Tron's Justin Sun sues Trump-linked World Liberty Financial over frozen assets

Tron creator Justin Sun sued World Liberty Financial, the stablecoin and crypto firm backed by members of U.S. President Donald Trump's family, on Tuesday, alleging that the project had unfairly locked up his $WLFI tokens, made fraudulent misrepresentations, and threatened and defamed Sun.

The lawsuit filed Tuesday, which includes a line about Sun's support for Trump himself, alleged that World Liberty's leadership had engaged "in an illegal scheme to seize property" in the form of Sun's tokens, which Sun alleged he had purchased after being solicited by the World Liberty team in 2024.

"At that pivotal 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 adoption of decentralized finance — an issue Mr. Sun cares deeply about and to which he has devoted much of his life’s work — but also because of theTrump family’s association with the project," the suit said.

World Liberty asked Sun to continue investing through 2025, including through a request to mint World Liberty's USD1 stablecoin, the filing said. "By July 2025, when it became clear that Mr. Sun would not invest or mint USD1 on their terms, World Liberty principals became hostile toward Mr. Sun."

"World Liberty induced Plaintiffs to make their investments in World Liberty through fraudulent misrepresentations and omissions about the economic rights and liberties that would come with purchasing $WLFI tokens," the filing said.

These allegedly fraudulent misrepresentations include statements about the rights token holders had, various public statements World Liberty or its executives made 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 business operating in the decentralized finance sector, had centralized control over its tokens.

According to the complaint, World Liberty changed the smart contract governing $WLFI in August 2025 to add a “blacklisting” function that allowed the company to freeze tokens in specific wallets. The modification was not put to a governance vote or disclosed to investors, Sun alleges, even as token holders had just approved a proposal to make a portion of the supply tradable

Other allegations in the complaint include that "World Liberty made two overt threats" to Sun and his businesses. Chase Herro, one of World Liberty's co-founders, allegedly threatened to burn Sun's $WLFI tokens if Sun did not ask for his tokens to 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 $WLFI token purchases was inadequate," the filing said.