Justin Sun, the founder of Tron, has initiated a lawsuit against World Liberty Financial, a cryptocurrency firm with ties to the Trump family, claiming that the company froze his $WLFI token holdings without justification and made false representations. The lawsuit, filed on Tuesday, asserts that World Liberty's leadership engaged in an illicit scheme to seize Sun's assets and made threats against him. Sun allegedly invested $45 million in $WLFI tokens after being approached by World Liberty's team in 2024, partly due to the project's connection to the Trump family.
However, when Sun declined to continue investing in 2025, World Liberty's principals allegedly became hostile towards him. The lawsuit claims that World Liberty made fraudulent misrepresentations about the rights and freedoms associated with purchasing $WLFI tokens, including statements about governance rights and the ability to transact freely. Sun's suit also alleges that World Liberty, despite presenting itself as a decentralized finance business, exercises centralized control over its tokens.
According to the complaint, World Liberty modified the smart contract governing $WLFI in August 2025 to add a 'blacklisting' function, allowing the company to freeze tokens in specific wallets without disclosing this change to investors. The lawsuit argues that this modification was used to freeze Sun's tokens, which served the dual purpose of pressuring him to mint $200 million of World Liberty's USD1 stablecoin and artificially propping up the market price of $WLFI tokens held by the company's founders. The complaint further alleges that World Liberty's ability to issue, freeze, and reassign tokens may raise regulatory concerns and potentially qualify the firm as a money transmitter under U.S.
rules. Other allegations include threats made by World Liberty's co-founder, Chase Herro, to burn Sun's $WLFI tokens and report him to U.S. authorities. A spokesperson for World Liberty Financial stated that the company had no comment on the lawsuit.
Sun has expressed his desire to be treated equally to other early investors and has voiced his opposition to World Liberty's new governance proposal.