As cryptocurrency continues to reshape global finance, few political families have embraced its promise—and its controversy—quite like the Trumps. President Donald Trump’s sons, Eric and Donald Trump Jr., have built a significant new source of wealth through their digital finance venture, World Liberty Financial (WLF).
The enterprise, launched during Trump’s second presidential term, has attracted hundreds of millions of dollars from investors worldwide. The report, drawn from Reuters’ investigation, shows how the family’s crypto operations blur the line between private business, political influence, and international money, raising profound ethical and governance concerns.
Eric Trump was in Dubai on family business when he pitched Chinese businessman Guren “Bobby” Zhou to buy into the Trump family’s crypto venture, World Liberty Financial. Eric described the firm as the “future of finance in America,” according to a person familiar with the May meeting.
The pitch worked. In June, a UAE-based entity called Aqua1 Foundation announced it was buying $100 million of World Liberty tokens, the largest known purchase. An entity called Aqua Labs Investment LLC, co-founded by Zhou, said Aqua1’s investment “was a commercial decision consistent with its focus on advancing regulated, scalable digital-asset ecosystems.”
The Dubai meeting was part of a global investment roadshow by Eric and Donald Trump Jr., promoting World Liberty and other ventures that channel investor funds to Trump family businesses. These efforts have been lucrative. Reuters calculated that the Trump Organization’s income rose 17-fold in the first half of 2025 to $864 million, up from $51 million a year earlier. More than 90% — $802 million — came from Trump crypto ventures, including sales of World Liberty tokens.
READ: Crypto 101: A layperson’s guide to cryptocurrency (
Of that total, $463 million came from WLFI token sales and $336 million from a Trump meme coin, $TRUMP. On its website, World Liberty says a Trump Organization entity receives 75% of the revenue from the token sales.
“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,” said Carter Davis, an assistant professor of finance at The Ohio State University.
Ethics experts say the overlap between President Trump’s crypto policy and his family’s ventures is unprecedented. “These people are not pouring money into coffers of the Trump family business because of the brothers’ acumen,” said law professor Kathleen Clark. “They are doing it because they want freedom from legal constraints and impunity that only the president can deliver.”
Still, no laws appear to have been broken. “It’s legal but unethical,” said Richard Painter, former ethics lawyer for President George W. Bush.
World Liberty has yet to deliver on promises of a peer-to-peer lending platform. Its tokens offer limited governance rights and have lost about 65% of their value since debuting on exchanges. In a letter to Reuters, company lawyer Timothy Parlatore said: “WLFI tokens are not securities; they are digital assets with real utility, including governance rights that benefit holders as the platform grows.”
He added: “The Alleged Valuation and Income Analysis of WLFI is inaccurate and misleading.”
Finance professor Seoyoung Kim observed, “Without the Trump name, you wouldn’t see World Liberty Financial raising this kind of money.”
Foreign investors dominate the project. Analytics firm Nansen found that 36 of the top 50 wallets, worth $804 million, were likely connected to overseas buyers. Among them was crypto billionaire Justin Sun, who bought $75 million of tokens. The SEC’s fraud case against Sun was paused shortly after Trump returned to office.
Another major deal involved MGX, a UAE state-controlled company, which used World Liberty’s stablecoin USD1 to buy a $2 billion stake in Binance. Democratic senators warned the transaction “may violate the Emoluments Clause of the U.S. Constitution.”
READ: Crypto firm Tether on track for $500 billion valuation (
Soon after, Binance founder Changpeng Zhao was pardoned by President Trump. Zhao posted he was grateful and would “do everything we can to help make America the Capital of Crypto.”
Donald Trump Jr. has also promoted the ventures abroad. In Sofia, Bulgaria, he appeared at a Nexo-sponsored event where the crypto firm announced plans to resume U.S. operations. Later, Nexo sponsored a golf championship at a Trump course in Scotland.
In Dubai, Eric Trump shared the stage with co-founder Zach Witkoff at the TOKEN2049 conference, declaring, “We are going to transform the financial world.”
Weeks earlier, Zhou had rebranded his firm as Aqua1 and completed the $100 million purchase of WLFI tokens. On a UAE livestream, Zhou said, “We’re very proud to be, you know, a major player in the World Liberty, which is Trump’s family’s crypto venture.”
The rise of World Liberty Financial signals a new era where political families can leverage personal brands to shape, and profit from, emerging financial systems. The Trumps’ success in converting political power into digital wealth underscores both the opportunities and the dangers of unregulated crypto markets.
As one expert noted, the family’s operations may be “legal but unethical,” illustrating how cryptocurrency can serve as a bridge between political influence, global finance, and personal enrichment. In the end, the Trump family’s crypto empire is not just a financial story — it is a case study in how money, politics, and technology are converging to redefine accountability in modern leadership.