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Trump-tied World Liberty Financial Rebuffs U.S. Senator's Probe

Sen. Richard Blumenthal had written letters to Trump-affiliated executives, asking about their businesses, and WLFI called some of his assertions inaccurate.

May 16, 2025, 3:39 p.m.
World Liberty Financial Trump ties
Trump-tied World Liberty Financial answered probing questions from U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal (Jesse Hamilton/CoinDesk)

What to know:

  • The crypto company affiliated with President Donald Trump, World Liberty Financial, has sent a response to an earlier probe initiated by U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal.
  • The company's lawyers refuted Blumenthal's assertions and defended its role in the industry.

World Liberty Financial, the crypto business tied to President Donald Trump and his family, is pushing back against scrutiny from U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal, the leading Democrat on a panel responsible for investigating corruption and mismanagement.

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"WLFI is not operating in the shadows," according to a letter the company's lawyers sent to the Connecticut senator. "It is building a next-generation, auditable financial infrastructure rooted in American trust, rule of law and economic leadership."

Blumenthal had targeted his own letter at co-founder Zach Witkoff — set to appear alongside fellow co-founder Zak Folkman and Eric Trump at Consensus 2025 in Toronto on Friday — and asked about the ownership and investment structure for Trump-affiliated entities, including WLFI and Fight Fight Fight LLC, the company behind the TRUMP memecoin. Since he's not in the majority party, Blumenthal's probe doesn't carry the full force of the Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, a panel housed within the Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs.

The WLFI response said Blumenthal's request "contains inaccuracies and fundamental flawed inferences that we will not address in full," but the lawyers offered the example that WLFI has no affiliation with Fight, Fight, Fight LLC.

"The company rejects the false choice between innovation and oversight," the letter said. "What it opposes is the misuse of regulatory authority and uncertainty to suppress lawful innovation."

The president's son, Eric, who is listed as a Web3 ambassador on the WLFI website alongside his father, the "chief crypto advocate," also appeared at Consensus 2025 on Thursday to explain how he entered crypto and why he launched a mining firm set to go public via a merger.

"We have come to love the crypto community, and I think the crypto community has really come to love us," he told a crowded house in Toronto. "We're so proud to be a big part of it."

The Trump family's crypto ties have also been raised by Senate Democrats objecting to digital assets legislation working its way through Congress. Even so, a stablecoin regulation bill is expected to come up for a key vote next week.

Read More: Eric Trump Says He Got Into Crypto Amid Political Attack, Calls Bitcoin 'Digital Gold'


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KuCoin Hits Record Market Share as 2025 Volumes Outpace Crypto Market

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KuCoin captured a record share of centralised exchange volume in 2025, with more than $1.25tn traded as its volumes grew faster than the wider crypto market.

Yang perlu diketahui:

  • KuCoin recorded over $1.25 trillion in total trading volume in 2025, equivalent to an average of roughly $114 billion per month, marking its strongest year on record.
  • This performance translated into an all-time high share of centralised exchange volume, as KuCoin’s activity expanded faster than aggregate CEX volumes, which slowed during periods of lower market volatility.
  • Spot and derivatives volumes were evenly split, each exceeding $500 billion for the year, signalling broad-based usage rather than reliance on a single product line.
  • Altcoins accounted for the majority of trading activity, reinforcing KuCoin’s role as a primary liquidity venue beyond BTC and ETH at a time when majors saw more muted turnover.
  • Even as overall crypto volumes softened mid-year, KuCoin maintained elevated baseline activity, indicating structurally higher user engagement rather than short-lived volume spikes.

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Iran accepts cryptocurrency as payment for advanced weapons

Iran flag (Akbar Nemati/Unsplash, modified by CoinDesk)

Prospective customers could purchase weapons such as missiles, tanks and drones using crypto, according to a government website.

Yang perlu diketahui:

  • Iran's Ministry of Defence Export Center is accepting cryptocurrency payments for advanced weapons systems as a means of bypassing international sanctions that the country faces.
  • The offer is among the first known instances of a country accepting cryptocurrency as a means of payment for military equipment, according to the Financial Times.
  • The facility for using cryptocurrency to pay for transactions involving sanctioned countries is already well established.