Management and Board Composition
WLTC will establish a five-member board of directors. Zach Witkoff, co-founder and CEO of WLF, will serve as chairman. Witkoff is also the son of Steve Witkoff, Trump's Middle East envoy.
Board members include Scott Alper, president and chief investment officer of Witkoff Group; Robert Witkoff, former co-chief investment officer of Chubb; Jeffrey Weiner, former chairman and CEO of accounting and consulting firm Marcum LLP; and Erin Baskett, a FINRA board member and founder of broker-dealer Sine Qua Non Capital. Baskett and Weiner will serve as independent directors.
Zach Witkoff said in a statement: "We submitted what is likely one of the most thoroughly vetted applications in OCC history," signaling willingness to accept ongoing federal regulatory oversight. "If we wanted less regulation, we would not have chosen to come under federal supervision," he added.
Trump Family Revenue and Political Fallout
WLF was launched in late 2024 with the involvement of Trump and two of his sons, initially conceived as a decentralized finance (DeFi) project offering borrowing and trading services. While these features have yet to fully launch, the platform does offer lending and borrowing services through a partnership with lending protocol Dolomite.
The crypto venture has generated substantial revenue for the Trump family. In 2025, Trump earned over $500 million (approximately ¥80 billion) from sales of WLF's "WLFI" token, and raised $263 million (approximately ¥42 billion) through an equity sale to investors led by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, a member of the UAE royal family. Trump personally is estimated to have earned approximately $1.4 billion (approximately ¥220 billion) cumulatively from meme coins and crypto ventures.
This structure has drawn sharp criticism in Washington. Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts said in a statement: "We have never seen financial conflicts of interest or corruption on this scale." She argued that Trump would be the first president to approve, operate, and oversee a bank tied to his own financial interests, and announced plans to introduce legislation prohibiting presidents and senior government officials from owning or controlling banks.
Warren had previously urged the OCC not to approve WLF's application unless Trump divested his stake in the company. The White House, meanwhile, has countered that "the President and his family have not and will not engage in any conflicts of interest."
The OCC declined to comment on the approval decision. Under the Trump administration, the OCC has taken a more welcoming stance toward new bank charter applications, accepting 40 applications since 2025. That represents a significant increase compared with the previous administration, with many related to crypto projects. Some application reviews are being conducted by career civil servants.
WLFI Token and DeFi Risks
Following news of the OCC approval, the WLFI token briefly rose approximately 5.5% from $0.055 to $0.06, but failed to break through the $0.06 level, triggering accelerated selling that pushed it back to around $0.056. WLFI's market capitalization is estimated at approximately $1.8 billion.
Meanwhile, WLF in April pledged 5 billion WLFI as collateral to lending protocol Dolomite, borrowing approximately $75 million (approximately ¥12 billion). Although $25 million (approximately ¥4 billion) has been repaid, the WLFI price has fallen roughly 35% from $0.089 in April to around $0.058, meaning the collateralization ratio has returned to roughly its original level. On-chain data shows related positions with a health factor of 1.07, close to the liquidation threshold.
With WLF now simultaneously operating a federally supervised trust bank and carrying DeFi borrowings collateralized by its own token, market participants are closely watching how the company manages risk across these two fundamentally different structures.
The Clarity Act, which would establish a regulatory framework for the crypto industry, has stalled over disputes regarding ethics provisions restricting government officials from profiting from digital assets. A procedural vote is scheduled for September 15. Trump's revenue structure from crypto ventures is viewed as one of the biggest obstacles to the bill's passage.
