Justin Sun Invests $30 Million In World Liberty Financial Token Sale

World Liberty Financial, the upcoming DeFi project linked to U.S President-elect Donald Trump, has received a boon in the form of a $30 million investment from Justin Sun, the founder of Tron.

Sun, who also serves as an advisor to HTX (formerly Huobi), announced the purchase on Nov. 25, describing the investment as part of his commitment to advancing blockchain innovation in the United States.

“We are thrilled to invest $30 million in World Liberty Financial as its largest investor,” Sun tweeted. “The U.S. is becoming the blockchain hub, and Bitcoin owes it to Donald Trump! Tron is committed to making America great again and leading innovation.”

The purchase pushed the platform’s total raise to $52.5 million, with Sun accounting for 57% of the total so far.

World Liberty Financial’s rocky start

World Liberty Financial, which plans to deploy an instance of the Aave v3 DeFi lending protocol, launched its token sale on Oct. 15

While the sale initially targeted a raise of $300 million at a fully diluted valuation (FDV) of $1.5 billion, sales quickly dried up after bringing in roughly $12 million during its first 24 hours.

On Oct. 30, the project submitted a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to reduce its target by 90% to just $30 million. Prior to Sun’s investment, participants had purchased $22 million worth of tokens.

WLFI governance tokens will remain non-transferable for 12 months, with individual holders limited to mobilizing no more than 5% of the token’s supply for governance voting. Only accredited U.S. investors and non-U.S. persons can participate in the sale.

WLFI’s supply is capped at 100 billion tokens, with 35% allocated to public sales, 32.5% earmarked for community growth and incentives, 30% designated for “initial supporters,” and 2.5% reserved for the project’s team and advisors.

Trump’s revenue claim

Sun’s purchase means DT Marks DEFI LLC, a company controlled by Donald Trump, can begin receiving revenue from the project.

World Liberty Financial’s “gold paper” stated that DT Marks DEFI LLC can claim 75% of revenue generated by the project once it has cleared $30 million — which will be reserved to cover operational expenses.

Trump serves a promotional role as the project’s “chief crypto advocate,” while his sons, Barron Eric, and Donald Jr.are listed as “Web3 Ambassadors.” DT Marks DEFI LLC is also set to receive 22.5 billion WLFI tokens, aligning his financial interests with the platform’s success.

The remaining 25% of net revenues can be claimed by Axiom Management Group, a firm owned by World Liberty Financial co-founders Chase Herro and Zak Folkman. The pair previously managed Dough Finance Protocol, a now-defunct DeFi project.

However, World Liberty Financial also proposed distributing 20% of protocol revenue with Aave in exchange for using the code for Aave v3, should both projects pass governance proposals greenlighting the deployment.

Last week, Trump Media and Technology Group, the parent company of Truth Social, filed a trademark application for a crypto payment processing platform called TruthFi.

On Oct. 14, World Liberty Financial announced it had appointed Rich Teo, co-founder of Paxos, as its head of business.