Trump’s World Liberty Financial received $30 million from Justin Sun
Controversial Chinese cryptocurrency entrepreneur Justin Sun has invested $30 million in President-elect Donald Trump’s World Liberty Financial, making him the largest investor in the decentralized finance project.
“The United States is becoming a blockchain hub and Bitcoin owes @realDonaldTrump!”, Sun, founder of cryptocurrency company Tron, declared in a parcel ABOVE X Monday. “TRON is committed to making America great again and leading innovation.” A spokesperson for Sun did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“We are excited about the momentum World Liberty Financial has experienced and this large-scale WLF token purchase underscores the early success of this project,” a World Liberty spokesperson said in a statement. . “Indeed, there have been a number of significant purchases in recent weeks and we are confident in our future success as we build a platform that promotes freer and fairer finance. We expect more such developments to occur in the coming weeks and months.”
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission sued Sun in March 2023 for allegedly violating securities regulations. The lawsuit, filed in federal court in New York, claims that Sun worked with companies he owned and controlled to engineer the offering and sale of unregistered securities. It also accused the crypto entrepreneur of violating rules against fraud and market manipulation. Sun has said in the past that he believes the SEC’s court filings accusing him and some of his companies of violating securities rules are “unsubstantiated.”
Earlier this year, Circle, the issuer of the USDC stablecoin, discontinued support for the Tron blockchain – making the decision for a “risk management framework” that “continuously evaluates the suitability of all blockchains” for with stablecoins.
Read more: Stablecoin USDC drops Tron network, citing risk management
Trump-backed World Liberty Financial, launched a day after the former president escaped a second apparent assassination attempt, is being promoted by Trump and his sons as part of the DeFi movement, which seeks to democratizing access to financial services despite the removal of intermediaries . In World Liberty’s initial launch, the Wilmington, Delaware-based project planned to raise $300 million at a $1.5 billion valuation. However, they recently revealed that their $300 million token offering was primarily sold overseas.
World Liberty has sent a notice to US regulators about the offering, saying it “currently only plans” to sell $30 million of tokens in the US. According to the document, after reaching the $30 million threshold, World Liberty will end its offering in the United States, even though the company has approximately $288.5 million in tokens available for sale.
Trump has recently been a strong proponent of digital assets like Bitcoin. Last week, Bloomberg News reported that Trump Media & Technology Group Corp. is in talks to buy digital asset marketplace Bakkt Holdings Inc., citing people familiar with the discussions who asked not to be identified sharing personal information. Trump owns more than 50% of TMTG, which operates Truth Social, a social networking site.
Donald Trump is listed as the main cryptocurrency backer of World Liberty Financial, while his sons, Eric, Donald Jr. and Barron Trump was named the organization’s web3 ambassador. The project also includes Paxos co-founder Rich Teo as head of payments and stablecoins, as well as Luke PearsonPolychain senior cryptographic researcher.
Read more: Trump’s World Liberty primarily sells digital tokens outside the United States
Just two days ago, Sun announced that he had paid 6.2 million USD for a banana stuck on the wallas part of the work of Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan.
Tron’s TRX token price fell about 5% to about 20 cents on Monday. It is up about 87% this year.
