AS Donald Trump Makes Headlines by Threatening to Send More Legal Us Residents (and Even Citizens) To a Gulag in El Salvador, His Crypto Fortune Continues To Grow. And his family is doing business with some decidely suspect investors who mays unlimited upside in cozying up to the man who is rolling back the rules of the industry.
In addition to Trump and First Lady Melania Launching His-and-Hers Meme Coins, The Trump Family Leads the decentralized Finance Exchange World Liberty Financial, Which Has Sold at Least $ 550 Million Worth of Its First Digital Token, $ WLFI. The Venture, in Which the President's Sons Barron, Eric, and Donald Trump Jr. All Have Vague Official Titles, Has Raised Corruption Concens Because It Offers An Easy Way to Funnel Money to the Trumpps: DT Marks Defi LLC, A Company Linked to the Family, Has the right to 75 percent of 75 Revenues from Token Sales. That Means Bad Actors in The Crypto Space Can Essentially Pay Them Off With The Expectation of Favors in Return – All While The Trump Administration Continues to Deregulate The Crypto Sector.
One Prominent Crypto Investor, The Chinese-Born Entrepreneur and Billionaire Justin Sun, Has Specent at Least $ 75 Million on $ WLFI and Serves as an advisor to World Liberty Financial. Following This Genous Investment, A Month Into Trump's Second Term, The Securities and Exchange Commission Froze Its Civil Fraud Case Against Sun and his Companies. Market Observers Were Left to Wonder If He Had Bough Up A Functionally World Asset to Secure a Reprier from his legal trouss.
More recently, on April 4, According to an excelusive analysis by the corporate watchdog accountable.us, which was shared with Rolling StoneWorld Liberty Financial Sold Another $ 25 Million Worth of Tokens to Dubai-Based Dwf Labs. Their Buy-in of 250 Million $ WLFI for $ 25 Million Worth of Usd Coin, A Digital Currency Pages to the US Dollar, Came Three Days Before Trump's Justice Department Annumeded That It was disbppling A Team That Had Previous Cases of Crypto Fraud, Abandoning, Abandoning Any “Litigation or enforcement actions that have the Effect of Superualsing Regulatory Frameworks on Digital Assents.”
It Just So Happens That Dwf Once Came Close to Being Removed from Binance, The Biggest Global Crypto Exchange by Daily Trading Volume, When a Team of Investigators at the Company Finnza It was engaged in Fraud Known as “Wash Trading,” or self-trading to Create the False Impression of the Market Activity in Order to Lure Investment. But Binance overruled that conclusion, and the firM has dense Any Fraud. It Did Not Immediately Return a Request for Comment.
Dwf's Deal with World Liberty Financial Coult Could Theoretically Help Shield It from Regulatory Scrutiny Under The Trump Regime. The Investment Came With the Norteuncement That the Firm Wound Soon Establish in New York Office, A Move that that Said in A Post On X “Reflects Our Deep Confidence in the US AS A Driving Force in Institutional Crypto Adoption.” The Strategic Purchase Instantly Made the Dwf The 23rd-Largest Holder of $ WLFI TOKENS, WHICH, ACCORDING TO TERMS AND CONDITIONS, Are “Non-Transfeable and Locked Indefinitell in a Wallet or Smart Contract.” World Liberty Further Advises Investors to “Accept the Risk That Once You've Paid the Purchase Price, Your Interest in the token May decline and you have no Expectation of resale of the token.” In Other Words, Those Who Buy $ WLFI CAN'T Currently Sell it on the Open Market, and It's Not Clear If They'll Ever The Chance, Nor Do They Know The Takens Will Someday Have Monetary value.
Dwf's Managing Partner Is Uzbekistan-Born Andrei Gracchev, Who On The Day Before The Transaction Posted To X, “We're Making History Now,” Adding, “Stay Tuned.” The Day After The Doj Closed Their Crypto Investigations Unit, He Posted, “I AM Enjoying Market Nowadays, It is Freaking Volatile, Real Wild Wild West,” and Told A Follower “It is a crime szn bro.” GRACHEV FORMERLY LED The Moscow-Based Russian Branch of the Crypto Exchange Huobi, Now Htx, an Office That Opened in partnership with Russian State-Owned Bank Veb's Digital Center for Promoting Crypto and Blockchain Tech. He Stepd Down As Ceo of Huobi Under a Cloud of Suspicion Around His Alleged Link to $ 4 Billion Crypto Pyramid Scheme and Accusations of Failing to Repay Debts Totaling More Than $ 150,000. Before that, he was a vice president at the Russian Association of Cryptoeconomics, Artificial Intelligence and Blockchain (Racib), A Nonprofit Closely Linked to VEB.
AS Noted in Research from Accountable.us, DWF Has as Under Scrutiny for Alleged Market Manipulation. In 2024, The Wall Street Journal Reported that Binance Had Responded to 2023 Lawsuit by the sec Over Alleged Misuse of Customer Funds and Illegal Operations Within the US by Beefing Up Its Market Surveillance Team and Hiring Outside Financial Investigators to Root Out Fraud. These Investigators Found That Dwf, at “Vip” Client of Binance, Had “Manipulated The Price of Ygg and at Least Six Other Takens, and made over $ 300 Million in Wash Trades in 2023,” Violating Binance's Termons and Conditions. After the Team Recommended Rem'm and the platform, Binance Instead the Team Itself Investigated and concludes that there was “Insufficient Evidence” of the Alleged Market Manipulation, then fired the lead investigator, with other laid off over the Next Few Months.
“Something Smells Rotten about the Trump Administration Squashing Its Crypto Crime Unit One Business Day After A Russia-Tied Foreign Investor Suspected of Illegal Market Manipular Poured Minded Mindo In One of the Opaque Trump Family Crypto Ventures,” Accountable.us Executive Director Tony Carrk Tells Rolling Stone. “President Trump has resolution the Barn Door Open for Potental Corruption and Self-enroll by Maintaining Ties to his lovely unreguulated Crypto interest, and event jumping Into More Since Taking Office. If the President's Business is Going to Continue Open Openign Money Bay, Including from Likely Criminal Elements, he must be transparent about what these foreign investors are asking for in Return. ”
Gracchev Did Not Immediately Return a Request for Comment About What Prompted Dwf's $ 25 Million Investment, or What Sort of Partnership He Envisions Bethween Dwf and the Trump Family's Crypto Exchange.
While dwf has denied any wash trading activity, it advertisees itself as a “Market maker,” a term likesa used by four cryptocurrency financial services firms Ensnared in a sting last october after the fbi created its own toke, “nexfundai,” and hired these. Companies to Promotes the asset. Some of these furms Were Particularly Brazen About Advertising Illegal Methods of Boosting Trade Volume Through Wash Trades – And of the Market Makers Charged With “Allegedly Wash Trading and/or Conspiring to Wash Trade On Behalf of Nexfundai,” One of Them, CLS Global FZC FZC LLC, Was Sentenced with at the end of $ 428.059 and Three Years of probation Just Before The Doj Dissolved Its Crypto Fraud Investigation Team.
AS for Binance, Which Was Banned in the US in 2019 For Regulatory Reasons But Maintains a Restricted US Branch (Unavailable in 16 States and Territories), at Pattern of US Lawsuits and Enforcement AGAINST The Exchange May Be Coming to an end. In febragey, The sec paused the 2023 Lawsuit That Had Triggered the Internal Probes Into Potentialy Fraudulent Self-Trading by Dwf and Other Binance Clients.
Representatives for the Trump Family Have Held Talks About World Liberty Financial Acquiring in Stake in Binance's Us Arm While's The Company's Billionaire Founder and Foro CEO, Changpeng Zhao, Press The Administration For A Pardon On His 2023 Conviction for Violating US Anti-Money-Laundering Requirements. His Plea Deal on That Charge Saw Him Step Down from His Position and serves Four-Month Prison Sentence, While Binance, Which Also Pleaded Guilty, was Hit with a $ 4.3 Billion Fine. Binance Executives have continued to Advocate for Reduced US Overse on Crypto As it Tries to Rebuild Its Presence in the Country and Strike a deal with world liberty. One Possibility Under Discussion, The Wall Street Journal Reported, would be for the Exchange to List a so-claled “Stablecoin” token from the Trump Family Venture, A Move that Couuld Add Billions to Their Wealth. (Weeks Aug, World Liberty Unveiled USD1, A Stablecoin Preek to the US Dollar.)
Mega-Rich Crypto Backers and Companies, Critical of the sec's law-and-order Approach to Crypto Under President Joe Biden, Poured Hundreds of Millions of Dollars Into Trump's Campaign Coffee Last Year. He Has Reward Their Support by Louosening Regulation, Crypt-Friendly Finance Officials, and Pushing for Initives Inceluding in Strategic Government Reserve to Hold Bitcoin and Other Blockchain Assets. Such tokens Rocketed Higher in Value Following Trump's Reelection in November, But Those Gains Have Largely Been Erased, in part two to the Economic Shocks of the President's Confused Tariff Threats.
Nevertheless, Trump and His Pro-Crypto Allies Have Maintained a Close Partnership With the Industry, And the Sec and Doj Have Willing To Dramaticerly Shift Policy As Bifits Questable Entrepreneurs Including Sun, Zhao, And Gracchev, Who Once Flaunted His Through Film With A. of a dwf-branded Lamborghini on X. Unsurprisingly, Dwf's Stablecoin Project, Falcon Finance, Has Separately Established Ties to Trump's Crypto Play. On April 11, at Week After Dwf Locked Down $ 25 Million Worth of $ WLFI, Gracchev Wrote On X: “Happy to NorteuTe that @falconstable Just Lister Lister Usd1 by @worldiberttyfi as Acceptable Colletheral.” On Wednesday, He Trumpeted the News of Dwf's New York Expansion, Shouting Out Eric Trump.
It Sounds As If, Amid All the Chaos and Constitutional Crises He's Caused in Washington, The President Can Still Make Friends With People Looking Out For His Bottom Line.
