World Liberty Financial’s $100 million investor Aqua 1 denies connection to Web3Port

Aqua 1 Foundation, a little-known UAE-based crypto fund that bought $100 million worth of tokens from Trump-backed World Liberty Financial, is reportedly associated with Web3Port — a Hong Kong market maker accused of market manipulation in the past. The report has since been disputed by Aqua 1 and its co-founder, Dave Lee.

The claim comes from independent journalist Jacob Silverman, who alleged in his report that Dave Lee is actually David Jia Hua Li of Web3Port, and that he represented the company as an “acceleration partner” at several public crypto events last year.

Silverman's report claimed that, based on a digital footprint, Dave Lee and David Li are both Chinese-Brazilian NYU graduates with a finance background. Silverman also reasoned that David Li was tagged in LinkedIn posts with another profile under the name Peter Li, a manager at China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC). Silverman said Peter Li's LinkedIn account was deactivated after he sent a message asking about Aqua 1.

The report also alleged that Aqua 1's website and Web3Port's share the same AWS server, alongside webpages for RWA tokenization platform BlockRock, which Dave Lee has also associated himself with.

"By all available evidence, Aqua 1 Foundation’s Dave Lee is the David Li of Web3Port," wrote Silverman. "How did a 30-year-old Chinese-Brazilian finance professional working for a Chinese state energy company secure $100 million to buy crypto tokens from the President of the United States’ main crypto firm? And what do he and his colleagues expect in return?"

Silverman had previously written articles that questioned the U.S. President's crypto ties, with one claiming that Tron founder Justin Sun had bribed President Donald Trump by injecting a total of $75 million into World Liberty Financial, after which the U.S. SEC shifted its due course to resolve its litigations against Sun and his companies.

Following Silverman's report, Dave Lee wrote on X — "Came across some factually incorrect reporting regarding both myself and Aqua1 today. We’re already in touch with the journalist involved to clarify."

Aqua 1 Foundation also posted a statement on the social media channel saying that it operates independently and has no equity, financial, or operational ties to any unrelated entity. Nevertheless, neither Lee nor Aqua 1 elaborated on what specific details in the report were inaccurate.

"While we remain committed to transparency, certain details are subject to ongoing regulatory and compliance procedures and cannot yet be publicly disclosed," said Aqua 1.

"I stepped away from my role at my previous employer earlier this year due to fundamental differences in vision and strategy, and took on a founding role at Aqua 1," Lee added in a follow-up post. It did not specify the name of his previous employer.

The Block has reached out to Aqua 1 Foundation for further comments.

Earlier this year, Web3Port was involved in a scandal where it was accused of market manipulation and faced a ban from multiple exchanges, after an alleged token dump of millions of MOVE tokens belonging to Movement Labs shortly after the token's listing. World Liberty Financial is an investor in Movement Labs. Web3Port was accused of market manipulation involving other crypto projects such as GoPlus and Myshell.