World Liberty Financial, the Trump family’s flagship crypto venture, said an affiliated entity has applied for a national banking license, The Wall Street Journal reported.

World Liberty Trust filed its de novo application Wednesday with the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). The license would allow the trust company to issue and safeguard USD1, World Liberty’s dollar-backed stablecoin launched last year, according to the report. 

The token’s reserves are currently held with crypto custodian BitGo, and USD1 has reached a market value of about $3.4 billion, boosted in part after a third-party investor used USD1 tokens to purchase a $2-billion stake in crypto exchange Binance, the newspaper said.  

World Liberty’s move follows a wave of charter bids and approvals in the sector. The Trump administration approved trust bank charter applications in December from BitGo, Fidelity Digital Assets, Circle Internet Group, Ripple, and Paxos. 

World Liberty Trust has said it ultimately plans to offer crypto custody and stablecoin conversion services aimed at institutional clients such as exchanges, market makers, and investment firms, according to the Journal. 

Company executives said the charter could help World Liberty build and launch products more quickly by reducing reliance on third-party providers. Mack McCain, general counsel of World Liberty Financial, told the Journal he will serve as chief trust officer for the trust company. 

The planned trust would be led by Zach Witkoff, who said the firm was structured to avoid conflicts of interest and that President Trump and his family would hold a nonvoting interest without day-to-day control. World Liberty has said the trust bank will be structured to comply with the Genius Act, the stablecoin law signed last summer, and will follow anti-money-laundering and sanctions-screening requirements, the newspaper said. 

Read more at The Wall Street Journal

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