DWF Labs in US records: World Liberty Financial, a Senate letter and court filings

analysisA magazine reported on 16 April 2025, citing an analysis by the watchdog group Accountable.US, that on 4 April 2025 World Liberty Financial, the crypto venture associated with President Trump's family, sold $25 million of its $WLFI governance tokens to DWF Labs: 250 million tokens paid for in USD Coin, which made DWF Labs the 23rd-largest holder. The magazine noted that the purchase came three days before the US Justice Department announced it was disbanding a team that had investigated crypto fraud; that is a sequence of dates, not evidence of a connection. Accountable.US described DWF Labs as a "Russia-linked foreign investor suspected of illegal market manipulation", a characterisation that is the watchdog's own. According to a separate magazine report, DWF Labs announced on 16 April 2025 that it would open an office in New York City and that it had acquired $25 million of $WLFI tokens, and said it would provide liquidity for USD1, the venture's stablecoin. Grachev told the influencer Mario Nawfal in an interview: "It cannot be a scam, right? And we have to invest", and later: "I do believe it was a great investment deal we made." The separate magazine report quotes these remarks from a social-media interview that is not retained here. ^{1 2}

analysisIn April 2025 Accountable.US, citing a magazine report, sent a letter to members of Congress asking for an investigation into the $25 million transaction, according to the magazine; that letter is not retained here. The next month, on 6 May 2025, Senator Richard Blumenthal, ranking member of the US Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, wrote to World Liberty Financial co-founder Zach Witkoff as part of a preliminary inquiry into potential conflicts of interest and violations of law in President Trump's cryptocurrency ventures. Among WLFI's foreign counterparties the letter lists DWF Labs, "a Dubai-based cryptocurrency firm that has invested $25 million in WLFI's governance token, making it one of its largest holders". It states that DWF Labs "has been suspected of engaging in market manipulation by creating a false impression of trading" and that "DWF Lab's management previously managed Russian firms accused of enabling Russian banks to bypass sanctions, in addition to having other ties to Russian banks", and among the records requested are all communications between WLFI and Binance, Justin Sun, DWF Labs, MGX and Changpeng Zhao. The letter repeats suspicions and accusations from its sources: the market-manipulation sentence cites a cryptocurrency news outlet article dated 9 May 2024 on a newspaper report, and the sentence on Russian firms cites a 25 April 2025 letter from Accountable.US to the Senate Banking Committee. It is a request for information by the minority side of a subcommittee, not a finding, and it names neither the Russian firms nor the members of management meant. The magazine wrote that Grachev did not respond to its requests for comment sent through X and a professional-network website, and that a member of Senator Blumenthal's communications staff did not respond either. The retained records show no result of the inquiry. ^{2 3}

analysisA prospectus supplement filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission by Interactive Strength Inc. in January 2026 states that on 10 June 2025 the company and its subsidiary Interactive Strength Treasury LLC sold, for $50 million, senior secured convertible exchangeable notes with an aggregate principal of $55,555,555 to an entity affiliated with ATW Partners and an entity affiliated with DWF Labs. The notes are convertible into Interactive Strength shares and exchangeable for FET tokens, carry a 10% original issue discount and 12% interest, and each investor may require the issue of further notes of up to $444,444,445 in aggregate. The filing does not name the DWF Labs entity or the split between the two investors. ¹

analysisA search of the court-record archive of US federal court documents on a nonprofit court-record archive for "DWF Labs" found the name in documents of three cases, in none of which DWF Labs is a party: Kolbrak v. Kelly (S.D.N.Y., 1:26-cv-03681, filed 4 May 2026), Hurlock v. Kelsier Ventures (S.D.N.Y., 1:25-cv-03891, filed 9 May 2025 and terminated 31 July 2025) and State of California v. United States (N.D. Cal., 4:25-cv-04966, filed 12 June 2025). The court-record archive holds only documents uploaded by its users, so the search is not a complete docket search and does not show that DWF Labs has never been sued. Kolbrak v. Kelly is a proposed class action in which a purchaser of the $MOTHER meme token sued the artist Amethyst Amelia Kelly, known as Iggy Azalea, and unnamed defendants. The complaint alleges that DWF Labs announced a "strategic partnership" with Kelly on 11 July 2024, that the token rose more than 50% intraday after the announcement, that Kelly's entire MOTHER holdings were loaned to DWF Labs and Wintermute as market makers, and that buyers were not told the terms of these arrangements, including whether the market makers could sell, short or hedge the token, which according to the complaint has since fallen by about 99.5% from its high. These are the plaintiff's allegations; DWF Labs is not named as a defendant, and the retained records contain no court ruling in the case. ^{2 3}