Sitting in front of a packed auditorium in Dubai, a founder of the Trump family cryptocurrency business made a brief but monumental announcement on Thursday. A fund backed by Abu Dhabi, he said, would be making a $2 billion business deal using the Trump firm’s digital coins.
That transaction would be a major contribution by a foreign government to President Trump’s private venture — one that stands to generate hundreds of millions of dollars for the Trump family. And it is a public and vivid illustration of the ethical conflicts swirling around Mr. Trump’s crypto firm, which has blurred the boundary between business and government.
Zach Witkoff, a founder of the Trump family crypto firm, World Liberty Financial, revealed that a so-called stablecoin developed by the firm would be used to complete the transaction between the state-backed Emirati investment firm MGX and Binance, the largest crypto exchange in the world.
Virtually every detail of Mr. Witkoff’s announcement, made during a conference panel with Mr. Trump’s second-eldest son, contained a conflict of interest.
MGX’s use of the World Liberty stablecoin, USD1, brings a Trump family company into business with a venture firm backed by a foreign government. The deal creates a formal link between World Liberty and Binance — a company that has been under U.S. government oversight since 2023, when it admitted to violating federal money-laundering laws.
And the splashy announcement served as an advertisement to crypto investors worldwide about the potential for forming a partnership with a company tied to President Trump, who is listed as World Liberty’s chief crypto advocate.
“We thank MGX and Binance for their trust in us,” said Mr. Witkoff, who is the son of the White House envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff. “It’s only the beginning.”
Mr. Witkoff and Eric Trump were speaking on a panel at Token2049, a major crypto conference in the United Arab Emirates, where more than 10,000 digital currency enthusiasts have gathered for a week of networking. It was the latest stop in an international tour by Mr. Witkoff, who visited Pakistan last month with his business partners to meet the prime minister and other government officials. Eric Trump, who runs the family business, has spent the week in Dubai, where he announced plans to back a Trump-branded hotel and tower.
The president himself is set to travel to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the U.A.E. on a state visit in two weeks.
His son’s panel with Mr. Witkoff was the most anticipated event of the Dubai conference. The auditorium, inside a luxury resort on the shore of the Persian Gulf, was packed with crypto investors from around the world, many of whom had to stand in the aisles or lean on pillows propped against the walls to watch the conversation.
“This is just one incredible country,” Mr. Witkoff said from the stage. “One of the most innovative, if not the most innovative, country on planet Earth today.”
Representatives for Binance, MGX and World Liberty did not respond to requests for comment.
Once a crypto skeptic, President Trump embraced digital currencies on the campaign trail last year as the industry poured tens of millions of dollars into the 2024 election. In September, he and his sons unveiled World Liberty, which they pitched as a new kind of internet bank that would allow people to borrow and lend money using cryptocurrencies.
Since then, World Liberty has sold $550 million worth of a new cryptocurrency called $WLFI, with a large cut of the revenue earmarked for a business entity tied to the Trump family. In March, the company also created a stablecoin — a type of digital currency designed to maintain a price of $1, making it convenient to use for large transactions because its value doesn’t swing like a stock’s.
The company’s dealings have created conflicts of interest with no precedent in modern U.S. history. Some of the investors who bought $WLFI coins are foreign nationals who have been barred from supporting a president via campaign contributions or donations to the inaugural fund. And many of the firm’s corporate partners have clear incentives to curry favor with the federal government as they seek to expand in the American market.
Even the roster of panelists onstage in Dubai highlighted how much the Trump family’s business interests now blur with United States policy and regulation.
Sitting alongside Mr. Witkoff and Eric Trump was one of World Liberty’s top investors, Justin Sun, a Chinese-born billionaire who runs the crypto platform TRON. Mr. Sun bought $75 million in $WLFI coins after the election.
About a year earlier, the Securities and Exchange Commission sued Mr. Sun, accusing him of manipulating the price of a TRON cryptocurrency. When Mr. Trump took office, the S.E.C. asked a federal judge to pause the case while the agency negotiated a settlement, which the judge did.
“I just got to thank you for the support, Justin,” Mr. Witkoff said. “TRON is just an incredible technology, and we’re lucky to be partners with you.”
Soon Mr. Witkoff delivered the panel’s big reveal.
In March, Binance announced that MGX, an investment fund backed by the government of Abu Dhabi, would invest $2 billion in the exchange using stablecoins. But which particular stablecoin it would use to do that had not been disclosed.
The coin chosen for the transaction was World Liberty’s USD1, Mr. Witkoff said.
“Wow,” Mr. Sun responded.
Leaders of MGX and Binance have had high-stakes dealings with U.S. officials.
MGX is led by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, an Emirati royal who serves as the nation’s national security adviser. In March, Sheikh Tahnoon visited the United States for meetings with President Trump and some of his cabinet members and advisers.
In 2023, Binance pleaded guilty to charges that it had violated U.S. anti-money-laundering laws and allowed criminals to transact on its platform. As part of a settlement with the Justice Department and other federal agencies, the company was placed under a Treasury Department monitorship to ensure that it would comply with the law.
In recent months, Binance’s founder, Changpeng Zhao, has been seeking a pardon from the Trump administration, after he pleaded guilty to a money laundering violation and spent four months in federal prison.
The role of USD1 in Binance’s deal with MGX provides major financial support to World Liberty.
Stablecoin issuers like World Liberty make money by accepting deposits from investors, giving them stablecoins in return and then investing those deposits to generate a yield that the issuer keeps.
The precise details of World Liberty’s arrangement with MGX and Binance are unclear. But it appears that, with one deal, World Liberty now has $2 billion in deposits to invest. Those funds alone could generate tens of millions of dollars a year in revenue for the Trump family and its partners at World Liberty.
Ultimately, Mr. Witkoff said from the stage in Dubai, he expects the World Liberty stablecoin to grow even bigger, reaching “many billions of market cap.”
Someday, he continued, visitors to the United Arab Emirates might even use the USD1 coin to pay at the Four Seasons in Abu Dhabi.
At that, Eric Trump broke in with a correction.
“You’re not going to be walking into the Four Seasons using USD1,” he said. “You’re going to be walking into the Trump International Hotel and Tower.”
