Elizabeth Warren Urges Halt to World Liberty Trust Bank Charter Over Trump Crypto Conflict Concerns

U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren has called on federal regulators to pause efforts by World Liberty Trust Co. to become a U.S. trust bank, citing potential conflicts of interest tied to President Donald Trump’s family involvement in the crypto sector. The Massachusetts Democrat, a long-standing critic of the cryptocurrency industry, argues that the application should not move forward until Trump fully divests from any related digital asset businesses.

In a letter sent Tuesday to Jonathan Gould, chief of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), Warren urged regulators to delay the charter review for an entity linked to World Liberty Financial Inc. The charter, if approved, could allow the company to directly issue the USD1 stablecoin, placing it under federal banking oversight. Warren warned that Trump’s continued ownership stake raises serious ethical and governance concerns.

“We have never seen financial conflicts or corruption of this magnitude,” Warren wrote, emphasizing that Congress failed to adequately address such issues when it passed the GENIUS Act. She argued that responsibility now falls on the Senate as it considers broader crypto market structure legislation, especially given the potential for regulatory decisions to directly impact a business tied to the sitting president.

Warren, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, highlighted that a draft version of the upcoming crypto market structure bill does not yet include provisions on government ethics. Democratic lawmakers had pushed for such language during negotiations, but it was absent from the version released late Monday. The committee is scheduled to hold a hearing Thursday, where amendments could still be introduced before a potential vote.

The senator also criticized the optics of the OCC approving the application under a Trump-appointed regulator. According to Warren, such approval could result in the president effectively overseeing rules that influence the profitability of his own crypto-related business interests. This, she argued, would undermine public trust in both financial regulation and the rapidly evolving digital asset market.

Warren has repeatedly raised alarms about conflicts of interest within the crypto industry, and her latest intervention signals that scrutiny of crypto banking charters and stablecoin issuers will intensify as Congress debates the future of U.S. crypto regulation.