UAE Firm to Invest $100 Million into Trump Family’s WLFI Tokens

Aqua 1, a Web3 investment fund based in the UAE, announced today that it’s spending $100 million on WLFI tokens. It and World Liberty Financial are partnering to expand WLFI’s blockchain ecosystem.

However, the announcement didn’t go into many specifics, and there are a lot of unanswered questions about this deal. If nothing else, both firms plan to support BlockRock, an RWA tokenization firm.

Aqua 1 Invests in WLFI

World Liberty Financial is one of the Trump family’s larger crypto ventures, launching the WLFI governance token and USD1 stablecoin.

The firm has gone through a few changes recently, as the Trump family reduced its stake last week and announced plans to make WLFI tradable yesterday.

Today, this Aqua 1 partnership plans to change things even further with a $100 million WLFI purchase:

“We’re excited to work hand-in-hand with the team at Aqua 1. Aligning with Aqua 1 validates our blueprint for global financial innovation, as we have a joint mission to bring digital assets to the masses and strengthen our nation’s standing as a champion and leader of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology,” claimed World Liberty co-founder Zak Folkman.

Unfortunately, there isn’t much information available on Aqua 1, which could be useful for dissecting the WLFI purchase. Its X account was created this month, and all its posts relate to today’s deal.

Aqua 1’s press release is very noncommittal, briefly touching on many Web3 buzzwords like DeFi, blockchain infrastructure, AI, global adoption, and more.

Still, a few pieces of circumstantial evidence could help explain the partnership. The UAE, Aqua 1’s home country, is a growing crypto hub, and Trump’s real estate empire and World Liberty Financial both have recent business ties there.

Aqua 1’s WLFI press release also lists Dave Lee as a founding partner, but it’s not clear who this is.

However, although Trump’s crypto projects face many corruption allegations, Aqua 1’s $100 million WLFI investment does have some tangible goals.

Specifically, the pair is developing and incubating BlockRock, an RWA tokenization firm.

BlockRock is now officially backed by both Aqua1 Foundation and World Liberty Financial — pioneering the next standard for TradFi × Web3 integration. We’re excited to announce that BlockRock has secured strategic incubation from @Aqua1Fund and @worldlibertyfi, marking a… pic.twitter.com/Bc2WKfMmnw

— BlockRock_rwa (@BlockRock_rwa) June 26, 2025

Nonetheless, this deal is quite strange. Aqua 1 invested $100 million in WLFI, more than three times as much as Tron founder Justin Sun. The fund is now its largest individual investor.