Tron creator Justin Sun on Tuesday sued World Liberty Financial, the stablecoin and crypto company backed by members of U.S. President Donald Trump’s family, alleging the project unfairly blocked his $WLFI holdings, made fraudulent misrepresentations, and threatened and defamed Sun.
The lawsuit filed Tuesday, which includes a line about Sun’s support for Trump himself, alleges that World Liberty executives engaged “in an illegal scheme to seize assets” in the form of Sun tokens, which Sun claimed to have purchased after being solicited by the World Liberty team in 2024.
“At this crucial time for World Liberty, Mr. Sun invested $45 million to purchase $WLFI tokens from World Liberty, not only because of the project’s claims that it would promote the adoption of decentralized finance – an issue Mr. Sun cares deeply about and to which he has devoted much of his life – but also because of the Trump family’s association with the project,” the suit states.
A spokesperson for World Liberty Financial said it had no comment on the lawsuit.
World Liberty asked Sun to continue investing through 2025, including requesting the creation of World Liberty’s $1 stablecoin, the filing said. “In July 2025, when it became clear that Mr. Sun would not invest or mint 1 USD on their terms, World Liberty executives became hostile toward Mr. Sun.”
“World Liberty induced Plaintiffs to invest in World Liberty through fraudulent misrepresentations and omissions about the economic rights and freedoms that would flow from the purchase of $WLFI tokens,” the filing states.
These allegedly fraudulent misrepresentations include statements about the rights of token holders, various public statements by World Liberty or its executives about the governance rights of token holders, and statements about “freedom to transact.”
Sun’s suit also alleged that World Liberty, despite presenting itself as a company operating in the decentralized finance sector, had centralized control of its tokens.
According to the complaint, World Liberty amended the smart contract governing $WLFI in August 2025 to add a “blacklist” feature that allowed the company to freeze tokens in specific wallets. The change was not put to a governance vote or disclosed to investors, Sun claims, even though token holders had just approved a proposal to make part of the offering tradable.
“Although the upgrade was technically visible on the public blockchain, World Liberty buried it in code without alerting token holders of its existence or implications,” the complaint states. “In the dark of the night, the company created a ‘blacklist’ function that it could use as it wished.”
The complaint alleges that World Liberty’s freezing of Sun’s tokens served a dual purpose: to pressure it into minting $200 million of the company’s $1 stablecoin on its Tron blockchain, and to manipulate the market price of $WLFI by preventing one of the largest holders from selling.
By locking in Sun’s position, the complaint says, World Liberty “artificially propped up the market price of $WLFI tokens held by World Liberty’s founders and the company’s treasury.”
World Liberty’s ability to issue, freeze and even reallocate tokens could not only undermine its decentralization claims but also raise regulatory questions. The filing argues that these powers could qualify the company as a money transmitter under U.S. Financial Crimes Enforcement Network rules, making it subject to registration and anti-money laundering requirements.
Other allegations in the complaint include that “World Liberty made two clear threats” against Sun and its companies. Chase Herro, one of the co-founders of World Liberty, reportedly threatened to burn Sun’s $WLFI tokens if Sun did not request that its tokens be burned.
“Second, Mr. Herro also falsely claimed that the know your customer (“KYC”) documentation submitted by Mr. Sun and the Sun Companies in connection with their purchases of $WLFI tokens was inadequate,” the filing states.
Herro threatened to report Sun to U.S. authorities, according to the complaint.
Parts of the lawsuit have been redacted. Another filing attached to the lawsuit cited a confidentiality provision, saying the Sun team gave the World Liberty team the opportunity to decide whether or not those redacted provisions should remain sealed.
In an article on X, Sun said he had “tried in good faith to resolve this situation.”
“All I want is to be treated the same as every other early investor who received tokens – no better, no worse,” he said.
“I also want the community to know that I strongly oppose the new World Liberty governance proposal released on April 15,” Sun said in his message.
Since Trump took office, Sun has visited the United States after staying away from the country. He was a guest at Trump’s first memecoin dinner (tied to another Trump-related crypto project) last year.
Sun settled his charges with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission last month, agreeing to pay a $10 million fine to resolve a case brought by the previous presidential administration.
