Author: Sander Lutz
Compiled by: DeepChain TechFlow
DeepChain Summary: Amid widespread rumors about the Trump family's exit from World Liberty Financial, Donald Trump Jr. and co-founder Zach Witkoff publicly responded at the Consensus conference in Miami. In addition to clarifying the rumors, Witkoff revealed that the company’s application for a national trust bank charter is “imminently approaching conditional approval.” Meanwhile, the company has filed a counterclaim against Tron founder Justin Sun. One clarification has unraveled three threads: the charter application, the lawsuit, and political controversy.
Donald Trump Jr. responded on Thursday at the Consensus crypto conference in Miami to a recent claim circulating on social media that he and his family members had quietly exited World Liberty Financial.
“I think I saw on Twitter that Don and Eric have given up on this project,” said Zach Witkoff, another co-founder of World Liberty, on stage.
“This news is also new to me,” Trump Jr. responded. He attributed the rumors to World Liberty’s prior removal of the list of co-founders—including President Trump and his three sons—from its official website, followed by exaggerated interpretations and amplification by bot accounts.
“As long as enough people blindly follow what they’re fed, plus bots pushing it… if the rumors are true, I wouldn’t be standing on this stage,” Trump Jr. said.
“As far as I know, Don and Eric are still co-founders of this project,” Witkoff added.
It is worth noting that the host of this Q&A, David Wachsman, is himself the PR lead for World Liberty and not an independent third party.
Counter-sue Sun Yuchen: "We will not file a lawsuit without evidence."
The conversation then turned to World Liberty's lawsuit against crypto entrepreneur Sun Zhen, the founder of the Tron network and one of World Liberty's largest financial backers. Last month, Sun Zhen filed the first lawsuit against World Liberty, alleging serious misconduct by the company's management.
World Liberty subsequently filed a counterclaim, alleging that Sun Yuchen not only publicly disseminated false statements about the company but also secretly shorted the company’s native token, WLFI, in an attempt to depress its price.
“We wouldn’t have brought this lawsuit without evidence,” said Witkoff, calling the legal action a “last resort.”
Banking license: “Conditional approval imminent”
Witkoff then shifted the topic to World Liberty’s regulatory ambitions. In January, the company submitted an application for a national trust bank charter to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), a division of the U.S. Department of the Treasury.submitted an application for a national trust bank charter Upon approval, World Liberty will be able to provide essential banking services for its USD stablecoin, USD1.
“We are very excited about obtaining the license,” said Witkoff, “I believe we are in the final stages of receiving conditional approval.”
This license has been the focal point of Democratic criticism in recent months. Senator Elizabeth Warren has repeatedly cited World Liberty’s banking license application as evidence of “possibly the most disgraceful presidential corruption scandal in U.S. history.”