World Liberty Financial, the decentralized finance (DeFi) platform backed by former U.S. President Donald Trump and his sons, has received a significant injection of capital from crypto billionaire Justin Sun. Sun, the founder of TRON and an affiliate of the HTX crypto exchange (formerly Huobi), purchased $30 million worth of WLFI tokens, the platform’s native governance token.
The purchase, confirmed by Sun on Twitter, follows a sluggish start for the World Liberty project. Launched in September 2024 with the ambitious goal of raising $300 million, the platform had only managed to secure $21 million in token sales prior to Sun’s investment.
World Liberty Financial aims to offer decentralized borrowing and lending services, governed by the WLFI token. However, the initial token sale faced limitations, restricting participation to non-U.S. investors and accredited U.S. investors. Furthermore, the non-transferable nature of the WLFI tokens likely contributed to the slow uptake among crypto investors.
On November 25th, Etherscan, the Ethereum blockchain data service, tagged a $30 million WLFI token purchase to a wallet associated with Huobi. While a TRON spokesperson declined to comment directly, sources confirmed Sun’s involvement in the transaction.
The influx of capital from Sun’s purchase is a significant development for the Trump-backed project. According to the project’s “gold paper,” a portion of the proceeds from the WLFI token sale is designated for a company controlled by Donald Trump. Importantly, this agreement stipulated that Trump’s company would only begin profiting once sales surpassed the $30 million mark, a threshold now reached thanks to Sun’s investment.
