TRON founder Justin Sun’s conflict with World Liberty Financial (WLFI), a crypto project of the Trump family, has officially escalated from social-media sparring to a federal lawsuit. On April 22, Justin Sun said that he has filed a lawsuit in the California federal court against World Liberty Financial, claiming that his legitimate rights as a WLFI token holder have been violated. These alleged violations include the tokens being frozen, his governance voting rights being revoked, and even threats that his tokens would be directly destroyed.
WLFI investor tokens locked up until after Trump’s term
Justin Sun posted on X saying that he still supports the direction of Trump and his administration in pushing for crypto-friendly policies in the United States. The lawsuit does not change his view of the Trump administration; however, he also singled out “some people” in the World Liberty project team, saying their actions have deviated from the values represented by Trump. He accused them of freezing all of his WLFI tokens without any legitimate reason, canceling his right to vote on governance proposals, and threatening to permanently destroy his tokens through a “burn” mechanism—so he has no choice but to take the matter to court.
(Are WLFI tokens being locked up until Trump leaves office? Justin Sun suffers a bad loss, blasts “world tyranny”)
The trigger for this dispute comes from a governance proposal submitted by WLFI on April 15. According to the proposal, the WLFI tokens held by early investors would be subject to a new long-term unlocking mechanism, including a two-year cliff lock-up period followed by two years of linear unlocking. As for insiders such as the founders, the team, advisors, and cooperation partners, they would have a two-year lock-up plus a three-year linear unlocking, along with certain token-destruction conditions.
This means that many of the tokens held by early investors may not be fully unlocked until around 2030—after the end of Trump’s current term.
Justin Sun opposes WLFI’s new proposal; controversy escalates from the community to the court
Even more controversial, in his latest post Justin Sun emphasized that the proposal requires token holders to “actively accept” its terms. If they do not explicitly accept them, the tokens may be locked indefinitely. The proposal also includes an arrangement that requires advisors’ tokens to be permanently destroyed by 10%. Justin Sun said that this is not only unfavorable to the community, but also directly affects his rights as an early investor; because his tokens have already been frozen, he even cannot participate in voting on this proposal.
In fact, the rift between the two sides had already surfaced even before the lawsuit was filed. Justin Sun previously publicly accused WLFI of “secretly” implanting tools that could unilaterally freeze or restrict token holdings—essentially a blacklist backdoor. World Liberty denied his claims, countered that the related allegations were baseless, and demanded that if Justin Sun truly had evidence, he should take it to court. This is also why the formal lawsuit is no longer just back-and-forth online between the two sides; instead, both sides have already prepared to bring to court issues involving smart-contract control, token rights, and the legitimacy of governance.
Markets are paying close attention to this event not only because Justin Sun is a major holder of WLFI and an early supporter, but also because World Liberty Financial itself carries a strong Trump-family political and business tone. The project was co-founded by the Trump family, and a high proportion of the proceeds from the token sales flows to entities related to the Trump family.
This article Not satisfied with the tokens being frozen! TRON founder Justin Sun sues Trump family’s WLFI first appeared in Chain News ABMedia.
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