WLTC Holdings’ 49% Stake: One WSJ Source, Two Outlets, One OCC Filing

Two document-level facts are confirmed here, and one headline number is not. On Aug. 14, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency gave World Liberty Trust Company preliminary conditional approval to operate as a federally supervised bank. The OCC’s published decision names StringZ Holding RSC as an investor in WLTC Holdings, the entity created to house that bank, and states StringZ signed commitments not to influence the venture.

What the OCC filing does not do is identify who is behind StringZ, or disclose the size of its stake. That detail comes from a single reporting chain: the Wall Street Journal, citing unnamed people familiar with the matter, reported that Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan’s group backs StringZ, and that StringZ holds 49% of WLTC Holdings. Both CoinGape and Cointelegraph published the claim on Aug. 28, but both are citing the same WSJ story rather than independent reporting of their own. That makes this a single-sourced figure amplified across two outlets, not a two-source confirmation.

What the OCC record actually shows

The trust bank, once fully approved, would take over issuance, redemption and custody of World Liberty’s USD1 stablecoin inside a federally supervised structure. Conditional approval is not final approval. The OCC’s own terms require the bank to clear pre-opening requirements before it can begin operating.

According to the WSJ reporting cited by both outlets, an entity affiliated with the Trump family owns 38% of WLTC Holdings, versus StringZ’s reported 49%. Neither figure appears in the OCC’s public decision. Cointelegraph said it contacted the Trump Organization for comment and had not received a response by publication.

Tahnoon’s broader footprint

Tahnoon is the UAE’s national security adviser and chairman of the AI company G42. Washington authorized advanced AI chip exports to G42 in November 2025, months after the US and Abu Dhabi agreed a broader AI cooperation framework. He had already backed a separate $500 million purchase of 49% of World Liberty Financial itself, a transaction that drew calls from Democratic senators for hearings into whether it shaped US policy toward the UAE.

That earlier $500 million stake and the newly reported 49% of WLTC Holdings are two different holdings in two different entities: one in World Liberty Financial, the other in its planned bank’s parent structure. Readers tracking this should not conflate the two percentages simply because they match.

A note on sourcing

This is a case where a number repeated by multiple outlets can still trace back to one underlying source. The OCC document confirms StringZ exists and holds an unspecified stake with a no-influence pledge attached. It does not confirm Tahnoon’s identity as backer or the 49% figure. Until a regulatory filing, a court record, or a second independently reported source verifies those numbers, they remain WSJ-attributed rather than independently established.

The trust bank still needs final OCC sign-off before it can open. That step, not the ownership percentages, is the next dated milestone worth tracking.

Sources

• coingape.com
• cointelegraph.com