USD1: the family stablecoin carrying a foreign state's $2 billion

WLF launched the USD1 stablecoin in March 2025. On May 1, 2025, Abu Dhabi's state-backed MGX announced it would use USD1 - a coin then five weeks old - to settle its $2 billion investment into Binance, a currency choice that instantly made the president's family firm the custodian of a foreign sovereign's $2 billion in reserves. Zach Witkoff announced it on stage in Dubai alongside Eric Trump.

Stablecoin issuers profit on the interest earned on reserves; parked in a high-rate environment, the $2 billion could generate on the order of $80 million a year for WLF and its partners, per Bloomberg. Binance, whose founder Trump later pardoned (PAY-03), left the money in USD1 and came to hold roughly 87% of the coin in circulation - concentration that one 60 Minutes source said gave CZ effective life-or-death control over the venture. Harvard's Lawrence Lessig on the currency choice: 'The only reason it makes sense is to ingratiate with the president.'

The arrangement gains a further layer from CRY-15: the MGX money came from the orbit of Sheikh Tahnoun, who - it emerged in February 2026 - secretly owned 49% of WLF itself. So the foreign state directing $2 billion into the president's coin was, undisclosed at the time, its part-owner.

Documented

Legal but conflicted; Foreign Emoluments questions raised

$2B routed through USD1; est. ~$80M/yr reserve yield to the family; Binance holds ~87% of USD1 in circulation

USD1 launched 2025-03; MGX-Binance $2B announced 2025-05-01