World Liberty Financial Sues Tron Founder Justin Sun for Defamation

World Liberty Financial has initiated a defamation lawsuit against Tron founder Justin Sun in Florida, intensifying a legal conflict between the crypto platform linked to the Trump family and one of its major investors. According to Cointelegraph, the lawsuit was filed on Monday in the Eleventh Judicial Circuit Court for Miami-Dade County. It accuses Sun of making false public statements about World Liberty and breaching WLFI token-sale terms through alleged prohibited transfers, short-selling, and straw purchases. The lawsuit further alleges that Sun spread defamatory statements about the crypto platform, seeking a court-ordered retraction and compensation from him. Sun has denied these allegations, describing the lawsuit in a Monday post on X as a “meritless PR stunt” and expressing his intention to contest the case in court. This legal action follows less than two weeks after Sun filed a lawsuit against World Liberty over the freezing of his WLFI tokens, a dispute that has heightened scrutiny of the project’s token controls and governance structure. The legal battle comes amid growing criticism of the crypto platform, which faced backlash for a proposal to extend a two-year lock-up period for early investors holding the WLFI token. U.S. President Donald Trump and his sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, are listed as co-founders of the platform, as per World Liberty's white paper. Sun criticized the proposal as “one of the most absurd governance scams I have ever seen.” The lawsuit claims Sun was aware of WLFI’s token freezing rights, with his token address blacklisted in September 2025 after being flagged for a $9 million transfer. Sun argued that his presale tokens were unjustly frozen and called for the release of his investment. However, the lawsuit asserts that Sun was “fully aware of World Liberty’s right to freeze user tokens to protect its token holders and its community” and had agreed to it in the project’s Terms of Sale. Tom Clare, attorney for World Liberty Financial, stated that Sun chose to defame World Liberty publicly, claiming the lawsuit was a “last resort” to protect its tokenholders and employees. The lawsuit also highlights governance concerns, noting a March vote where 76% of voting power came from 10 wallets, which Sun described as a sign of concentrated influence. World Liberty accused Sun of spreading baseless allegations to cover up his own misconduct and threatened legal action. The WLFI token saw a 5% increase in the 24 hours leading up to 1:43 p.m. UTC on Monday, though it remains down over 80% since its launch, according to CoinMarketCap data.