Highlights
- Justin Sun invests $30M in Trump-backed WLFI, making TRON the largest stakeholder in the DeFi project.
- WLFI token sales jump to $51M after Sun’s purchase, securing profitability for Trump-linked DT Marks DEFI LLC.
- WLFI faces adoption hurdles with non-transferable tokens, but Sun’s backing ignites investor interest.
Justin Sun, the founder of the TRON blockchain, has made a $30 million investment in World Liberty Financial (WLFI), a decentralized finance (DeFi) project backed by President-elect Donald Trump. The purchase was completed through a wallet linked to Sun’s HTX exchange, formerly known as Huobi, and comes as WLFI struggled with slow initial token sales.
This investment positions TRON as the largest stakeholder in World Liberty Financial, a platform aiming to provide decentralized lending and borrowing services while being supported by a governance token, WLFI.
Justin Sun TRON Invests $30M In World Liberty Financial
World Liberty Financial was introduced in September of 2024 and was expected to do well but the adoption rate was slow. The platform initially targeted to sell $300 million of WLFI tokens in which only $21 million was sold before Sun’s acquisition.
Justin Sun’s $30 million investment has now taken the project past the $30 million barrier required for DT Marks DEFI LLC, a company affiliated with Donald Trump to start earning from the token sale proceeds. Pursuant to the WLFI “gold paper,” the Trump connection entity is awarded 75% of the net protocol revenues and 337.5 million WLFI tokens at the initial sale.
Zak Folkman, co-founder of World Liberty Financial said, “We are glad with the progress being achieved by World Liberty Financial and this large purchase of WLFI tokens is an indication that this project is doing well.” Although the community has been excited, the most recent event by Justin Sun in the Wrapped Bitcoin (wBTC) forced Coinbase to de-list the coin by 19th December 2024.
Donald Trump’s Crypto Ties and Sun’s Vision for Blockchain Growth
Donald Trump, the President of the United States of America who was recently elected for another term has been getting more involved with the cryptocurrency industry. According to the blockchain analytics firm Arkham, Trump has over $5.4 million in cryptocurrencies with the largest being in Ethereum (ETH).
On the other hand, Justin Sun has been an active individual within the world of crypto for a number of years now. On X (previously Twitter), Justin Sun endorsed Trump and the U.S. as a blockchain power, saying:
“We are thrilled to invest $30 million in World Liberty Financial as its largest investor. The U.S. is becoming the blockchain hub, and Bitcoin owes it to Donald Trump.”
This move is in line with Sun’s overall plan to promote the use of blockchain technology across the world. This includes his position in the newly elected Prime Minister of Liberland which is a micronation that has adopted Bitcoin as its legal tender.
One of the issues encountered by the WLFI token sale is the limitation of the buyers. The participation was open to all non-US investors and only US accredited investors. Also, the WLFI tokens are not divisible or transferable at the moment, which could be a big put-off for most cryptocurrency investors. Nevertheless, having adopted the Chainlink standard for onchain data and cross-chain interoperability has provided security to WLF.
Nonetheless, the influence of Justin Sun is a key figure, may introduce more people to the project. Folkman suggested that there is more to come since he said that.
“There have been a number of similarly large purchases in recent weeks, and we expect this to continue in the coming months.”
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