Web3Port announced a $10 million World Liberty Financial purchase days after Trump's inauguration; blockchain analysis later found $20 million

Web3Port Foundation announced on X on January 27, 2025 -- days after Trump's inauguration -- that it had invested $10 million to buy nearly 200 million tokens of World Liberty Financial (WLFI), the crypto venture co-founded by President Trump's sons, saying it planned further investment. The New York Times reported in August 2026 that blockchain analytics firm Arkham Intelligence had traced Web3Port's actual on-chain purchase at $20 million, double the amount Web3Port had announced. Web3Port is controlled by businessman Guren "Bobby" Zhou, who has been under an active United Kingdom money-laundering investigation since a March 2021 arrest, first disclosed in UK court records made public in February 2024; two of his longtime employees have since been charged, though Zhou himself has not. That investigation was already a matter of public record, along with an unpaid $5 million debt from Zhou's collapsed flooring business and a failed prior crypto venture, when Web3Port's money reached WLFI.

Two weeks after Web3Port's announcement, Aqua 1 Foundation, a separate UAE-based crypto fund, announced its own $100 million WLFI purchase; Arkham's blockchain analysis found a wallet "likely controlled by" Aqua 1 completed an $80 million purchase that June, together with the Web3Port wallet accounting for the combined $100 million WLFI ultimately received from the two entities (recorded separately: entries/2025/06/26/federal-self-dealing-a98b881b.yaml). Aqua 1 founder Dave Lee has publicly denied reporting linking him to Zhou or Web3Port. A WLFI spokesman told the Times the company followed all applicable laws and maintained compliance standards exceeding industry norms, and did not dispute the amounts involved.