'The under-the-radar trading platform is quietly administered by Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange, whose founder is seeking a pardon from President Trump'

'Crypto entrepreneurs from across the world traveled to the Washington, D.C. area in May to attend an exclusive dinner with President Trump. WSJ pulls back the curtain on the high-profile affair. Photo Illustration: Annie Zhao

This comes even as the White House pushes a trade war against China and seeks to curtail U.S. corporations’ ties to the country over national-security fears. Trump this month called on Intel’s chief executive to resign because of his past connections to China.

China is Binance’s largest market by trading volume, the Journal previously reported, and remained so as of the end of last year. It has been a main base for its software developers, with hundreds of coders, according to former employees, internal records and LinkedIn postings.

Binance has long maintained that it isn’t a Chinese company, saying it left Shanghai shortly after its 2017 launch. Zhao, who is also known as CZ, has said he is no longer a Chinese citizen, and holds Canadian and United Arab Emirates citizenship. The company, which has employees around the world, doesn’t have an official headquarters.

Eric Trump, the president’s son and a World Liberty co-founder, plans to meet more potential partners in Hong Kong in August during a bitcoin conference, according to people familiar with his plans.

World Liberty in recent months talked about taking an investment from the Hong Kong crypto-service provider HashKey, whose main shareholder is the Chinese conglomerate Wanxiang Group, according to people familiar with the talks. Justin Sun, Zach Witkoff, and Eric Trump at a crypto conference. Eric Trump took part in a crypto conference in Dubai earlier this year. Photo: giuseppe cacace/AFP/Getty Images

Wanxiang’s chairman sits on China’s National People’s Congress. A HashKey spokeswoman said discussions with World Liberty were exploratory and no commitments had been made. Creating a market

Crypto companies release thousands of new coins every year. Most never catch on. To attract a following among traders, new coins need to show big trading volume.

That is where PancakeSwap stepped in. PancakeSwap doesn’t disclose its ownership and says online that it is run by a team of anonymous “chefs” with a “penchant for breakfast foods.” It compares trading cryptocurrencies to “flipping pancakes.”

According to former Binance employees, Binance staff created PancakeSwap in-house in 2020 because the exchange wanted to establish a foothold in crypto’s so-called decentralized finance craze. The platform has remained under Binance’s supervision, the former employees said.

PancakeSwap’s trading platform is built on Binance’s blockchain network, a type of software ecosystem in which developers create new programs.

Starting in late May, USD1 trading exploded on PancakeSwap, rocketing from a few tens of millions of dollars a day to regularly over $1 billion. Over 90% of USD1 trades have taken place on PancakeSwap, according to data from the platform and data tracker CoinMarketCap.

World Liberty touted the soaring customer demand for USD1, saying in June that its trading volumes had briefly outstripped another larger stablecoin’s.

“So proud of this achievement,” tweeted Eric Trump. President Trump speaking at a White House event with Eric Trump. President Trump in the Oval Office in May with his son Eric Trump, a World Liberty co-founder. Photo: Samuel corum/Press pool

Demand for USD1 wasn’t because customers were using it for payments or to stash their crypto holdings, which is what stablecoins are typically used for.

It was because crypto investors were chasing prizes worth up to $1 million for generating as much USD1 trading as possible as part of a “Liquidity Drive,” according to people who took part in the campaign and researchers who track trading data.

“The main narrative in the ecosystem is that Binance is supporting USD1,” said Trevor Xu, the Melbourne, Australia-based founder of the crypto-AI firm Tagger, which competed for the reward.

Binance has helped USD1 in other ways. Around a dozen tokens that trade with USD1 recently joined a Binance program called Binance Alpha, which promotes among its users a select group of early-stage token projects. Binance Alpha encourages featured cryptocurrencies to trade on PancakeSwap, people familiar with the program said.

“Good job CZ! USD1 is taking the reign on Binance,” says Eagles Landing’s website, which displays a cartoon strip of a bloodied Trump throwing a punch.

It couldn’t be learned who is behind Eagles Landing. The lines of code for Eagles Landing’s website contain Chinese characters, and most of the administrators of its Telegram channel are Chinese-speaking. They didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Eagles Landing, Torch of Liberty, Tagger and one other were named the contest’s winners in mid-July, splitting the $1 million reward. They paid out their own rewards to their users who traded USD1 the most.'

WSJ