Final month, the Aqua 1 Basis, based by Dave Lee, purchased $100 million worth of tokens from the Trump household’s cryptocurrency enterprise World Liberty Monetary (WLF. Somebody placing money immediately into the President’s coffers is a standard factor within the Trump period, however there’s one thing odd about this specific buy. In keeping with Reuters, Aqua 1 is now the biggest publicly recognized holder of World Liberty Monetary tokens, however nobody appears to know what the enterprise is or who runs it.
Aqua 1 put out a press launch final month asserting its buy of $WLFI cash, claiming to be a “pioneering Web3-native fund” based mostly within the United Arab Emirates. Per Reuters, the monetary middle for Abu Dhabi mentioned Aqua 1 “is just not registered, licensed, or affiliated” with the federal government “in any capability.” The publication additionally couldn’t discover Aqua 1 or its founder registered within the Dubai Worldwide Finance Centre, and the federal government’s Digital Belongings Regulatory Authority had no document of the inspiration, both.
The corporate barely has a footprint anyplace, as its web site is simply 44 days outdated in accordance with Whois records associated to the area’s registration, arrange in late Might—a couple of month earlier than dropping $100 million into the Trump household’s pockets.
It additionally doesn’t seem to have a lot happening when it comes to investments apart from giving cash to Trump and mates. Reuters cites knowledge from crypto tracker Arkham that reveals the corporate transferring $80 million to World Liberty Monetary in June. Previous to that, it made transfers of $9 million in March and $3 million in April to unidentified wallets and acquired some $90 million from a single account on the OKX crypto change. So principally, the entire cash it has is now invested in $WLFI.
The founder, Dave Lee, can also be a little bit of a ghost. He has a small social footprint—his X account was registered in 2023, and he barely posts. In truth, he simply began posting to announce Aqua 1’s work with World Liberty Monetary. He claims in a single post that his basis was “constructing with World Liberty Monetary” behind the scenes and that Aqua 1 had “Backed it, partnered with it, and now watching it make historical past.” He supplies no particulars on what’s concerned in that supposed partnership, apart from giving WLF cash.
For what it’s price, there seems to be folks serving to WLF behind the scenes and with out disclosures: Bloomberg reported that Binance assisted the corporate with the coding work previous to the launch of the corporate’s stablecoin, USD1—which made the token purposeful and allowed it to be used the United Arab Emirates to buy a $2 billion stake in Binance. On this case, we all know precisely who runs Binance: Changpeng Zhao, who was charged by the U.S. authorities for cash laundering in 2023 and is now seeking a presidential pardon. In all probability a coincidence.
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