American crypto business

[zasad@]

‘Spy Sheikh’ Bought Secret Stake in Trump Company
$500 million investment for 49% of World Liberty came months before U.A.E. won access to tightly guarded American AI chips
https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/spy-sheikh-secret-stake-trump-crypto-tahnoon-ea4d97e8

"Four days before Donald Trump’s inauguration last year, lieutenants to an Abu Dhabi royal secretly signed a deal with the Trump family to purchase a 49% stake in their fledgling cryptocurrency venture for half a billion dollars, according to company documents and people familiar with the matter. The buyers would pay half up front, steering $187 million to Trump family entities.

The deal with World Liberty Financial, which hasn’t previously been reported, was signed by Eric Trump, the president’s son. At least $31 million was also slated to flow to entities affiliated with.."
free:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/spy-sheikh-bought-secret-stake-in-trump-company/ar-AA1VpnKP

"What wasn’t publicly known: Tahnoon’s emissaries had signed the deal to purchase 49% of World Liberty that January.

Of the first $250 million installment from the Tahnoon-backed company, called Aryam Investment 1, $187 million was directed to Trump family entities DT Marks DEFI LLC and DT Marks SC LLC, the documents said. In addition to the payout to Witkoff family entities, another $31 million was directed to an entity tied to co-founders Zak Folkman and Chase Herro. The Journal couldn’t determine how the second half of Aryam’s investment, which was due by July 15, 2025, may have been distributed.

The agreement would make Aryam World Liberty’s largest shareholder, and the firm’s only known investor outside of its founders. The deal placed two Aryam executives, who also held top positions at Tahnoon’s G42, on World Liberty’s five-person board, which at the time included Eric Trump and Zach Witkoff—Steve Witkoff’s son, the documents said.

Trump’s real-estate company has courted deals with foreign companies since his election, and the president has accepted gifts from foreign governments, including a $400 million luxury airliner from Qatar. But the World Liberty deal is the only known case of a foreign government official purchasing a major stake in a Trump company after his election."

[yhiaali3]

I expect this is just a small part of the secret deals that Gulf princes make with the United States in general and Trump in particular. I believe there are much larger, undisclosed secret deals.

The royal families in the Gulf states, especially Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar, are secretly making many deals with the United States. While these may appear to be economic deals, they are in reality political deals whose primary goal is to secure US support to solidify the rule of these royal families.

Here in the Arab world, the Gulf states are often criticized for paying billions of dollars to the United States while most Arab populations suffer from extreme poverty. It would be better to spend these billions on their impoverished Arab brothers and sisters instead of giving them to Trump.

[FinneysTrueVision]

This ends up giving credibility to crypto detractors like Elizabeth Warren who said that foreign governments could have influence on American policy by bribing Trump through his many crypto projects. What little support there might have been on the Democratic side for pro-crypto legislation seems to be gone now.

The open corruption also damages how regular people see crypto. You can go on any social media and you will see there is a lot of pessimism and frustration with Trump’s actions. Trump has only sought to benefit himself without thinking about how crypto might be affected negatively.

[zasad@]

Top Democrat Launches Probe Into ‘Spy Sheikh’ Deal With Trump Company
World Liberty said lawmakers are ‘harassing a private American business to score political points’
https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/top-democrat-launches-probe-into-spy-sheikh-deal-with-trump-company-ea59ec8e
"The top Democrat on a House committee overseeing U.S.-China competition has launched an investigation into a $500 million investment by an Abu Dhabi royal in a Trump family cryptocurrency company and is urging a U.S. attorney to probe the deal as well.

In a letter to Zach Witkoff, CEO of the Trump-backed World Liberty Financial, California Rep. Ro Khanna sent a list of 16 questions and requested documents related to the company’s agreement with the Abu Dhabi royal, a deal first reported by The Wall Street Journal."
___

I love stories like this, they will continue for a very long time.

[zasad@]

Binance—Whose Founder Was Pardoned—Now Holds 87% Of Trump’s Stablecoin
https://www.forbes.com/sites/zacheverson/2026/02/09/trump-stablecoin-usd1-binance-holds-87-percent/
Binance holds about 87% of USD1, the stablecoin issued by a Trump family crypto venture—a greater concentration than any other major stablecoin has at a single exchange—underscoring the depth of the financial relationship between Binance, whose founder Trump pardoned in October, and World Liberty Financial, which already has added an estimated $1 billion to President Donald Trump’s net worth.

___
Rumors, gossip. But Trump's presidential term will soon end, and according to US law, no one can serve as president for more than eight years. I expect investigations in a couple of years to be more ambitious than the one involving the FTX exchange.

[zasad@]

https://x.com/worldlibertyfi/status/2025951491287089384
"A coordinated attack was launched against USD1 this morning. Attackers hacked several WLFI cofounder accounts, paid influencers to spread FUD, and opened massive $WLFI shorts to profit from the manufactured chaos.

It didn’t work.

Thanks to USD1’s sound mint-and-redeem mechanism and full 1:1 backing, we are trading steadily at par. No scammer can shake the long-term commitment of the entire WLFI team and cofounders to USD1.

We encourage users to rely only on verified channels for accurate information."

[zasad@]

Here’s How Much Donald Trump Is Worth
Crypto cash and court rulings have combined to make America’s billionaire-in-chief much, much richer over the past year.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/luisakroll/2026/03/10/heres-how-much-donald-trump-is-worth/

"Donald Trump’s second term as president has so far paid off handsomely for the billionaire head of state. Whether striking deals in the Middle East, shilling his crypto coins or hosting luminaries at his properties, Trump has proven that he and his family are very much still in business. The president is now worth $6.5 billion, according to Forbes’ latest World’s Billionaires list, up by $1.4 billion from a year ago. He ranks 645th among the planet’s 3,428 billionaires, up from 700th in 2025.

For that, Trump can largely thank crypto dealings. He has netted an estimated $550 million over the past year from sales of crypto tokens issued by World Liberty Financial, the crypto venture he and his family launched in September 2024. Then he and his partners in the company—including his billionaire special envoy, Steve Witkoff, and his family—reportedly sold a 49% stake in World Liberty Financial to Aryam Investment, a firm backed by the United Arab Emirates' national security advisor and UAE royal family member Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan. That put an additional $200 million in Trump’s pockets, Forbes estimates. “[Gulf leaders] know how to deal with this American president,” a former diplomat with experience in the region told Forbes last fall. “They learned it the first time around, but he was himself constrained in how blatantly he could solicit money. He's unconstrained now.”

Trump is still sitting on millions of crypto tokens, both of World Liberty Financial ($WLFI) and his memecoin, $TRUMP. Forbes values both at a discount, but they still add up to nearly $570 million combined for the president. Then there’s the value of his remaining 38% stake in World Liberty Financial (which issues the USD1 stablecoin) as an operating business, which Forbes estimates to be worth $240 million.

Tracking Trump
Trump also got a major boost last August when an appeals court threw out the civil penalty he was ordered to pay in a civil fraud case in New York. That meant he was off the hook for $517 million he had owed in the case, including interest, wiping a major liability from his books while New York’s attorney general Letitia James appeals the decision."

For comparison

https://www.forbes.com/sites/ninabambysheva/2026/03/10/binance-founder-cz-is-now-richer-than-bill-gates/
"A year and a half ago, Changpeng Zhao was just getting out of jail. After a sweeping investigation into Binance, the cryptocurrency exchange he founded in 2017, Zhao (better known by his initials, CZ) pleaded guilty to failing to maintain an effective anti-money laundering program and agreed to pay a $50 million fine (on top of $4.3 billion paid by Binance), resign as CEO and serve four months in a California prison.

What a difference 17 months makes.

Forbes estimates that CZ is now richer than ever. His net worth has skyrocketed to $110 billion, up $47 billion from last year, on the annual World’s Billionaire’s list. CZ now ranks as the 17th-wealthiest person on the planet, by our count, and one of just 20 people worth twelve figures. He is richer than Bill Gates."