Tron founder Justin Sun has filed a lawsuit against the Trump-backed crypto venture World Liberty Financial, accusing it of extortion. The 52-page complaint alleges that after Sun invested $45 million, project leaders froze his 4 billion WLFI tokens and threatened to have holders vote to destroy them if he did not provide more capital. Sun claims he was falsely blamed for a 40% price drop and threatened with reports to authorities. World Liberty Financial called the lawsuit “entirely meritless.”
Justin Sun has accused World Liberty Financial of attempting to extort him in a new lawsuit. The complaint alleges co-founder Chase Herro gave Sun an ultimatum to either voluntarily remove his tokens from circulation or let holders vote on wiping them out.
Sun claims this was “an effort to coerce Mr. Sun into providing more capital for the benefit of the company.” The 4 billion WLFI tokens he received for a $45 million investment were blacklisted by the project in September and remain frozen.
The lawsuit states Herro also threatened to report Sun to authorities over unspecified KYC issues. This occurred months before Sun resolved a legal battle with the SEC by paying a $10 million penalty without admitting wrongdoing.
Sun alleges the DeFi project wrongly blamed him for short-selling WLFI and causing its price to plunge 40% in a day. He asserts World Liberty was trying to artificially prop up the token’s price by preventing a major holder from selling.
A further point of contention was Sun’s $100 million purchase of the officially licensed TRUMP meme coin. The lawsuit claims World Liberty was “upset” by this investment, though Sun says it was “pre-approved by a Trump family member.”
In response to the lawsuit, World Liberty co-founder Zach Witkoff said the claims are “entirely meritless.” Eric Trump also dismissed the suit in a social media post, comparing it to spending money on absurd art.
