The unusual saga of a shadowy UAE firm’s $100 million funding in World Liberty Monetary, the Trump-aligned crypto dealer
Justin Solar, head of the Tron crypto change (L) talks with World Liberty Monetary cofounder Zach Witkoff (C) and Eric Trump of the Trump Group at a Might crypto convention in Dubai
(Giuseppe Cacace / AFP through Getty Photographs)
On June 26, a Dubai-based firm known as Aqua 1 Basis introduced a $100 million funding in World Liberty Monetary, the crypto firm carefully 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. In keeping with the phrases of the settlement between Trump and World Liberty Monetary, Trump receives 75 percent of the revenue 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 release—had turn out to be 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 measurement: There’s little or no proof that Aqua 1 Basis exists in any respect. The Aqua 1 web site, which was registered on Might 28, 2025, incorporates no details about the corporate past some fintech buzzwords and an e-mail deal with. The corporate’s original X account was suspended, as was an account for an apparently affiliated firm known as BlockRock RWA (“RWA” refers back to the apply of making blockchain tokens for “actual world property”). Looking out public databases, together with of companies within the United Arab Emirates, I’ve been unable to seek 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 account, which 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 seek out another social media or skilled profiles related to a Dave Lee in his capability as chief of what’s imagined to be a really well-heeled Center Jap 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 deal with 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 business media, the Aqua 1 Basis funding was duly reported as one other profitable deal for america’ 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 at the address aqua1.eth throughout three separate transactions in early June. The aqua1.eth pockets in flip sent $80 million worth 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 change that North Korean hackers not too long ago pillaged for $1.5 billion, in addition to a pockets on OKX, a big crypto change that earlier this year pleaded responsible to violating US anti–cash laundering legal guidelines and agreed to pay a $504 million fantastic.
Present Concern
It’s unclear the place the true 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, nevertheless it’s simply as doable that it could possibly be a entrance for any variety of international 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 business’s fetid waters, partnering with entrepreneurs and firms previously topic to federal prison and regulatory investigations. DWF Labs frontman Andrei Grachev, who put $25 million into World Liberty Monetary, pleaded guilty to fraud in a Russian prison courtroom. Tron government Justin Solar, whose SEC troubles have not too long ago dissipated, has returned to america after bouncing between the Caribbean and Asia on a St. Kitts passport. (He famously bowed out of a scheduled area flight on considered one of Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin rockets in 2021, which set him again a cool $28 million, citing a “scheduling conflict”; he’s now once more discussing catching a future Blue Origin flight.)
Whereas Trump has made a whole lot of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} from lending his title to crypto schemes, he stands to make way more, significantly if his dollar-pegged stablecoin, often known as USD1, takes off. On a latest day, USD1 was the third-most-traded stablecoin in crypto markets, with $3.37 billion in volume. 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, evenly regulated crypto scene, Trump and his associates might make billions.
With USD1, Trump has some highly effective business companions lending assist to the token, together with DWF Labs, Solar’s Tron community, a rich Hong Kong–based family office, a “decentralized hedge fund” known as Re7 Labs, and Binance, the world’s largest crypto change. 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, not too long ago completed a $2 billion investment 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 considered 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 another post.
If Aqua 1 Basis has been working with World Liberty Monetary because the president’s main crypto enterprise launched in September 2024, there’s little to no proof of the connection within the public file. Trump did journey to the UAE in Might 2025, the place he announced “over $200 billion in industrial offers between america 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 change into, stand to achieve enormously from their $100 million funding. Till now, the $WLFI token has solely been a “governance token,” granting its holders the suitable 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 not too long ago put out a vote to “unlock” $WLFI tokens, permitting them to be moved between wallets—a change that received the fulsome assist from the present holders of $WLFI. Quickly, $WLFI can be tradable on public markets, and its early backers will be capable to money out—guaranteeing, in flip, that essentially the most flagrantly corrupt president in American historical past will as soon as once more line his pockets.
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