LONDON, U.K.: A little-known investment fund based in the United Arab Emirates has emerged as the most prominent public backer of U.S. President Donald Trump's latest crypto venture, adding fuel to an already controversial mix of politics, business, and blockchain.

The fund, called Aqua 1 Foundation, has purchased US$100 million worth of digital tokens from World Liberty Financial ($WLFI), a crypto platform launched by Trump and his business partners just ahead of the 2024 U.S. presidential election. The purchase makes Aqua 1 the largest disclosed investor in the project to date.

A spokesperson for World Liberty confirmed the investment to Reuters.

While the tokens aren't yet tradable, they function as governance tokens, meaning they allow holders to vote on potential changes to World Liberty's underlying business code. The company said it was "working behind the scenes" to make the tokens transferable in the future.

In a statement released this week, Aqua 1 said the deal aimed to accelerate the creation of a "blockchain-powered financial ecosystem" featuring stablecoins and tokenised traditional assets.

"WLFI and Aqua 1 will jointly identify and nurture high-potential blockchain projects together," said Dave Lee, founding partner at Aqua 1. He added that the fund's investment and compliance teams would support World Liberty's expansion across South America, Europe, and Asia.

Despite its sudden high-profile investment, Aqua 1 maintains a bare-bones online footprint. Its account on X (formerly Twitter) has only three posts and about 1,120 followers. Domain data shows its website was registered on May 28, just a month prior to the public announcement.

The statement also revealed that World Liberty plans to support the launch of another Aqua 1-managed fund focused on promoting the "digital economy transformation" in the Middle East, powered by both blockchain and artificial intelligence.

Neither Aqua 1 nor World Liberty provided further immediate comment when contacted by Reuters.

World Liberty Financial was launched just two months before the 2024 election and has since generated hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue for Trump's family business. The platform's stated mission is to use digital tokens to bypass traditional intermediaries like banks, opening access to financial services through blockchain-based tools.

One of World Liberty's key offerings is a stablecoin called USD1, which received a boost in May when an Abu Dhabi investment firm selected it as the vehicle for a $2 billion investment in the cryptocurrency exchange Binance.