Reuters traced $2.3bn in Iranian exchange Nobitex’s flows since 2023 to Tron and BNB Chain, the blockchains established by World Liberty Financial’s two most prominent early backers. No party at WLF has been accused of knowing about it.
A Reuters investigation published on Monday documents that Nobitex, Iran’s largest crypto exchange, has processed at least $2.3bn since 2023 on the Tron and BNB Chain blockchains. Tron was founded by Justin Sun.
BNB Chain was developed by Binance, the exchange owned by Changpeng Zhao. Both Sun and Zhao are the two most prominent early backers of World Liberty Financial, the crypto firm co-founded by Donald Trump and his family. There is no suggestion that the Trump family knew about Nobitex’s use of either network.
Reuters’ breakdown of public blockchain data, sourced from Arkham, puts about $2bn of the Nobitex flow on Tron and $317m on BNB Chain since 1 January 2023, with $22.6m on BNB Chain and $550,000 via Tron since the Iran war began in February.
Four crypto analysts called the calculation sound; independent investigator Rich Sanders said the true figure was probably higher, since public flows are visible only for known Nobitex addresses and the exchange has admitted to switching addresses to avoid tracing.
