Aqua 1 Foundation’s $100 million purchase of WLFI, the token issued by the Trump family’s crypto project World Liberty Financial, has come under renewed attention after Caixin reported that the fund’s previously unclear beneficial controller is Chinese businessman Zhou Guren. Caixin said on August 26 that the investment exceeded Justin Sun’s cumulative $75 million commitment, making Aqua 1 the largest buyer in the project.
Zhou Guren identified in reports as key figure behind Aqua 1
According to Caixin, Zhou, a Chinese national born in Shanghai in 1984, is the main financier behind the transaction. The report said he is listed in China’s public enforcement database as a dishonest judgment debtor, with six cases involving roughly 25 million yuan in unpaid debt. It also said a recent indictment document provided by the UK Crown Prosecution Service ties him to a money laundering case in the UK.
Caixin and The New York Times have also linked Zhou to the crypto firm Web3Port, a connection that has become central to questions around Aqua 1’s ownership and the source of funds used in the WLFI transaction.
The source material also notes that Zhou met Welsh officials in Shanghai in 2017, including Ken Skates, who was identified as economy minister. The image was credited to the Welsh government.
From flooring retail to crypto ventures
A New York Times investigation published on August 9 said Zhou studied in the UK and built his early business by expanding his family’s wood flooring trade into Europe. He later founded Flooring Republic, a flooring retail chain that at one point operated more than 20 stores. That business ended in liquidation in 2018.
He then moved into crypto and founded Caduceus Protocol. The report said Caduceus claimed in 2022 that it had backing from China Merchants Securities (UK) and Bin Zayed Group. Both organizations later said those statements were unauthorized and false. Around the summer of 2024, Zhou relocated from London to Abu Dhabi. After that move, entities linked to him began appearing repeatedly in the transaction trail around WLFI.
On-chain trail tied WLFI buys to Web3Port and “aqua1”
The New York Times, citing blockchain analytics firm Arkham Intelligence, said two wallet addresses were tracked in connection with the flow of funds into WLFI. One wallet controlled by Web3Port bought $20 million worth of WLFI in January 2025. Another wallet labeled “aqua1” bought $80 million worth in June 2025.
That on-chain record aligns with the timeline described by Caixin. On January 27, 2025, just one week after Donald Trump returned to the White House, Web3Port purchased the first $20 million tranche of WLFI. About a month later, a British Virgin Islands company linked to Web3Port began a renaming process that replaced “Web3Port” with “Aqua 1.”
Aqua 1 said in a July 2025 statement that it had no equity, financial, or operational ties to any unrelated entities.
Registration checks and Web3Port background
Crypto blogger “CLabs Founder Da Piaoliang” previously said Reuters reporters had checked Aqua 1 registration records with Abu Dhabi Global Market, Dubai International Financial Centre, Dubai crypto regulator VARA, and the UAE Securities and Commodities Authority. The responses, according to that account, were that the entity or related individuals could not be found. The blogger also said Aqua 1’s official website shared the same AWS server as web3port.foundation and web3port.us.
Public records described Web3Port, formerly known as ICPort, as a Web3 accelerator and investment platform registered in the British Virgin Islands. Around 2022, it completed a seed round of about $1 million, with investors including SNZ Holding, HashKey Capital, FBG Capital, and KuCoin Ventures. Its business covered project packaging, tokenomics design, fundraising support, exchange listing negotiations, and referrals to market makers.
Materials obtained by The New York Times said entities tied to Web3Port were renamed around the time of a market-making investigation, and the new Aqua 1 GP Limited later became the vehicle that invested in WLFI. The overlap in timing has kept questions alive over whether Aqua 1 was, in substance, a continuation of Web3Port.
Caduceus financing and the state of CAD trading
Caduceus, another project in Zhou’s public crypto track record, was presented as a modular protocol focused on metaverse and AI infrastructure. In March 2022, Caduceus announced a $4 million Series A round backed by Susquehanna International Group, BlockFills, Qredo, and TokenInsight.
CoinMarketCap data cited in the source shows that the project’s CAD token began trading on secondary markets in July 2024 and briefly reached about $0.6 that month. It then fell steadily and was recently quoted at $0.00032, with a market capitalization of about $32,000 and 24-hour trading volume of around $1,720. The token had only limited activity on Gate.
Compliance questions remain around the WLFI funding
The report said the collapse of Caduceus and Zhou’s ties to Web3Port form two intersecting lines in his crypto history. Together they point to a question that remains unresolved in public reporting: how a person with tens of millions of yuan in unpaid debt in China and involvement in a money laundering investigation in the UK became WLFI’s largest single investor.
For WLFI, the compliance status of the money remains a key issue. The New York Times cited Patrick Prinz, chief operating officer of Swiss digital asset crime investigation firm Recoveris, as saying that Zhou’s history of business failure, his sudden access to large wealth, the size of the transactions, and the active money laundering investigation should have triggered source-of-funds checks under anti-money laundering rules.
A WLFI spokesperson said the company complies with all applicable laws and regulations, but declined to say whether it knew the specific source of the funds.
Public interaction with the WLFI team
According to The New York Times, Zhou was photographed in July 2026 with World Liberty co-founder Zach Witkoff in a private suite at the World Cup final in New Jersey. That appearance came about a year after Aqua 1 announced the $100 million investment.
