World Liberty Financial, the Trump-linked cryptocurrency venture, has filed a defamation lawsuit against Tron founder Justin Sun in Florida state court. The suit accuses Sun of violating token agreements, engaging in short-selling, and making false statements after the company froze his WLFI tokens. This escalates a dispute following Sun's own lawsuit against the firm.
World Liberty Financial opened a legal counteroffensive against Justin Sun, one of crypto's prominent billionaires, after he sued the Trump-associated venture over frozen WLFI tokens. The lawsuit, filed Monday in Florida state court, alleges Sun violated token agreements through prohibited transfers, straw purchases, and short-selling activity around WLFI's public trading debut on September 1, 2025. World Liberty claims entities linked to Sun moved $300 million in USDT to a Binance address hours before the launch, contributing to a 26% price drop amid rising short bets, which it describes as a deliberate attack to harm holders and the project. The company froze Sun-affiliated tokens to enforce restrictions, an authority it says was disclosed in agreements and known to Sun, who had earlier bought about 4 billion nontransferable WLFI tokens for roughly $30 million via his entity Blue Anthem between November 2024 and January 2025, plus more for an advisory role. Sun turned from early backer to adversary after the restrictions prevented sales and governance voting, prompting his public criticism on X of World Liberty's token controls as a hidden 'backdoor blacklisting function' lacking due process. World Liberty calls these statements false and defamatory, claiming they damaged its reputation and lost business opportunities, amplified by influencers and bots. Sun's separate federal lawsuit in California, filed in April, accuses World Liberty of unjustly freezing assets worth over $1 billion at peak, stripping governance rights, and pressuring him to support its USD1 stablecoin, which he declined. No court has ruled on the competing allegations of misconduct, retaliation, or improper disclosures. The dispute highlights tensions between decentralized token marketing and issuer controls in crypto projects tied to the Trump family, whose bylaws allocate 75% of WLFI revenue to them.
