Justin Sun, the founder of Tron, has initiated a lawsuit against World Liberty Financial, a cryptocurrency firm with ties to the family of former US President Donald Trump. The lawsuit claims that World Liberty unfairly locked up Sun's $WLFI holdings, made false representations, and issued threats against him. According to the lawsuit, Sun had invested $45 million in $WLFI tokens after being approached by the World Liberty team in 2024, partly due to the project's association with the Trump family. However, when Sun declined to continue investing in 2025, World Liberty's leadership allegedly became hostile towards him.
The lawsuit alleges that World Liberty made fraudulent misrepresentations about the rights and freedoms associated with purchasing $WLFI tokens and that the company has centralized control over its tokens, despite presenting itself as a decentralized finance business. World Liberty is accused of changing the smart contract governing $WLFI in August 2025 to add a 'blacklisting' function, allowing the company to freeze tokens without disclosing this to investors. The complaint claims that this function was used to freeze Sun's tokens, which served to pressure him into minting $200 million of World Liberty's USD1 stablecoin and to manipulate the market price of $WLFI tokens. The lawsuit also raises regulatory concerns, suggesting that World Liberty's ability to issue, freeze, and reassign tokens may qualify it as a money transmitter, subject to registration and anti-money laundering requirements.
Additionally, the complaint alleges that World Liberty made threats against Sun and his businesses, including a threat to burn his $WLFI tokens and to report him to US authorities. Sun has stated that he tried to resolve the situation amicably but wants to be treated equally to other early investors and opposes World Liberty's new governance proposal.