Trump Family's Crypto Project Tied to Controversial Investor with Millions in Outstanding Debts
A Chinese national named Zhou Guren has been revealed as the biggest backer of WLFI, a crypto project led by the Trump family.
Zhou spent $100 million purchasing WLFI tokens, surpassing Justin Sun's investment of $75 million. He is listed as a judgment debtor in China, with six cases totaling approximately 25 million RMB in outstanding debts.
According to an investigation by The New York Times, Zhou built his fortune by expanding his family's wooden flooring business to Europe and later founded Flooring Republic, which ended in liquidation in 2018. He then moved into the crypto space, founding Caduceus Protocol and Web3Port, a controversial institution in the industry.
The relationship between Zhou's affiliated entities and WLFI is unclear, with some questioning how he could become the largest single investor given his financial history and ongoing money laundering investigation in the UK. WLFI claims to comply with all applicable laws and regulations but declined to comment on the source of these funds.