Justin Sun Slams WLFI Over Token Lockups, Gets Legal Threat in Response

Justin Sun, the founder of the Tron layer-1 blockchain network, criticized World Liberty Financial (WLFI), a decentralized finance platform co-founded by US President Donald Trump’s sons, over lengthy lock-up periods for the platform’s governance token.

Sun said that he invested “significant capital” in WLFI as an early investor and also said that a March WLFI governance proposal to determine token lock-up periods, in which more than 76% of the voting tokens came from 10 wallets, lacked transparency. In a Sunday post on X, Sun wrote (in translation):  

“The governance votes cited to justify the above actions were not conducted through fair or transparent procedures. Key information was withheld from voters, meaningful participation was restricted, and outcomes were predetermined.”

“Justin’s favorite move is playing the victim while making baseless allegations to cover up his own misconduct,” World Liberty Financial said in response, threatening legal action against Sun over his claims. 

The incident came amid community pushback against WLFI and confirmation that the platform was using its own governance tokens as loan collateral, causing the price of WLFI to sink to an all-time low and renewed backlash against Trump for his crypto activities.

Cointelegraph reached out to World Liberty Financial but did not obtain a response by the time of publication. 

Related: World Liberty signals phased WLFI unlock vote after early holder backlash

WLFI token sinks to all-time low as community backlash mounts

The WLFI token hit a new all-time low on Saturday, falling to just $0.07 following news of the platform using WLFI tokens as collateral to borrow stablecoins.

Wallets linked to World Liberty Financial used WLFI tokens as collateral on Dolomite, a DeFi platform co-founded by the project’s chief technology officer, Corey Caplan, to take out the stablecoin loan.

WLFI confirmed that it acts as an “anchor” borrower, which generates yield for the platform and value for token holders, adding that it is “one of the largest suppliers and borrowers” in the WLFI ecosystem.

“Treating the crypto community as a personal ATM is unjust and has never been authorized through any fair, transparent, good-faith community governance process,” Sun said. 

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