Key Takeaways
- Tron founder Justin Sun has become the largest investor in Donald Trump’s DeFi project.
- The project has now reached its $30 million goal after recently reducing its sales target by 90%.
- Before Sun’s purchase, only $20 million worth of WLFI had been sold.
Justin Sun, the founder of Tron, said he’s “thrilled” to become the largest investor in Donald Trump’s new DeFi project, World Liberty Financial (WLFI).
The controversial crypto magnate announced he had bought $30 million worth of the project’s tokens despite its disappointingly slow start.
Sun Becomes Largest WLFI Backer
On Monday, HTX, a Sun-controlled crypto exchange, was seen on Etherscan purchasing 2 billion WLFI tokens worth $0.015 each.
Shortly after the purchase, Sun took to X to celebrate becoming the biggest investor in the project so far.
“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,” he added.
Sun in Hot Water
Sun has run into some hot water with U.S. regulators in recent years.
In 2023, the Tron founder was sued alongside the Tron Foundation, BitTorrent Foundation Ltd., and parent company Rainberry Inc.
The U.S. regulator claimed that the 2017 distribution of TRX through an Initial Coin Offering (ICO) was the sale of an unregistered security.
However, in March 2024, the Tron Foundation filed a motion with a New York federal court to counteract the lawsuit.
The Singapore-based firm argued that the SEC was “not a worldwide regulator” and had no authority over “foreign digital asset offerings to foreign purchasers on global platforms.”
Trump’s WLFI
The WLFI project, which Trump has licensed his name to the venture through an LLC, is aiming to be a type of digital asset bank.
President-elect Trump is operating as the project’s “chief crypto advocate,” with his three sons listed as “Web3 ambassadors.”
WLFI began with an ambitious goal of raising $300 million, which would require selling 20 billion tokens.
However, the slow start to the Trump-backed WLFI DeFi project forced it to lower its initial sales target by 90% last month to just $30 million.
Before Sun’s purchase, only $20 million worth of WLFI had been sold, bringing total sales to $52 million.
The renewed smaller target means that the project has met its goal, and the Trumps can now receive some of its revenue.
According to WLFI’s “gold paper,” Trump’s company, DT Marks DEFI LLC, can receive 75% of the project’s net revenues when it makes $30 million.
Kurt Robson is a London-based reporter at CCN, specialising in the fast-moving worlds of crypto and emerging technology. He began his career covering local news in Cornwall after graduating from Falmouth University with First Class Honours in Journalism. There, he cut his teeth on everything from council meetings to missing swans.
He quickly rose through the ranks to become a frontline journalist at several of the UK’s leading national newspapers. Over the years, he has interviewed musicians and celebrities, reported from courtrooms and crime scenes, and secured multiple front-page exclusives.
Following the upheaval of the COVID-19 pandemic, Kurt shifted his focus to technology journalism—just ahead of the AI boom. With a natural curiosity and a trained eye for emerging trends, he has found a new rhythm in reporting on innovation.
At CCN, Kurt's work focuses on the cutting edge of crypto, blockchain, AI, and the evolving digital world. Drawing on his background in people-first reporting and his deep interest in disruptive tech, Kurt delivers stories that are insightful, entertaining, and human-centric.
