WLFI plans USD1 stablecoin payments for major online businesses after Token2049 panel in Singapore

World Liberty Financial says it is preparing to push USD1 payments beyond its own app and into some of the largest Web2 businesses in the market. For high-risk PSPs, the key detail is simple: WLFI is talking about merchant distribution, not just another stablecoin with a ticker.

1. At Token2049 in Singapore on Wednesday, WLFI CEO Zach Witkoff and co-founder Zak Folkman joined a stablecoin panel with Mesh co-founder and CEO Bam Azizi. During that discussion, Azizi announced a partnership with WLFI that will let USD1 holders spend the stablecoin across Mesh’s merchant network, with the rollout planned for this quarter.
2. Folkman said WLFI is already planning to roll out “this exact same technology” to “some of the largest Web2 businesses” in the market. That is the part payments teams should care about: if the integration moves from a crypto-native app into large online merchants, the compliance, onboarding, and settlement questions stop being theoretical very quickly.
3. WLFI is a crypto venture backed by US President Donald Trump’s family. Its USD1 stablecoin is designed to maintain a value of $1 and is issued by BitGo, with reserves made up of cash, US government money market funds, and other cash equivalents. At the time of writing, CoinGecko put USD1’s market capitalization at $4.45 billion.
4. In August, the US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) granted conditional approval for WLFI to establish a national trust bank intended to issue dollar-backed stablecoins and custody digital assets. Witkoff said that would allow WLFI to take over USD1 issuance itself: “Today we’re issuing through BitGo. With this trust charter, we’ll be able to take on that responsibility ourselves.”
5. The charter approval drew criticism from Senator Elizabeth Warren, who alleged conflicts of interest involving the Trump family’s ties to WLFI. Warren and other senators introduced the Ending Presidential Corruption in Banking Act in response. The OCC said its leadership and staff acted consistently with their statutory duties and ethical obligations when reviewing the application.

Witkoff described the conditional approval as something WLFI achieved “in spite of some of the attacks against us,” referring to criticism from the mainstream media and politicians. For merchants and PSPs, the practical read is that WLFI is trying to move USD1 from a crypto product into a payments rail with regulated custody ambitions behind it.