Circle shareholder sues Trump over UAE crypto deals and USD1 stablecoin

What happened

A shareholder of Circle Internet Group has sued President Donald Trump, his family's crypto venture World Liberty Financial and US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff, alleging that two transactions linked to the United Arab Emirates violated the Constitution's Foreign Emoluments Clause and diverted stablecoin business away from Circle's USDC. The complaint was filed Thursday in the US District Court for the District of Columbia by J. Benjamin Greenberg, who says he worked as a software engineer at Circle from 2016 to 2018 and currently holds 10,000 Class A shares.

The case is derivative, meaning Greenberg is suing on Circle's behalf rather than for himself. It centers on a $500 million agreement to sell 49% of World Liberty to Aryam Investment 1, a vehicle the filing links to Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the UAE's national security adviser. According to the complaint, the deal was struck on Jan. 16, 2025, four days before Trump's inauguration, with $187 million of a $250 million initial installment going to two Trump family entities and roughly $75.5 million more reaching them after the president took office, based on his 2025 financial disclosure.

The second transaction involves MGX, an Abu Dhabi investment firm that Tahnoon chairs, which put $2 billion into Binance and settled the investment in World Liberty's USD1 token. Greenberg argues that USD1 competes directly with USDC, that both issuers earn revenue from interest on reserves, and that the arrangement left Circle unable to compete. He asks the court to declare the payments unconstitutional, bar Trump from accepting further foreign benefits without congressional consent, order an accounting with disputed proceeds turned over to the US Treasury, and award damages from World Liberty.

Why it matters

The suit tests whether a competitor can translate allegations about the president's foreign business dealings into a commercial claim. Stablecoin issuers make money by holding cash and short-term securities against tokens in circulation, and Greenberg says reserve income accounted for about 96% of Circle's 2025 revenue. Every dollar parked in USD1, the complaint argues, is a dollar not earning reserve income for Circle. The filing also accuses Trump of profiting from foreign governments without Congress's approval, a question the courts have not resolved here.

Politically, the case lands less than two weeks before the 2026 midterms, with early voting already under way in some states. Democrats have sought to make the president's crypto earnings an election issue, and lawmakers who opposed the CLARITY Act market-structure bill cited the Trump family's digital asset ventures as a reason for withholding support.

What the data shows

Greenberg calculates that $2 billion in additional reserves would have generated $70 million to $82 million a year at Circle's reserve returns of 4.1% in 2025 and 3.5% in the second quarter of 2026. Those figures describe potential gross reserve income rather than an established net loss, and they assume MGX would have chosen USDC and that the tokens stayed outstanding; Circle also shares reserve revenue with distribution partners. The complaint notes that Circle had agreed in November 2024 to pay Binance $60 million upfront plus monthly fees, and that Binance said the following month it would use USDC for its corporate treasury. It also records that Binance and World Liberty deny Binance arranged the USD1 settlement, and that World Liberty told senators in May 2025 the deal would otherwise have settled in foreign currency, most likely dirhams.

Background

World Liberty Financial is a decentralized finance project co-founded by Trump and his sons; the president stepped back from the business after returning to office in 2025. Witkoff is named as a defendant and is described as a co-founder, while his son Zach is also a co-founder. The complaint cites the Wall Street Journal's reporting on the UAE-linked stake, which it says remained private for months before becoming public.

Trump's 2025 financial disclosure reported about $1.4 billion in crypto-related earnings across his memecoin, World Liberty and its stablecoin business. Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy group, has estimated that ventures tied to the president and his family left investors about $4.7 billion underwater since 2022, most of it unrealized, with the TRUMP memecoin accounting for $3.2 billion and WLFI for $1 billion. Senator Mark Warner recently released an ad highlighting the president's memecoin proceeds.

What is still unclear

No court has ruled on whether the transactions or any related government decisions broke the law. Greenberg must also persuade the court that he may sue on Circle's behalf without board approval; the complaint argues directors could not independently assess a claim against the president given their regulatory exposure and Circle's ongoing relationship with Binance. Circle said it did not initiate, direct, authorize or participate in the filing. World Liberty spokesperson David Wachsman said the claims are without merit, its counsel Bill Burck said the filing sounds more like a partisan press release than a lawsuit, and White House spokesperson Anna Kelly called it yet another frivolous lawsuit, saying there are no conflicts of interest. Greenberg's lawyer, Matt Pelikan of Evergreen Legal, said the aim is to stop the corruption and force the president to return profits to taxpayers.

What to watch

The next steps are procedural: defendants' responses, any motion to dismiss and the question of Greenberg's standing to litigate for Circle. The case is separate from a contract dispute Tron founder Justin Sun filed against World Liberty in April 2026 over frozen WLFI tokens. How the allegations resonate with voters before the midterms, and whether they influence pending stablecoin and market-structure legislation, will also be worth tracking.

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