Iran’s largest cryptocurrency exchange has moved billions of dollars across two blockchains whose founders are among the most prominent backers of a digital currency venture co-founded by U.S. President Donald Trump and his family, according to a Reuters investigation published on Monday.

Iran’s Nobitex exchange has processed at least $2.3 billion since 2023 on the Tron and BNB Chain blockchains, networks established respectively by crypto billionaires Justin Sun and Changpeng Zhao. Both Sun and Zhao’s exchange, Binance, are prominent backers of World Liberty Financial, the crypto firm co-founded by Trump and members of his family, the news outlet said. 

The transactions have continued even during the ongoing U.S. and Israeli war against Iran, Reuters reported, citing data from crypto analytics firm Arkham.

There is no suggestion that the Trump family was aware of Nobitex’s use of the two blockchains, Reuters said. But the news agency reported that the activity highlights the potentially conflicted position in which the Trumps’ sprawling business interests have placed the U.S. presidency.

“The entities doing crypto financing through these platforms are the very ones that the president is trying to defeat in the war,” John Reed Stark, a former chief of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s Office of Internet Enforcement, told Reuters, calling the situation a “dramatic irony.”

Nobitex has processed more than $2 billion on Tron since January 1, 2023, according to a Reuters breakdown of public blockchain data from Arkham. The exchange has also processed at least $317 million on BNB Chain, a blockchain formerly known as Binance Smart Chain, since 2023. Since the Iran war began in February, at least $22.6 million in crypto has moved through Nobitex on BNB Chain, and at least $550,000 has moved via Tron, according to the report.

Four crypto analysts, including two specialists in Iran’s use of digital assets, reviewed Reuters’ calculation that Nobitex has handled at least $2.3 billion in transactions via BNB Chain and Tron. Independent researcher Rich Sanders, one of the Iran specialists, told Reuters the true volume was likely significantly higher because flows are visible only for wallet addresses known to be owned by Nobitex.

Nobitex is controlled by two brothers from a powerful Iranian family with close ties to the country’s new supreme leader, and its users have included Iran’s central bank and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), according to the news outlet. Both the bank and the IRGC are under Western sanctions.

Iran’s central bank bought more than $500 million of the stablecoin Tether via Tron between November 2024 and June 2025, according to a January report by blockchain analysis company Elliptic and two Iran specialists cited by Reuters. About $347 million of that was sent to Nobitex using Tron in the first six months of last year, Elliptic said.

World Liberty Financial’s relationships with Zhao and Sun have been long fraught with controversy. 

Sun invested tens of millions of dollars in World Liberty’s WLFI tokens after the firm launched in October 2024, lending momentum to the fledgling venture. His current portfolio of 4 billion WLFI tokens is worth roughly $266 million, based on Reuters‘ calculations.

In early 2025, Abu Dhabi investment firm MGX bought a $2 billion stake in Binance, with the purchase to be made in World Liberty’s USD1 stablecoin, Reuters reported. MGX has said it chose USD1 after evaluating several stablecoins and that Binance had requested the use of crypto in the transaction.

In October 2025, Trump pardoned Zhao, wiping away his federal conviction for failing to maintain an effective anti-money-laundering program at Binance. Lawyers for Binance and Zhao have said there was no connection between the use of USD1 and the pardon, Reuters reported.

Binance now holds $3.8 billion of the Trump-linked token, according to Arkham data cited by Reuters.

Relations between Sun and World Liberty have recently soured. Sun sued World Liberty in April, accusing it of extortion for allegedly pressuring him to invest in its stablecoin. World Liberty countersued in early May, alleging defamation, according to the report.