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Billionaire investor Justin Sun is suing World Liberty Financial, the crypto venture co- founded by President Donald Trump and his son Eric. Sun alleges the company engaged in an illegal scheme to freeze his WLFI tokens and strip him of his governance voting rights. World Liberty has denied the extortion claims, calling Sun’s allegations baseless and accusing him of engaging in his own misconduct to deflect blame. Sun is an ardent supporter of Trump and his stance on cryptocurrencies, but accused certain individuals associated with World Liberty of acting against the president's values.
They wrongfully froze all of my tokens, stripped me of my right to vote on governance proposals, and have threatened to permanently destroy my tokens by burning them - all without any proper justification, he said in a social media post announcing the lawsuit.
Sun is the founder of a separate multi-billion dollar crypto project, TRON. He initially invested $45m in World Liberty and said that, at times, his WLFI tokens have been valued at more than $1bn. Since September, the price of a single WLFI token has plunged from 31 cents to just under 8 cents.
Sun said his backing was driven by the Trump family's association with the project and his long-standing support for cryptocurrencies. He also bought $100m of Trump's meme coins in July 2025, as well. But Sun alleged that those running World Liberty, including another co-founder, Chase Herro, are using it as a "golden opportunity to leverage the
Trump brand to profit through fraud. In his complaint, filed on Tuesday in a San Francisco federal court, Sun argued that initial promises to give token-holders the option to trade the currency in future were false and misleading. While the tokens at large became tradeable, Sun said World Liberty has blocked him from being able to sell a single one, and is now threatening to burn his - deleting them entirely.
Eric Trump added:The only thing more ridiculous than this lawsuit is spending $6m on a banana duct-taped to a wall. In 2024 Sun bought, then ate, an artwork by Maurizio Cattelan which consisted of a banana duct-taped to a wall. Investors have also grown concerned about World Liberty borrowing against the value of its tokens.
