World Liberty Financial investor Aqua1’s response to journalist Jacob Silverman skirts the central issue: Is the company truly unrelated to Web3Port?
Aqua1 Foundation said it operates independently in response to a report by journalist Jacob Silverman that suggested possible ties to controversial market maker Web3Port, but left important questions unanswered.
On Monday, Silverman published his investigation, which claims to have found connections between Aqua1 Foundation and Web3Port through shared web hosting and overlapping personnel. The reporter added that Aqua1’s founder, who goes by Dave Lee on X, is actually David Li, whose profile on outreach platform ContactOut lists him as a partner and senior project manager at Web3Port.
Aqua1 Foundation came under the spotlight in late June after it purchased $100 million worth of governance tokens from World Liberty Financial, a crypto project backed by US President Donald Trump and his family. The investigation raised concerns that the entity supporting the president’s DeFi initiative may have ties to Web3Port, a firm accused of manipulating cryptocurrency prices.
