“I am not a fixer for anyone,” fired Changpeng “CZ” Zhao on May 23, slamming a Wall Street Journal report that tied him to a Trump-linked crypto venture. The Binance founder called the claims “politically motivated” as the clash over crypto influence escalates.

The WSJ said Changpeng Zhao acted as a behind-the-scenes dealmaker for Trump-linked crypto venture World Liberty Financial (WLF). However, Zhao says the story misrepresented the facts. This is his second fight with the newspaper in just a few months.

Changpeng Zhao vs. WSJ: A Clash of Narratives or Media Bias?

According to The Wall Street Journal, Changpeng Zhao introduced Pakistani entrepreneur Bilal bin Saqib to WLFI co-founder Zach Witkoff, helping arrange meetings that resulted in a government agreement.

Zhao denied this, saying, “I first met Mr. Saqib on that trip,” and argued that Saqib and the Witkoffs already knew each other. He called the story “flawed.”

The dispute revolves around conflicting claims about CZ’s influence. The WSJ suggested his role was key to WLFI’s $550 million token sales and a $2 billion Abu Dhabi deal. Zhao also disputed this, saying the report contained errors.

His team sent corrections, but the Journal did not include them, which Zhao called “biased reporting.”

The report also raised ethical concerns, noting WLFI leaders blend government and private business. Steve Witkoff serves as a Trump envoy while his son Zach runs WLFI, which has raised $550M this year.

This marks the second clash between CZ and the Journal in months after an April report citing unnamed sources claimed Zhao agreed to testify against Tron’s Justin Sun during his plea negotiations. He branded that “baseless,” noting that protected witnesses avoid prison.

Critics see a pattern as Zhao now frames both episodes as anti-crypto media bias, even as regulators sharpen oversight of ventures like WLF. Yet neutral observers have questions.

If Changpeng Zhao wasn’t involved, why did WLF’s Pakistan deal happen after these meetings? And why does the Journal stand by its sourcing? The stakes extend beyond headlines.

Trump’s Crypto Empire: Where Politics and Digital Assets Collide

The controversy echoes wider tensions in Washington. Just three days before CZ’s rebuttal, SEC Chair Paul Atkins faced heated congressional questioning about paused investigations into both Justin Sun and a Trump-linked meme coin. Critics also see a pattern of special treatment, while proponents cry political targeting.

Atkins insisted the Tron case remained active while touting new stablecoin regulations—even as WLFI prepared to launch its own Treasury-backed USD1 stablecoin.

However, the connections run deeper than regulatory filings.

For example, President Trump’s family maintains a 60% stake in WLFI, which directs 75% of token sale revenues to their coffers while allocating just 5% to platform development.

This lopsided financial structure raised a few eyebrows at WLFI’s recent Virginia golf club gala, where Justin Sun received a golden watch from POTUS after amassing major $TRUMP holdings.

The fundraiser brought in $148 million from exclusive dinners, with one investor openly admitting people bought WLFI tokens mainly because of the “crypto president” link.

Watchdog groups call this the clearest mix of political power and crypto yet, where leaders profit from digital assets and regulators advance some cases while slowing others.

From $550M Sales to $3.9B Losses: The Volatility of Trump-Linked Tokens

New data shows $TRUMP whales, including VIPs at last Friday’s Washington dinner, are now deep in the red. According to Bloomberg, 19 key wallets saw their $TRUMP holdings drop 52% in just a month.

The biggest bag plunged $48 million underwater after prices collapsed from $61 to $12 on 800,000 tokens.

The damage spreads far beyond just a few investors. 590,000 wallets lost a combined $3.9 billion, while Chainalysis reports $320 million in trading fees went to Trump-linked entities.

CNBC’s Dan Nathan calls it a “perfect Ponzi scheme,” arguing endless inflows prop up prices while lining the Trump Organization’s pockets.

Now, lawmakers are stepping in. Senators Elizabeth Warren and Adam Schiff want an ethics investigation, and new MEME legislation could block public officials from profiting off tokens.

Meanwhile, World Liberty Financial and backers of the USD1 Treasury-backed stablecoin have blasted the Senate’s inquiry into their dealings.

A letter from major U.S. law firm BakerHostetler, WLF insists USD1 holds full short-term Treasury reserves and pitches the coin as a medium to channel global demand into US debt, keeping crypto dominance on U.S. soil.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

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In a video released on Thursday, crypto commentator Zach Rector dismantled a viral claim—popularized by influencer Jake Clover—that XRP tokens are secretly changing hands for $100,000 apiece inside clandestine “dark pools.” Rector’s rebuttal aims to calm newcomers spooked by the rumor and to re-center the discussion on verifiable market mechanics rather than conspiratorial price-suppression narratives.

XRP OTC Deals Aren’t Market Manipulation

Rector opens the broadcast by calling the thesis “a new round of misinformation and FUD,” stressing that “institutions are [not] going to get XRP at $100,000 on the private ledger. That’s not happening.” He explains that what social-media accounts now label “dark pools” are simply over-the-counter (OTC) desks—private bilateral venues that large holders have used for decades in equities, foreign exchange and, more recently, digital assets.

“It’s nothing new or specific to XRP,” he says, adding that Ripple Labs has been off-loading part of its treasury via OTC since 2019 without depressing the open-market price. Indeed, XRP has “pumped tremendously since November,” Rector notes, even as Ripple distributed fresh supply to institutional counterparties.

Much of Clover’s allegation hinges on the idea that a separate, private version of the XRP Ledger (XRPL) carries its own price—orders of magnitude above the public market’s. Rector calls that notion a fundamental misunderstanding of how Ripple’s enterprise tooling works.

Central-bank or government pilots often ask for “private ledgers where they can keep messaging and transactions hidden from the public view,” he acknowledges, but those environments are permissioned sidechains or wrapped derivatives. “XRP only exists on the public XRP Ledger that we all use […]. Your XRP can never leave the XRP Ledger,” he states. If testers wanted to model a six-figure price for stress-testing purposes, “that’s not the real XRP, never was, never would be.”

To underscore the point, Rector cites Ripple chief technology officer David Schwartz, who “has already addressed this” and clarified that “there are not two prices of XRP.” Rector also invokes examples from other enterprise-focused chains—XDC’s hybrid architecture and Constellation’s Department of Defense “Metagraph” deployment—to show that privacy partitions are standard practice, not evidence of hidden liquidity at surreal valuations.

OTC Buyers Get A Discount

While some retail traders fear that Wall Street would happily pay an astronomical premium behind closed doors, Rector argues the economics are inverted: “Why would an institution pay $10,000 per XRP on the private ledger […] when it’s available on the public market for $2?” OTC desks exist precisely so that whales can accumulate “without moving the market,” not to overpay.

In fact, history shows that Ripple has often granted institutional partners a discount, not a markup—something revealed in discovery during the SEC vs. Ripple lawsuit. Rector reminds viewers that Ripple’s data set includes “over 1,700 NDAs” and that R3 once negotiated an option to buy five billion XRP “for a sub-penny” over three years, ultimately settling for a single billion when the broader partnership soured. None of those figures approach the six-figure fantasy.

At press time, XRP traded at $2.21.

Featured image created with DALL.E, chart from TradingView.com