The trading of $TRUMP- and $MELANIA-branded cryptocurrency tokens, or “memecoins,” has generated hundreds of millions of dollars in fees for the president’s family and its partners. Truth Social-parent company Trump Media & Technology Group, which counts Trump as its largest shareholder, said last year it would begin stockpiling crypto tokens. And a Trump-backed crypto venture called World Liberty Financial has been striking deals around the world, while also expanding its footprint in the U.S.
Now, World Liberty could further blur the line between Trump’s businesses and his role as president. The company applied this month to launch a federally regulated bank in the U.S., which would give it more oversight of customers’ assets. It would also put a Trump-linked business under the direct oversight of one of Trump’s regulators.
“It’s a pretty straightforward smash-and-grab while the president has control over economic and regulatory policy,” said Corey Frayer, who worked on crypto policy at the Securities and Exchange Commission during the Biden administration. “A bank is a fundamentally different kind of business that really can only function with the explicit approval of the government.”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt denied that Trump or his family “have ever engaged, or will ever engage, in conflicts of interest.” In a statement, she said the “media’s continued attempts to fabricate conflicts of interest are irresponsible and reinforce the public’s distrust in what they read.”
World Liberty’s application concerns the launch of a national trust bank, which would have direct control over the issuance of the company’s stablecoin, USD1, and the billions of dollars in customer assets that back it. Stablecoins, the main currency of the crypto world, are a type of digital token usually pegged to $1.
World Liberty spokesperson David Wachsman said in a statement the application would subject the company “to more regulation, not less” and “increase transparency and consumer protection.” Trump and his family, he added, have a nonvoting interest in the trust company and won’t control the business’s day-to-day operations. What’s more, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency — the federal regulator reviewing the application — handed five other crypto companies conditional approval for the same charters in December.
Critics say Trump faces conflicts of interest, but there’s little they can do about them with Congress under GOP control. Ethics experts say there is no evidence the president or his family are breaking the law.
“If we’re being honest with ourselves, a lot of voters priced in the fact that he was going to keep making money while in the White House,” said Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut, a Democrat and leading critic of Trump’s growing crypto ties.
Trump seems unfazed.
“I found out that nobody cared. I’m allowed to,” the president told The New York Times in an interview this month, when asked why he is allowing his family to strike deals in his second term. “I prohibited them from doing business in my first term, and I got absolutely no credit for it.”
Trump has aggressively shifted the regulatory landscape around crypto — helping lift the once-besieged industry’s standing in Washington.
His SEC dropped a series of high-profile lawsuits against crypto giants like Coinbase, Binance and Kraken and paused a fraud case against crypto mogul Justin Sun, a major investor in the Trump memecoin. The Justice Department has pulled back on crypto enforcement. Trump pardoned Binance founder Changpeng Zhao, who had previously spent four months in prison over money laundering-related charges, a few months after an Abu Dhabi investment fund used World Liberty’s stablecoin to invest $2 billion in Binance. Lawmakers are considering a sweeping bill outlining how market regulators should oversee the industry, a move long sought by crypto executives. Trump last summer also signed a bill into law bringing stablecoins into the mainstream financial system.
For many crypto executives, the Trump administration’s embrace of the market has been a welcome change after the intense regulatory pressure the industry previously faced. There’s been no sign that Trump has meddled in the oversight of any specific crypto companies, either.