in World Liberty’s ownership chain.
In January 2025, four days before Trump took office, Tahnoon and his co-investors invested $500 million in World Liberty Financial through Aryam Investment 1 in exchange for a 49% stake in the company. The deal was not disclosed at the time and was only revealed in January this year by The Wall Street Journal.
According to the president’s latest financial disclosure, $263 million from that investment flowed to Trump family entities. Democratic lawmakers and legal experts criticized the arrangement at the time, saying it was unprecedented for a foreign government official to hold such a significant ownership interest in a company tied to an incoming U.S. president.
Now, the same 49% stake has surfaced in an institution that is on track to receive a U.S. federal banking charter. The ownership structure of the bank holding company matches that of World Liberty itself, except that Tahnoon’s side is using a different entity.
What the proposed trust bank would do
This would not be a bank in the traditional sense. A trust charter typically does not allow deposit-taking or lending. It does allow a firm to hold customer assets nationwide and handle payments and settlement more quickly.
For World Liberty, the commercial value is clear. The charter would let the company issue USD1 directly and custody the dollar assets backing the stablecoin on its own balance sheet.
At the moment, those functions are handled by partner firm BitGo. BitGo is an independent trust bank that holds USD1 reserves and keeps a portion of the interest generated by those assets.
That is the center of the business model.
USD1 currently has a market capitalization of $4 billion. World Liberty has said the dollars backing the token are invested in U.S. Treasurys and other cash equivalents, with an estimated $150 million in annual interest income. Previously, that interest had to be shared with BitGo. With its own bank, the company would no longer need to split it with a third party.
The setup reinforces itself. The more USD1 circulates, the larger the reserve base becomes, and the more interest income it can produce. World Liberty has said the trust bank’s job is to drive “mainstream adoption” of USD1 while also offering new services to customers, including fee-based custody for their crypto assets.
After the OCC approval, World Liberty CEO Zach Witkoff said the company’s ambition is to “build the world’s most trusted and widely used digital dollar.” Zach Witkoff is the son of U.S. Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff.
The legal opening came after a law signed by the president
World Liberty did not begin pursuing a bank until after July 2025, when the president signed the Genius Act.
The law made one change that mattered directly to this plan: it allowed approved stablecoin companies to hold the reserve assets backing their tokens themselves.
Before that, World Liberty had to rely on a third party such as BitGo. After the law, it could do the job internally, provided it secured a federal charter. The company filed its application in January this year and received conditional preliminary approval on Aug. 14.
The Genius Act also says U.S.-issued dollar-pegged stablecoins must be backed by specific assets, including U.S. Treasurys maturing in 93 days or less. Treasury Secretary Bessent previously cited a forecast that stablecoins could grow into a market worth close to $4 trillion and wrote that “this could lower the government’s borrowing costs.”
That means the stablecoin sector carries a clear fiscal dimension for the current administration because it creates new buyers for U.S. government debt. One of the companies furthest ahead in that race is tied directly to the president’s family.
Other OCC decisions this summer on crypto charter applications
In recent months, the OCC has granted a series of approvals for national bank charters tied to crypto companies. Ripple and Circle both received preliminary approval. Current Comptroller Jonathan Gould was appointed by Trump last year.
Not every applicant succeeded.
In early August, the OCC rejected Dutch fintech firm Bunq’s application for a national bank charter, citing major regulatory and compliance issues. In mid-August, Zerohash, which provides crypto infrastructure for Morgan Stanley’s E*Trade, had its trust bank application returned because of what the OCC described as major deficiencies. Zerohash later refiled with a narrower business scope, and the public comment period runs through Sept. 17.
In its letter on World Liberty’s application, the OCC wrote: “This conditional preliminary approval is based on a thorough evaluation of all information available to the OCC, including the representations and commitments made in the application and by the bank’s representatives.” Final approval still depends on a list of pre-opening requirements and a final review.
A World Liberty spokesperson said career civil servants at the OCC reviewed whether the application met “the statutory, regulatory, and policy requirements and factors governing bank approvals.” The company declined to comment on the shareholder structure behind the bank.
An OCC official said career civil servants handled the review and that the agency “consulted multiple experienced career government ethics officials” to make sure the process complied with “all government ethics standards and policies.”
Another flow of money has also drawn scrutiny
Tahnoon’s $500 million was not the only controversial money to enter the company.
Earlier this month, The New York Times reported that businessman Guren “Bobby” Zhou invested a total of $100 million in World Liberty through a new company called Aqua 1, becoming one of the largest buyers of the company’s tokens.
Two years ago, he was a failed hardwood flooring retailer in the United Kingdom, where he was investigated over money laundering, according to the report. He also oversaw the collapse of a small crypto startup.
Under World Liberty’s policy, as much as $75 million of that money was allocated to a company controlled by the president and his three sons, while also benefiting the Witkoff family. On July 19, the day of the World Cup final, Zhou and Zach Witkoff were seated together in a luxury suite at a stadium in New Jersey.
The bank has not opened yet
The institution is not operating yet. It still must satisfy the OCC’s conditions and pass a final examination.
What is already clear is this: if the bank opens, an institution owned 49% by a senior foreign government official and 38% by Trump family entities will hold the full reserves of a dollar stablecoin, invest those funds in U.S. Treasurys, and keep the entire stream of interest income.