Inside the Trump family’s global crypto cash machine
<https://www.reuters.com/investigations/inside-trump-familys-global-crypto-cash-machine-2025-10-28/>
DUBAI - Eric Trump was in Dubai on family business. Meeting with a
Chinese businessman and his associates on the sidelines of a
cryptocurrency conference in May this year, the son of U.S. President
Donald J. Trump ran through his usual talking points about the
inefficiency of traditional banks and his own famous father’s run-ins
with financiers.
Then came the pitch. Buy at least $20 million of “governance tokens” in
the Trump family’s crypto business, World Liberty Financial, and become
part of a venture that Eric Trump predicted would soon embody the future
of finance in America, according to a person familiar with the meeting.
To some in that small gathering, the technology Eric Trump’s team
described for World Liberty seemed “rudimentary,” the person said. At
the time, World Liberty was a fledgling business. It hadn’t yet created
the cryptocurrency-based finance platform it promised after its
September 2024 launch. It still hasn’t.
Even so, the pitch apparently worked. On June 26, an obscure entity
called Aqua1 Foundation, which said it was based in the United Arab
Emirates, announced it was buying $100 million of cryptocurrency tokens
from World Liberty. It was the single largest known purchase of the
so-called WLFI tokens at the time.
The Chinese businessman who met with Eric Trump in Dubai was Guren
“Bobby” Zhou, who has executive roles in multiple businesses and who is
under investigation in Britain for money laundering, according to that
nation’s National Crime Agency and a document filed in an immigration
case at London's Royal Courts of Justice.
Zhou did not respond directly to requests for comment for this article.
In a statement emailed to Reuters, an entity calling itself Aqua Labs
Investment LLC said Zhou was its co-founder and described itself as an
Abu Dhabi entity of Aqua1 Foundation. The statement said Aqua1
Foundation’s investment in World Liberty tokens “was a commercial
decision consistent with its focus on advancing regulated, scalable
digital-asset ecosystems.” Zhou’s relationship to Aqua1 Foundation has
not been previously reported.
Aqua1 Foundation did not respond to requests for comment. Nor did Eric
Trump.
The Dubai meeting, reported here for the first time, was just one stop
on a globetrotting investment roadshow the two elder sons of President
Trump – Eric and Donald Trump Jr. – embarked on around the time of their
father’s election to a second term. In Europe, the Middle East and Asia,
they have been promoting World Liberty and other ventures that funnel
investors’ cash to Trump family businesses, known collectively as the
Trump Organization.
The Trump brothers’ efforts have been a whopping success. In the first
half of this year, the Trump Organization’s income soared 17-fold to
$864 million from $51 million a year earlier, according to Reuters
calculations based on the president’s official disclosures, property
records, financial records released in court cases, crypto trade
information and other sources. Of the first-half total, $802 million –
more than 90% – came from Trump crypto ventures, including sales of
World Liberty tokens.
That $864 million payday represents actual income – cash flowing, free
and clear, into Trump family coffers. Reuters’ calculations were
reviewed by half a dozen crypto and real estate experts and a certified
accountant who has studied the U.S. Internal Revenue Service’s approach
to crypto.
The Trumps' first-half crypto income dwarfed what the family earned from
its traditional businesses – $33 million from the president’s golf clubs
and resorts and $23 million for licensing his name to overseas real
estate developers, according to the Reuters estimates. More than half
the Trumps’ income – $463 million – came from sales of World Liberty
tokens alone, including up to $75 million from Aqua1’s token purchase.
On its website, World Liberty says a Trump Organization entity receives
75% of the revenue from the token sales through its association with
World Liberty.
The family also made $336 million from sales of a Trump meme coin,
$TRUMP, Reuters calculated, using assumptions vetted by five analysts.
Due to a lack of transparency in the Trump meme coin business, estimates
of income from the coins carry a higher degree of uncertainty than those
for WLFI token sales.
The Trumps are minting a trove of hard cash from digital assets backed,
so far, by little more than the Trump name. World Liberty tokens, like
most crypto products, are registered on digital ledgers called
blockchains. But WLFI tokens offer holders little beyond a limited say
in the business’s plans, unlike governance tokens for similar projects.
And meme coins like the $TRUMP coin are essentially collectibles whose
value reflects the popularity of the internet joke, meme or personality
associated with them.
World Liberty Financial did not respond directly to requests for comment
for this article. In a letter to Reuters, Timothy Parlatore, a lawyer
for the company, said: “WLFI tokens are not securities; they are digital
assets with real utility, including governance rights that benefit
holders as the platform grows.” He also said: “The Alleged Valuation and
Income Analysis of WLFI Is Inaccurate and Misleading.”
In a subsequent email, Parlatore declined to provide further specifics
on the benefits to holders of World Liberty governance tokens or his
critique of the Reuters analysis.
The jump in the Trumps’ income represents “a massive pivot” for the
family business, said Carter Davis, an assistant professor of finance at
The Ohio State University who has studied cryptocurrency pricing and who
reviewed the Reuters calculations. “Even if you go through and you do
the most conservative estimate…it's pretty wild that you end up with
such a huge fraction of the income coming from crypto.”
‘LEGAL BUT UNETHICAL’
The identities of most buyers of the WLFI tokens are hidden behind
opaque “wallet” addresses – the unique identifiers investors use as keys
to access and manage their holdings. Among the few major buyers whose
identities are known – a mix of foreign and U.S. investors – most have
histories of legal and regulatory entanglements related to their
business endeavors. And as the Trump brothers’ travels over the past
year show, foreign investors have been a major target for token sales.
Reuters interviewed half a dozen foreign crypto entrepreneurs who met
with the Trump brothers. Five of them said they sought out the younger
Trumps for business opportunities because of their proximity to the
79-year-old president and hopes of cashing in on his political and
financial power.
For many other investors, the Trumps' involvement signaled a chance to
capitalize on the family’s name. Dorji Rabten’s Seoul-based venture
investment firm, Oddiyana Ventures, bought an undisclosed amount of WLFI
tokens in January. Rabten said he never met the Trump sons, but the
family's involvement was central to his investment. "In the first very
moment where we saw the project, we thought it's going to be very huge,
obviously, given the fact it's a president's sons taking up that
project," Rabten told Reuters in September.
Eric Trump made an appearance at the Bitcoin Asia conference in Hong
Kong in August. REUTERS/Tyrone Siu
The alignment of the Trump family’s crypto initiatives with President
Trump’s public role as overseer of U.S. crypto policy constitutes a
conflict of interest unprecedented in modern presidential history,
government ethics experts said.
“These people are not pouring money into coffers of the Trump family
business because of the brothers' acumen,” said Washington University
law professor Kathleen Clark, who specializes in government ethics and
was commenting on Reuters’ findings. “They are doing it because they
want freedom from legal constraints and impunity that only the president
can deliver.”
However, the ethicists said, unless the Trump brothers are explicitly
promising access to or favorable treatment from the president in their
sales pitches, they are breaking no laws. “It's legal but unethical,”
said Richard Painter, who served as chief ethics lawyer for President
George W. Bush and is now a professor at the University of Minnesota Law
School.
None of the more than a dozen people Reuters spoke with who had met with
the Trump brothers or their partners recounted any of them explicitly
offering presidential access or favors in return for investing in their
family businesses. The White House has repeatedly denied any conflict of
interest, saying that upon taking office, the president ended his
involvement in his businesses after placing them in a trust managed by
his children.
Still, as beneficiary of the trust that controls the Trump Organization,
the president will have the money the family is now making at his
disposal when he leaves office.
A White House spokeswoman referred Reuters to the Trump Organization for
comment. The Trump Organization’s chief legal officer did not respond to
a request for comment. Nor did Eric Trump or Donald Trump Jr.
Parlatore, the World Liberty lawyer, said any suggestion that
investments in the firm are motivated by a desire to get closer to
President Trump “is a complete lie.” He pointed out that token purchases
on secondary markets – as opposed to direct purchases from the company –
do not benefit the World Liberty team.
BLURRING THE LINE
World Liberty advertises its plans on its website – an app for making
crypto deposits, for example, and a crypto-backed borrowing facility.
But for now, as a pure business play in a crowded field, it has little
to recommend it.
The venture has yet to unveil what it heralded last year as its core
business: a peer-to-peer financing platform capable of challenging
traditional banks. Since March, its leadership has actively promoted a
stablecoin – a cryptocurrency whose value is pegged to traditional
assets like dollars or gold – called USD1. While the stablecoin's name
belongs to World Liberty, the coin is issued and supported by another
company that pays World Liberty a share of the coin’s profits. The
coin's circulation is dwarfed by that of market leaders.
Further, while WLFI holders can vote on limited governance matters, the
platform is not designed to let them award themselves a share of
profits. That’s unusual among peer-to-peer crypto lending platforms,
according to two academics who study crypto markets and a Reuters review
of four of the largest platforms’ terms of business.
In July, holders voted to allow trading of the tokens on crypto
exchanges. World Liberty later said that only early buyers would be
allowed to sell, capped at no more than 20% of their tokens. After
trading began on September 1, the token price rose from an initial 31
cents to 46 cents and then sank about 65% three days later. It now
trades at around 14 cents.
In his letter to Reuters, Parlatore said broader adoption of the
stablecoin and other World Liberty products “directly benefits WLFI
governance token holders through established mechanics, which, while
complicated, are factual and already operational.” Asked for details of
those mechanics and how they would benefit token holders, he said in a
subsequent letter: “Your proposed article is based entirely on false
sources and a misinterpretation of basic principles.”
As recently as 2021, Donald J. Trump, speaking to Fox Business,
criticized cryptocurrencies as a threat to U.S. dollar supremacy and
said bitcoin “seems like a scam.” Three years later, his take on crypto
had changed. Just weeks before the November 2024 presidential election,
he kicked off sales of World Liberty tokens with a social media post:
“This is YOUR chance to help shape the future of finance,” he wrote.
Since Trump’s second inauguration, his administration, reversing many of
its predecessor’s positions, has been clearing the way for the crypto
industry’s growth in the U.S. The Justice Department axed its crypto
enforcement team. Regulators scrapped guidance warning banks to be
cautious about crypto-related risks. And the Securities and Exchange
Commission has paused or dropped lawsuits in high-profile cases against
crypto firms.
For its part, World Liberty conveys the impression of a presidential
connection. On the “Meet our team” section of its website, the firm
displays a portrait of President Trump, labeling him a “co-founder
emeritus.” The other co-founder emeritus shown is Steven Witkoff, a
billionaire real estate investor and President Trump’s special envoy to
the Middle East and for peace missions. (A small footnote says both men
were “removed upon taking office.”)
Don Jr., Eric and their younger brother, Barron Trump, are presented as
co-founders, as are Witkoff’s two sons, Zach and Alex. Zach Witkoff has
been a ubiquitous presence with the Trump brothers as they have traveled
the globe to tout tokens.
“Without the Trump name, you wouldn’t see World Liberty Financial
raising this kind of money,” said Santa Clara University finance
professor Seoyoung Kim, who specializes in crypto analytics. Kim said
she saw nothing of particular value in the technologies and services
announced by World Liberty, describing its value proposition as “being
part of the club.”
The business has transformed the Trump family’s wealth. Thanks to
continuing token sales, the Trumps’ crypto income is now approaching and
could even exceed $1 billion.
In early August, for example, about three weeks before WLFI began
trading, a tiny Nasdaq-listed blockchain services company, Alt5 Sigma,
said it had raised $750 million from investors to help buy 7.5% of all
World Liberty tokens. In corporate filings for the deal, Alt5 Sigma said
that the $750 million came from institutional investors and that almost
all of it was used to buy tokens from World Liberty. Based on that
information, the Trumps stood to gain about $500 million.
“It is an incredibly exciting time,” Eric Trump told Fox Business on
August 13, a day after the deal with Alt5 Sigma was finalized.
Since the deal was announced, Alt5 Sigma’s share price has dropped by
75%. That decline did not affect the cash the Trumps have already made
from the deal.
The Trumps’ cash income from crypto doesn’t even include the value of
the vast crypto assets the family has amassed in the past year.
Those assets include $TRUMP meme coins and World Liberty tokens the
family still holds. They also include shares in publicly listed Trump
Media & Technology Group, which runs Trump’s social-media platform Truth
Social and has expanded into crypto. These holdings are vulnerable to
wild price swings, are at risk of price collapse if major holders sell,
and can be subject to restrictions on sales and transfers. Nonetheless,
they carry an estimated value that – on paper, at least – could add more
than $11 billion to the family’s fortune.
THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
World Liberty began selling WLFI tokens in October last year to both
U.S. and foreign investors. But initial sales in the U.S. were slow. SEC
rules gave only wealthy investors access to the tokens, which shut out
small retail buyers who might have wanted to buy them as supporters of
the president, as they have done with scores of other products licensed
by the Trump Organization, from Trump-endorsed bibles to sneakers to
electric guitars.
Soon, as President-elect Trump’s second term approached, World Liberty
was at risk of losing access to the foreign buyers who were sustaining
token sales. The family’s self-imposed ethical guidelines for Trump’s
first term prohibited them from seeking new business outside the U.S.
Then, days before his second inauguration, the Trump Organization
released revised guidelines that jettisoned that constraint.
That worked. In a review conducted for Reuters of the 50 wallets holding
the largest amount of World Liberty tokens as of September 15, crypto
analytics firm Nansen found that 36 wallets – with holdings valued at
$804 million – were likely connected to overseas buyers. Only four
wallets were connected to U.S. investors, amounting to $889 million. But
most of that amount, $781 million, was held by Alt5 Sigma; an additional
$35 million was held by a World Liberty security adviser. Nansen was
unable to determine whether the remaining 10 wallets were connected to
Americans or foreigners based on blockchain data at the time of analysis.
Parlatore, the World Liberty lawyer, said that more foreigners than
Americans have bought crypto because there are more of them, and that
crypto has higher penetration rates outside the U.S. He added: “It was
basically harder to sell WLFI tokens to American investors, especially
initially, as the rules were very restrictive in the last administration
when the token sale began.”
Among the largest buyers of the tokens is Justin Sun, a Hong Kong-based
crypto billionaire. The SEC in 2023 charged Sun with fraud, selling
unregistered crypto securities and hiding payments to celebrities to
promote his products. With Trump back in the White House, the commission
paused the case in February, just weeks after Sun announced he had
increased his total purchases of World Liberty tokens to $75 million.
Under the terms of World Liberty’s cash distribution agreement with its
co-founders, Sun’s token purchases would have sent $56 million to the
Trump family.
Justin Sun did not respond to a request for comment. An SEC spokesperson
declined to comment. The investigation remains paused.
Foreign interests juiced the Trump family’s income through the World
Liberty USD1 stablecoin, too. In May, MGX, a state-controlled Abu Dhabi
investment company, used the coin to buy a $2 billion equity stake in
Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange. The deal still accounts
for three-quarters of all USD1 coins in circulation, though World
Liberty has cited it as evidence of “extraordinary, worldwide demand”
for the stablecoin.
The board chairman of MGX is Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the
UAE's national security adviser and a brother of UAE President Sheikh
Mohamed bin Zayed. The $2 billion MGX paid to create the stablecoins is
held in cash equivalents such as U.S. Treasury securities. World Liberty
says on its website that those securities kick off interest payments to
some of its affiliates, including one 38%-owned by the Trump
Organization. That income stream of about $80 million annually could
yield millions for the Trumps this year, based on Reuters calculations,
though because of the lack of public reporting, it’s not possible to
know the final figure.
The deal sparked criticism of what was widely viewed as an egregious
conflict of interest. Democratic Senators Elizabeth Warren and Jeff
Merkley asked the Office of Government Ethics to launch an inquiry,
warning that MGX’s purchase using the stablecoin “may violate the
Emoluments Clause of the U.S. Constitution,” which prohibits
officeholders from receiving payments or presents from foreign governments.
Eric Ueland, the Trump-appointed acting head of the Office of Government
Ethics, an independent agency in the executive branch, did not respond
to a request for comment. In response to a follow-up request to the
ethics office's spokesperson, Reuters received an automated message:
“Due to a lapse in appropriations,” a reference to the U.S. government
shutdown, “I will be unable to process requests or respond to inquiries.”
An MGX spokesperson referred Reuters to a previous statement which said
the company chose USD1 after evaluating several stablecoins, “examining
such factors as business suitability, the jurisdiction and currency of
assets backing the stablecoin, and compliance history.” It noted that
the stablecoin purchase did not constitute an investment in World
Liberty and that MGX used the stablecoin to complete a transaction in
which the seller had requested use of cryptocurrency.
MGX’s stablecoin investment also represented a turnabout for Binance in
the U.S. – from criminal convictions two years ago to a role in a deal
that financially benefits the U.S. president.
In late 2023, the exchange pleaded guilty in federal court to failing to
maintain an effective anti-money-laundering program and paid a penalty
of $4.3 billion. Its billionaire founder, China-born Changpeng Zhao,
served nearly four months in prison after pleading guilty to the same
charge and stepped down as CEO, but kept his Binance stake.
In May, shortly after the announcement that MGX was using the Trump
stablecoin to invest in Binance, Zhao told a podcaster that he had
applied for a pardon from the Trump administration but had never spoken
to the president. Last week, the White House announced that President
Trump had pardoned Zhao, saying that the previous administration of
President Joe Biden “severely damaged the United States’ reputation as a
global leader in technology and innovation.”
After the pardon was announced, Zhao posted on social media that he was
grateful to the president and would “do everything we can to help make
America the Capital of Crypto.”
Reuters could not determine whether World Liberty had any contact with
Binance before the latter accepted MGX’s investment using USD1
stablecoins. The White House did not respond to Reuters’ questions about
whether the stablecoin deal and Zhao’s pardon were connected.
MGX said it “did not seek or receive assurances from any party outside
the ordinary course of business for such a transaction.” The Trump
family and its business representatives did not respond to requests for
comment.
Binance and Zhao did not respond to requests for comment. In a letter to
Reuters before the pardon was announced, their lawyers said Binance and
Zhao are “clear” that they “conducted themselves entirely properly with
regard to the MGX investment” and that “any suggestion that the MGX
investment, or the use of USD1 for it, might in any way be linked to any
request Mr Zhao might make for a Presidential pardon, would be wholly
without foundation.” They said their clients “did not control the
payment method chosen by MGX for its investment in Binance.”
ROLLING OUT THE RED CARPET
The perception that Trump family businesses could provide a path to the
president was on display on April 27, when Donald Trump Jr. landed at
the airport in Sofia, Bulgaria. He descended the stairs from a
Gulfstream business jet to a red carpet on the tarmac and was whisked
away in a long motorcade of black vehicles.
It wasn’t a state visit. It was a stop on a tour of Eastern European
capitals where Don Jr. attended a series of conferences titled “Trump
Business Vision 2025.”
The Sofia event was sponsored by Nexo, a crypto firm based in the Cayman
Islands that left the U.S. market after the SEC fined it $45 million for
offering an unregistered securities product. As the conference in Sofia
got under way, Antoni Trenchev, Nexo’s co-founder and a former member of
the Bulgarian National Assembly, joined Don Jr. on stage. During the
event, Trenchev announced that Nexo intended to resume operations in the
U.S.
In a statement sent to Reuters, Nexo said the announcement “was not
linked to Mr. Trenchev’s interactions with Donald Trump Jr. or the
President of the United States.” The company also said it does not have
a confirmed timeline for returning to the U.S., but pointed out that
“the regulatory environment has begun to shift.”
By early July, Nexo had strengthened its ties to the Trump family. That
month, Nexo became a lead sponsor of a golf championship held at a
Trump-owned golf course near Aberdeen, Scotland. A few weeks later,
President Trump hosted Trenchev over lunch at his Scottish golf resort,
where the two discussed politics and their “joint vision for crypto in
the U.S.” during a day on the links, as Trenchev later posted on X with
a picture of him and the president.
Bulgarian Antoni Trenchev, while planning his Nexo crypto firm's return
to the U.S., posted on X after meeting with President Trump in Scotland:
“Thank you sincerely for what you are doing for all of us.” Screenshot via X
“Thank you sincerely for what you are doing for all of us,” Trenchev
wrote, tagging the U.S. president’s X handle.
Nexo said its sponsorship of the Scottish event was part of a broader
partnership with Europe's leading golf tour. The company said its
financial contribution to the partnership was eight figures but declined
to be more specific. It also said it did not know what portion of its
contribution, if any, would go to the Trump family.
A source familiar with the matter said Nexo agreed to pay about $10
million under the three-year deal.
A CHECKERED HISTORY
On May 1, four days after Don Jr. received a red carpet welcome in
Sofia, his brother Eric took the stage in Dubai with World Liberty
co-founder Zach Witkoff at a crypto conference called TOKEN2049. There,
they announced the MGX stablecoin deal and excoriated the traditional
banking system as antiquated and broken. “We are going to transform the
financial world,” Eric told the crowd.
Acting as a moderator was Justin Sun. At the time, he was the largest
known investor in World Liberty tokens. That would soon change. Hours
before walking on stage, Eric Trump had made his pitch for buying World
Liberty tokens to Guren “Bobby” Zhou and a few other crypto enthusiasts.
Justin Sun, Zach Witkoff and Eric Trump appeared for a panel discussion
at the TOKEN2049 conference in Dubai in May. REUTERS/Federico Maccioni
Zhou had recently served as chairman of the UAE offices of a British
Virgin Islands-registered crypto firm called Web3Port. He brought with
him to the meeting a checkered legal history.
Before moving to the UAE, Zhou lived in Britain, where he was arrested
in 2021 under suspicion of money laundering, according to a February
2024 court judgment in a separate case involving his UK immigration
status. The judgment says Zhou denied any wrongdoing. Britain’s National
Crime Agency, which passed the case to prosecutors in 2022, confirmed to
Reuters that Zhou remains under investigation.
Additionally, in three separate civil cases between 2017 and 2023, Zhou
and a family member were found by Chinese courts to have failed to repay
loans totaling 19.4 million yuan (about $2.4 million at current exchange
rates), according to court judgments reviewed by Reuters. One of those
judgments notes that Zhou failed to appear in court and was tried in
absentia.
Zhou did not respond to requests for comment. The Aqua Labs statement
said: “Any allegations of wrongdoing contained in recent media enquiries
are entirely false. Mr Guren (“Bobby”) Zhou has never been convicted of
any financial crime in any jurisdiction, and any implication to the
contrary is defamatory and false.”
Reuters could not determine whether Eric Trump was aware of those
details when the two met. Parlatore, the World Liberty lawyer, noted
that primary sales of World Liberty tokens are subject to review, but
did not respond to questions about the vendors the company uses or what
steps it takes beyond an initial check of buyers’ identities.
About a month after Zhou met with Eric Trump, in mid-June, Web3Port’s
BVI entities changed their names, adopting “Aqua1” in place of
“Web3Port,” according to local government records. Just days later, on
June 26, Aqua1 Foundation announced its $100 million purchase of World
Liberty tokens.
Then, on June 30, the host of a livestream chat on X out of the UAE
started talking about the excitement surrounding Aqua1. And “guess
what,” the host said, there was “a special guest from Aqua1 Foundation”
on the line. That guest was Zhou, who said, “We're very proud to be, you
know, a major player in the World Liberty, which is Trump's family's
crypto venture.”
