The U.S. president’s family raked in more than $800 million from sales of crypto assets in the first half of 2025 alone, a Reuters examination found, on top of potentially billions more in unrealized “on paper” gains. Much of that cash has come from foreign sources as Donald Trump’s sons have touted their business on an international investor roadshow.
DUBAI – Eric Trump was in Dubai on family business. Meeting with a Chinese businessman and his associates on the sidelines of a cryptocurrency conference in May this year, the son of U.S. President Donald J. Trump ran through his usual talking points about the inefficiency of traditional banks and his own famous father’s run-ins with financiers. Then came the pitch. Buy at least $20 million of “governance tokens” in the Trump family’s crypto business, World Liberty Financial, and become part of a venture that Eric Trump predicted would soon embody the future of finance in America, according to a person familiar with the meeting. To some in that small gathering, the technology Eric Trump’s team described for World Liberty seemed “rudimentary,” the person said. At the time, World Liberty was a fledgling business. It had not yet created the cryptocurrency-based finance platform it promised after its September 2024 launch. It still hasn’t.
Even so, the pitch apparently worked. On June 26, an obscure entity called Aqua1 Foundation, which said it was based in the United Arab Emirates, announced it was buying $100 million of cryptocurrency tokens from World Liberty. It was the single largest known purchase of the so-called WLFI tokens at the time. The Chinese businessman who met with Eric Trump in Dubai was Guren “Bobby” Zhou, who has executive roles in multiple businesses and who is under investigation in Britain for money laundering, according to that nation’s National Crime Agency and a document filed in an immigration case at London’s Royal Courts of Justice. Zhou did not respond directly to requests for comment for this article. In a statement emailed to Reuters, an entity calling itself Aqua Labs Investment LLC said Zhou was its co-founder and described itself as an Abu Dhabi entity of Aqua1 Foundation. The statement said Aqua1 Foundation’s investment in World Liberty tokens “was a commercial decision consistent with its focus on advancing regulated, scalable digital-asset ecosystems.” Zhou’s relationship to Aqua1 Foundation has not been previously reported. Aqua1 Foundation did not respond to requests for comment. Nor did Eric Trump.
The Dubai meeting, reported here for the first time, was just one stop on a globetrotting investment roadshow the two elder sons of President Trump – Eric and Donald Trump Jr. – embarked on around the time of their father’s election to a second term. In Europe, the Middle East and Asia, they have been promoting World Liberty and other ventures that funnel investors’ cash to Trump family businesses, known collectively as the Trump Organization.
“These people are not pouring money into the coffers of the Trump family business because of the brothers’ acumen. They are doing it because they want freedom from legal constraints and impunity that only the president can deliver.”
The Trump brothers’ efforts have been a whopping success. In the first half of this year, the Trump Organization’s income soared 17-fold to $864 million from $51 million a year earlier, according to Reuters calculations based on the president’s official disclosures, property records, financial records released in court cases, crypto trade information and other sources. Of the first-half total, $802 million – more than 90% – came from Trump crypto ventures, including sales of World Liberty tokens. That $864 million payday represents actual income – cash flowing, free and clear, into Trump family coffers. Reuters’ calculations were reviewed by half a dozen crypto and real estate experts and a certified accountant who has studied the U.S. Internal Revenue Service’s approach to crypto.
The Trumps’ first-half crypto income dwarfed what the family earned from its traditional businesses – $33 million from the president’s golf clubs and resorts and $23 million for licensing his name to overseas real estate developers, according to Reuters estimates. More than half the Trumps’ income – $463 million – came from sales of World Liberty tokens alone, including up to $75 million from Aqua1’s token purchase. On its website, World Liberty says a Trump Organization entity receives 75% of the revenue from the token sales through its association with World Liberty.