The founder of the Tron blockchain, Justin Sun, has become the largest investor in Donald Trump’s crypto project, World Liberty Financial, after buying $30 million worth of its tokens.
“We are thrilled to invest $30 million in World Liberty Financial as its largest investor,” Sun wrote in a Nov. 25 X post. “TRON is committed to making America great again and leading innovation.”
Before Sun’s post, a wallet that Etherscan tagged as owned by the Sun-controlled crypto exchange HTX, formerly Huobi, was seen purchasing 2 billion World Liberty Financial (WLFI) tokens worth $0.015 apiece.
Source: Justin Sun
WLFI sales have been sluggish since it launched in mid-October, with investors turned off by the project restricting sales to non-US persons and US-accredited investors, along with making the tokens nontransferable — meaning they can’t be sold.
Just $20 million worth of WLFI had been sold before Sun’s buy, pushing total sales to $52 million, still only 17% of World Liberty’s lofty $300 million token sale goal.
But it now means that Trump and his family will start getting paid. The project’s “gold paper” — what it called its white paper — says the president-elect’s company, DT Marks DEFI LLC, is entitled to 75% of net revenues after the project makes $30 million, which it now has.
“This sizable purchase of WLF tokens underscores the early success of this project,” World Liberty Financial co-founder Zak Folkman told Cointelegraph. “There have been several significant purchases in recent weeks, and we are confident in our future success as we build a platform that promotes freer and fairer finance.”
Donald Trump is listed as the platform’s “chief crypto advocate,” while his sons Eric, Barron and Donald Trump Jr. are all “Web3 ambassadors.” The incoming president ran a campaign promising to make the US the world’s “crypto capital” and to reel in regulatory oversight of the industry.
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Meanwhile, Sun and Tron have their own troubles with US regulators, having been sued by the Securities and Exchange Commission in March 2023, accused of selling the Tron (TRX) token as an unregistered security and wash-trading it to raise its price, allegations that Sun denies.
Just last week, on Nov. 21, Sun shared that he paid $6.2 million at auction for an artwork of a banana taped to a wall and planned to eat it.
TRX has dropped 5.5% in the past day to under $0.20. It’s up around 84% this year but is still about 15% off from its $0.23 peak it hit in January 2018.
Tron did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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Update (Nov. 26, 1:50 am UTC): This article has been updated to add a response from World Liberty Financial.