The Trump family’s crypto venture has generated more wealth since the election—some $4.5 billion—than any other part of the president’s business empire.

A major reason for the success is a partnership with an under-the-radar trading platform quietly administered by Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange, whose founder is seeking a pardon from President Trump…The online trading platform, PancakeSwap, serves as an incubator of sorts, drumming up interest among traders to use coins issued by the Trump family’s main crypto company, World Liberty Financial.  The more World Liberty’s flagship coin, USD1, is used, the greater demand to increase its circulation, and the greater the profit for World Liberty and its owners, including the Trump family. 

Crypto trading platforms, like PancakeSwap, often offer rewards or prizes to drum up interest in new coins, similar to the way brokerages offer free trades or casinos give first-time customers free chips…

Binance’s majority owner and founder, Changpeng Zhao, spent four months in jail in the U.S. last year after Binance agreed to pay a $4.3 billion fine for becoming a global money-laundering hub for criminals, terrorists and sanctions evaders. His company has deepened its relationship with World Liberty at the same time Zhao has ramped up efforts to secure a pardon from Trump…Zhao—considered the richest person in the crypto industry and worth over $70 billion.

USD1 got its first big break when Binance accepted a $2 billion investment from an outside investor paid in the World Liberty coin. The deal caused the amount of the cryptocurrency in circulation to erupt 15-fold and overnight become one of the world’s largest.  USD1 is what is known as a stablecoin, a privately invented digital currency that is backed 1:1 with U.S. dollars. World Liberty invests the money backing the coin in government bonds and money-market funds, without paying interest to users of the coin. With more than $2 billion of USD1 in circulation, it can earn around $80 million a year based on current interest rates. Binance has been holding the $2 billion in USD1 on its platform…By not cashing in the stablecoin, this ensures that World Liberty continues to earn money from investing the dollars that back them.

World Liberty’s relationship with PancakeSwap, whose website was registered in Shanghai, and Binance is one of several in which entities and individuals with strong ties to China have supported the Trump family crypto business. One of World Liberty’s largest investors is Justin Sun, the Hong Kong-based billionaire…This comes even as the White House pushes a trade war against China and seeks to curtail U.S. corporations’ ties to the country over national-security fears…

China is Binance’s largest market by trading volume. It has been a main base for its software developers, with hundreds of coders…Binance has long maintained that it isn’t a Chinese company, saying it left Shanghai shortly after its 2017 launch. Zhao… has said he is no longer a Chinese citizen, and holds Canadian and United Arab Emirates citizenship. The company, which has employees around the world, doesn’t have an official headquarters…

PancakeSwap doesn’t disclose its ownership…According to former Binance employees, Binance staff created PancakeSwap in-house in 2020 because the exchange wanted to establish a foothold in crypto’s so-called decentralized finance craze. The platform has remained under Binance’s supervision…

Excerpt from Angus Berwick et al., The Recipe Behind the Trump Family’s Crypto Riches: PancakeSwap, WSJ, Aug. 12, 2025