Benjamin Greenberg, a Circle shareholder and former company employee, filed a federal lawsuit on Oct. 22 challenging cryptocurrency transactions involving President Donald Trump, World Liberty Financial and Steve Witkoff, the U.S. The complaint was filed in the U.S. Greenberg says he owns 10,000 Circle Class A shares and argues that the defendants’ conduct diverted business from Circle while giving foreign-government-linked entities a route into Trump’s crypto businesses.
The case centers on two transactions linked to Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the United Arab Emirates’ national security adviser. Four days before Trump’s January 2025 inauguration, an investment vehicle identified as Aryam agreed to pay $500 million for a 49% stake in World Liberty. The complaint says $187 million of an initial $250 million installment went to Trump-linked entities and that a later payment was due in July.
The second transaction involved MGX, an Abu Dhabi-backed investment firm that announced a $2 billion investment in Binance in March 2025. The announcement said the deal would be settled in a stablecoin but did not identify which one. World Liberty later disclosed that the transaction would use USD1, its dollar-linked stablecoin, after the token launched on March 25. The complaint says MGX bought USD1 with $2 billion in cash and transferred the tokens to Binance, creating reserves that could generate interest income for World Liberty while the tokens remained in circulation. MGX has said Binance requested settlement in cryptocurrency and that it selected USD1 based on the token’s backing assets and other considerations; it also said it did not currently hold USD1, had paid no fees to World Liberty and had not invested in the company.
Greenberg argues that Circle was positioned to benefit from the Binance transaction. Circle had agreed in November 2024 to pay Binance $60 million upfront plus monthly fees, and Binance later announced that it would use USDC for its corporate treasury. The complaint estimates that $2 billion in additional reserves could have produced $70 million to $82 million in annual gross reserve income if the transaction had used USDC, though that calculation depends on assumptions about the token selected, how long the reserves remained outstanding and the distribution of reserve revenue. The filing also records contrary accounts from Binance and World Liberty, including World Liberty’s statement that the deal otherwise would likely have been settled in UAE dirhams.
The lawsuit asks the court to declare that Trump violated the Constitution’s Foreign Emoluments Clause, require an accounting of payments from foreign states, order the defendants to surrender proceeds ruled unlawful, award damages to Circle and block further foreign benefits tied to the transactions. Greenberg also challenges related conduct cited in the complaint, including U.S. Decisions involving advanced artificial-intelligence chips for the UAE and approval of a World Liberty-linked bank. Those connections remain allegations, and no court has determined that the transactions or government decisions violated the law. Circle said it did not initiate, direct, authorize or participate in the filing. White House spokesperson Anna Kelly called the suit frivolous and said Trump had no conflicts of interest involving his crypto investments, while World Liberty said the claims lacked merit. The court must also decide whether Greenberg can pursue the case for Circle without first obtaining approval from the company’s board.