The unusual saga of a shadowy UAE firm’s $100 million funding in World Liberty Monetary, the Trump-aligned crypto dealer
Advert Coverage
Justin Solar, head of the Tron crypto trade (L) talks with World Liberty Monetary cofounder Zach Witkoff (C) and Eric Trump of the Trump Group at a Could crypto convention in Dubai
(Giuseppe Cacace / AFP through Getty Photos)
On June 26, a Dubai-based firm referred to as Aqua 1 Basis introduced a $100 million funding in World Liberty Monetary, the crypto firm intently affiliated with the households of President Donald Trump and Steve Witkoff, the Trump administration’s Center East diplomatic envoy. As is typical for these sorts of offers, Aqua 1 was shopping for $100 million value of $WLFI, a crypto token created by World Liberty Monetary. Based on the phrases of the settlement between Trump and World Liberty Monetary, Trump receives 75 p.c of the income from token gross sales, which means that the president was now presumably $75 million richer. And Aqua 1 Basis—whose existence was fully unknown earlier than it revealed its June 26 press launch—had change into one of many largest benefactors for Trump’s crypto companies, outspending Tron founder Justin Solar, who put $75 million into $WLFI and about $19 million into $TRUMP, the president’s memecoin. (The Securities and Alternate Fee introduced shortly after that buy that it was pausing its multibillion-dollar fraud case towards Solar.)
Within the annals of Donald Trump’s crypto corruption, the $100 million Aqua 1 Basis deal stands out for extra than simply its dimension: There’s little or no proof that Aqua 1 Basis exists in any respect. The Aqua 1 web site, which was registered on Could 28, 2025, incorporates no details about the corporate past some fintech buzzwords and an e-mail handle. The corporate’s authentic X account was suspended, as was an account for an apparently affiliated firm referred to as BlockRock RWA (“RWA” refers back to the observe of making blockchain tokens for “actual world property”). Looking public databases, together with of companies within the United Arab Emirates, I’ve been unable to search out any company registration, official filings, or different paperwork testifying to the existence of World Liberty Monetary’s latest and largest investor.
The one one who has been publicly recognized in reference to Aqua 1 Basis is a person named Dave Lee, who claims to have cofounded the corporate. On Lee’s X accountwhich was registered in December 2023 and has a cartoon avatar, he’s solely posted a handful of occasions, with all the messages showing after June 27, 2025. He lists his location as “São Paulo-NY-HK-Abu Dhabi” and responded to 1 questioner in Portuguese. And that’s the place the path ends. I’ve been unable to search out some other social media or skilled profiles related to a Dave Lee in his capability as chief of what’s alleged to be a really well-heeled Center Japanese crypto fund doing enterprise with the primary household.
Dave Lee didn’t reply to a number of X messages requesting remark. Aqua 1 Basis didn’t reply to an e-mail despatched to the handle listed on its web site. David Wachsman, the CEO of a communications agency that works with World Liberty Monetary, acknowledged receiving a listing of questions—about Aqua 1’s company registration, funding, and personnel—however didn’t present solutions earlier than publication.
In crypto trade media, the Aqua 1 Basis funding was duly reported as one other profitable deal for the USA’ main crypto entrepreneur. Some blockchain watchers famous that World Liberty Monetary’s official crypto pockets despatched $800 million value of $WLFI tokens to a pockets on the handle aqua1.eth throughout three separate transactions in early June. The aqua1.eth pockets in flip despatched $80 million value of USDT—the Tether stablecoin that’s pegged to the US greenback.
Aqua 1 Basis appeared to get its USDT from a pockets on Bybit, a UAE-based trade that North Korean hackers just lately pillaged for $1.5 billion, in addition to a pockets on OKX, a big crypto trade that earlier this 12 months pleaded responsible to violating US anti–cash laundering legal guidelines and agreed to pay a $504 million effective.
Present Concern
It’s unclear the place the actual cash powering this deal originated. Cryptocurrency permits for a level of discretion and pseudonymity, if not whole privateness, in monetary transactions. Somebody can spin up a web site and press launch and ship $80 million value of crypto to the US president’s associates with out leaving the sofa. It’s doable that Aqua 1 Basis is an actual Emirati firm, but it surely’s simply as doable that it might be a entrance for any variety of overseas monetary or political pursuits looking for favors from Trump.
As I’ve reported for The Nation, President Trump has jumped into the deep finish of the crypto trade’s fetid waters, partnering with entrepreneurs and firms previously topic to federal legal and regulatory investigations. DWF Labs frontman Andrei Grachev, who put $25 million into World Liberty Monetary, pleaded responsible to fraud in a Russian legal court docket. Tron government Justin Solar, whose SEC troubles have just lately dissipated, has returned to the USA after bouncing between the Caribbean and Asia on a St. Kitts passport. (He famously bowed out of a scheduled house flight on certainly one of Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin rockets in 2021, which set him again a cool $28 million, citing a “scheduling battle”; he’s now once more discussing catching a future Blue Origin flight.)
Whereas Trump has made lots of of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} from lending his identify to crypto schemes, he stands to make way more, significantly if his dollar-pegged stablecoin, generally known as USD1, takes off. On a latest day, USD1 was the third-most-traded stablecoin in crypto markets, with $3.37 billion in quantity. Congress is on the verge of passing laws that may assist additional legalize stablecoins and provides them higher entry to US banking and markets. Within the new, flippantly regulated crypto scene, Trump and his associates might make billions.
With USD1, Trump has some highly effective trade companions lending help to the token, together with DWF Labs, Solar’s Tron community, a rich Hong Kong–based mostly household workplacea “decentralized hedge fund” referred to as Re7 Labs, and Binance, the world’s largest crypto trade. Binance cofounder Changpeng Zhao, or CZ, has mentioned he’s looking for a pardon from Trump after serving 4 months in federal jail as a part of a plea deal over Binance’s violation of anti–cash laundering legal guidelines. MGX, an Emirati funding fund, just lately accomplished a $2 billion funding in Binance utilizing World Liberty Monetary’s USD1 stablecoin.
“We’ve got believed from the start,” wrote Aqua 1 Basis cofounder Dave Lee, referencing the corporate’s zeal for USD1, in certainly one of his few public posts. “We @Aqua1Fund have been constructing with @worldlibertyfi behind the scenes for some time now—this $100M transfer is simply the general public begin,” Lee wrote in one other submit.
If Aqua 1 Basis has been working with World Liberty Monetary for the reason that president’s main crypto enterprise launched in September 2024, there’s little to no proof of the connection within the public report. Trump did journey to the UAE in Could 2025, the place he introduced “over $200 billion in business offers between the USA and the United Arab Emirates.” Two weeks later, somebody started registering web sites and social media accounts for Aqua 1 Basis.
The president’s newest crypto benefactors, whoever they transform, stand to realize enormously from their $100 million funding. Till now, the $WLFI token has solely been a “governance token,” granting its holders the precise to vote on proposed modifications to the World Liberty Monetary platform. However the token itself has been nontransferrable—which means that anybody shopping for it was placing cash right into a token that couldn’t be offered or moved. That’s about to vary. World Liberty Monetary just lately put out a vote to “unlock” $WLFI tokens, permitting them to be moved between wallets—a change that received the fulsome help from the present holders of $WLFI. Quickly, $WLFI will likely be tradable on public markets, and its early backers will have the ability to money out—making certain, in flip, that probably the most flagrantly corrupt president in American historical past will as soon as once more line his pockets.
Jacob Silverman
Jacob Silverman is the creator of Phrases of Service: Social Media and the Worth of Fixed Connection and the coauthor of Straightforward Cash: Cryptocurrency, On line casino Capitalism, and the Golden Age of Fraud. He’s engaged on a e book about Silicon Valley and the political proper.
Extra from The Nation
It’s laborious to not see a straight line between Stalin’s model of photoshopping and the purge of the Pentagon archives in 2025.
Arnold Isaacs
US Senator Sheldon Whitehouse referred to as on Democrats to cease enabling the fossil gasoline trade’s “malevolent propaganda operation.”
Mark Hertsgaard
America is being hollowed out by an extractive economic system.
Corbin Trent
The Structure, correctly interpreted, protects staff. However the Trump administration isn’t going to implement these protections except labor fights for them.
Jennifer Abruzzo and Jay Swanson
Our science and well being infrastructure lies in tatters. As soon as-dead viruses are roaring again to life. Many individuals will die. In different phrases, we’ve reached the purpose of no return.
Gregg Gonsalves
