Justin Sun, the controversial Chinese cryptocurrency entrepreneur, has invested $30 million in President-elect Donald Trump’s World Liberty Financial, making him the largest investor in the decentralized finance project.
“The US is becoming a blockchain hub, and Bitcoin owes it to a real Donald Trump!”, Sun, founder of cryptocurrency company Tron, declared in a post. mail Day X Monday. “TRON is committed to making America great again and driving innovation.” A Sun spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“We are excited about the momentum World Liberty Financial has seen, and this significant purchase of WLF tokens underscores the early success of this project,” a World Liberty Financial spokesperson said in a statement. “Indeed, there have been several important purchases in recent weeks, and we are confident in our future success as we build a platform that promotes freer and fairer financing. We expect more such developments in the coming weeks and months.”
The US Securities and Exchange Commission sued Sun in March 2023 for allegedly violating securities rules. The lawsuit, filed in federal court in New York, alleges that Sun worked with companies he owned and controlled to engineer the offer and sale of unregistered securities. The cryptocurrency entrepreneur is also accused of violating anti-fraud and market manipulation rules. Sun has said in the past that he believes his lawsuit in SEC court accusing him and several of his companies of violating securities rules “lacks merit.”
Earlier this year, USDC stablecoin issuer Circle discontinued its support for the Tron blockchain — attributing the decision to a “risk management framework” that “continuously evaluates the suitability of all blockchains” for the stablecoin.
Read more: Stablecoin USDC abandons TRON network, cites risk management
Trump-backed World Liberty Financial, launched one day after the former president emerged from an apparent second assassination attempt, is being promoted by Trump and his sons as part of the DeFi movement, which seeks to democratize access to financial services by eliminating middlemen. . During World Liberty’s initial launch, the Wilmington, Delaware-based venture planned to raise $300 million at a $1.5 billion valuation. However, it recently revealed that its $300 million token offering is being marketed primarily overseas.
World Liberty has filed notice with US regulators about the offering, saying it is “only currently planning” to sell $30 million of tokens in the US. After reaching the $30 million threshold, World Liberty will end the US offering, even though the company has about $288.5 million in tokens available for sale, according to the document.
Trump has been a recent and outspoken supporter of digital assets like Bitcoin. Last week, Bloomberg News reported that Trump Media & Technology Group Corp. was in talks to buy digital asset market Bakkt Holdings Inc, citing people familiar with the discussions who requested anonymity and are sharing private information. Trump owns more than 50% of TMTG, which operates the social media site Truth Social.
Donald Trump is listed as World Liberty Financial’s chief cryptocurrency advocate, while his sons, Eric, Donald Jr. and Barron Trump, have been named as web3 ambassadors. The project also includes Paxos co-founder Rich Teo as stablecoin and payment lead, as well as Luke Pearson, a senior crypto researcher at Polychain.
Read more: Trump’s global freedom to sell digital tokens primarily outside the United States
Just two days ago, Sun announced that he had paid the amount $6.2 million price for a banana mounted on the wallAs part of a piece by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan.
The price of the Tron TRX token fell about 5% to about 20 cents on Monday. It is up 87% this year.