A fund based in the United Arab Emirates has purchased $100 million worth of digital tokens from World Liberty Financial, the crypto business linked to U.S. President Donald Trump’s family.
The transaction makes Aqua 1 Foundation, a pioneering Web3-native fund, the largest known investor in the venture.
The tokens, called $WLFI, are governance tokens. They cannot be traded but give holders voting rights on changes to the business’s underlying code.
World Liberty said it is working to make the token transferable.
Aqua 1 said in a statement the purchase is meant to help build a blockchain-based financial system using stablecoins and tokenised traditional assets. It said the fund and World Liberty will work together to support blockchain projects and that Aqua 1’s teams will help the crypto venture grow in South America, Europe and Asia.
World Liberty also plans to support the launch of a separate Aqua 1 fund that will invest in blockchain and artificial intelligence projects in the Middle East.
Despite the size of its investment, Aqua 1 has little online presence. Its X account has three posts and about 1,120 followers, and domain data shows its website was created on May 28.
World Liberty was launched two months before the 2024 U.S. presidential election by Trump and his business partners. It has generated hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue for the Trump family business.
The venture has faced criticism from Democrats and ethics groups over possible conflicts of interest. The Trump Organization has said the president’s assets are managed by a trust run by his children.
World Liberty says it wants to provide financial services using digital tokens, without banks or other intermediaries. In May, its stablecoin USD1 gained momentum after an Abu Dhabi firm used it in a $2 billion investment in Binance.
