Tron founder Justin Sun filed a lawsuit in California federal court against World Liberty Financial (WLFI).
The complaint alleges that the decentralized finance (DeFi) project fraudulently induced him to invest, froze his tokens, and threatened to destroy them permanently.
According to BeInCrypto's earlier reporting, Sun first invested $30 million in World Liberty Financial in late 2024, ahead of the token's market launch. He subsequently built up a WLFI position valued at around $75 million and was named as an advisor to the project.
In September, Sun confirmed that World Liberty Financial had blacklisted his wallet. The wallet held 540 million unlocked WLFI tokens and 2.4 billion locked tokens. The freeze followed on-chain activity showing outgoing transfers, including one valued at $9 million.
Since then, the value of Sun's locked stash has dropped by an estimated $60 million amid a sharp slide in the WLFI price. For its part, WLFI has maintained that the freeze was a routine security measure rather than a move specifically aimed at Sun.
Earlier this month, Sun alleged that the Trump-backed venture embedded a “backdoor blacklisting function” that would supposedly allow it to freeze, restrict, and confiscate “property rights of any token holder.” In response to his public accusations, World Liberty Financial challenged the investor to a legal fight.
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In his latest post, Sun said he had made good-faith attempts to work things out with the World Liberty team without heading to court.
However, he claimed the team rebuffed his requests to unfreeze the tokens and reinstate his rights as a holder, leaving litigation as his only remaining option.
“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. I do not believe President Trump would condone these actions if he knew about them,” he said. “All I want is to be treated the same as every other early investor who received tokens—no better, no worse.”