The Treasury Department's Office of the Comptroller of the Currency granted preliminary approval to World Liberty Trust Company, which is affiliated with the Trump family, to establish a bank charter.
The move could allow the entity to issue and manage stablecoins without relying on an intermediary.
The trust company, CBS News detailed, was founded by Trump's sons in 2024 alongside those of the president's envoy's for the Middle East, Steve Witkoff. Concretely, 38% of it is owned by "an entity affiliated with Donald J. Trump and certain of his family members."
Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren called the development a "brazen act of self-dealing" and is set to introduce a bill to prevent the president, vice president and family members from "owning or controlling a bank."
Along with fellow senator Richard Blumenthal, Warren is also demanding a federal investigation into Trump's memecoin, warning that the cryptocurrency may have been used to enrich insiders while hundreds of thousands of buyers suffered steep losses.
In a letter sent to Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Paul Atkins, the senators called on the agency to examine Trump's namesake token for evidence of fraud, market manipulation or unjust enrichment.
"We are concerned that President Trump's memecoin scheme may constitute an illegal scam," Warren and Blumenthal wrote in the letter.
Trump launched the $TRUMP token shortly before returning to the White House in January 2025. The cryptocurrency briefly reached a market value of roughly $9 billion before falling sharply from its peak.
The coin was trading at around $1.40 Tuesday, with a market capitalization of approximately $368 million, according to CoinMarketCap. That marked a decline of about 98% from its all-time high above $73.
Nearly 1 million traders lost a combined $3.8 billion on the token through the end of June, according to research by blockchain analytics company Nansen cited by The New York Times. Entities associated with the Trump Organization initially controlled 80% of the token's total supply.
At the same time, Trump has reported substantial income from cryptocurrency ventures connected to his name and family businesses. His 2025 financial disclosure listed more than $635 million in income tied to CIC Digital and the Trump memecoin business, according to The Associated Press.
"The SEC must be willing to enforce the law even when potential wrongdoers include those with powerful political connections," Warren and Blumenthal wrote.
