I recently came across an interesting development—World Liberty Financial (WLF) has recently submitted an application to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) to establish a nationwide trust bank called "World Liberty Trust Company."

The logic behind this is actually quite clear. WLF currently issues the USD1 stablecoin, and the minting and custody of these tokens still rely on third parties like BitGo. If they obtain the license, they will be able to handle all these operations themselves, and also offer fee-free minting and redemption, supporting direct exchanges between USD and USD1. For institutional clients, this also adds a digital asset custody option.

Even more interesting is that the attitude from the OCC has clearly shifted. Since December last year, they have granted conditional bank charters to five companies: Circle, Ripple, Fidelity Digital Assets, BitGo, and Paxos. OCC Director Jonathan Gould was quite straightforward at the time—bringing these new players into the federal banking system is beneficial for consumers, the banking industry, and even the entire economy.

This shift in regulatory attitude indicates a very practical issue: the integration of traditional finance and digital assets is no longer a question of "whether" but "how." Stablecoins and digital asset custody are becoming part of the financial infrastructure. For the entire industry, the successive issuance of these licenses indeed opens a new window.