Iran Still Uses Binance. Trump’s WLFI Still Profits from Binance.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – “Iranian entities associated with the regime” have continued to use Binance – a major backer of the Trump family’s World Liberty Financial crypto venture – to move money as recently as this month, despite U.S. sanctions and Binance’s earlier pledges, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday. Binance, the Journal reports, has served as a financial artery for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a U.S.-designated terrorist organization that arms and finances Hamas, Hezbollah, and Yemen’s Houthi militants. The finding draws on Binance’s own internal compliance reports, foreign law-enforcement officials, and nonpublic documents.
Zach Everson, Trump Accountability Project research director for Public Citizen, issued the following statement:
“This is precisely the conflict Public Citizen documented in Conflict Coin. The Trump family peddles crypto and profits from the same ecosystem the president and his allies in Congress are writing the rules for. The president’s own Justice Department is now investigating Iran’s use of Binance. His own Treasury Department has put financial institutions on notice over Iran transfers. Yet Binance – Trump’s crypto business partner – continues to help Iran evade U.S. sanctions. Rather than severing ties, the Trump family has deepened them and rewarded Binance’s founder, Changpeng Zhao, with a pardon last October. The payoff: more than $1.2 billion in Trump family earnings from World Liberty Financial since 2024, by the Journal’s accounting.
“As the CLARITY Act heads to the Senate floor, lawmakers must – at a minimum – establish strong ethics rules barring the president, his family, and senior administration officials from issuing, promoting, or profiting from the digital assets they regulate. A crypto framework that exempts the most-conflicted issuer in the country isn’t a guardrail. Rather, it signals a green light for massive corruption.”