Sun said his WLFI pre-sale allocation was “unreasonably frozen” in a move that could damage the reputation of the Trump-family-linked decentralized finance platform.
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Update Sept. 5, 11:20 a.m. UTC: This article has been updated to include insights from Coinbase’s Conor Grogan.
Tron founder Justin Sun is urging World Liberty Financial (WLFI), a crypto project linked to the Trump family, to unfreeze his token allocation. His wallets were blacklisted after suspicious transactions flagged by blockchain trackers sparked accusations of selling.
Sun’s World Liberty Financial (WLFI) token on Thursday, after blockchain data from Nansen and Arkham flagged the address for a $9 million transfer, Cointelegraph reported.
In a Friday response to the blacklisting, Sun said his pre-sale tokens were “unreasonably frozen,” urging the team behind World Liberty Financial to unlock his investment, in respect to the principles of decentralized blockchain technology.
World Liberty’s decision to block his tokens is a violation of investor rights and risks “damaging broader confidence in World Liberty Financial,” wrote Sun in a X , adding:
“I call on the team to respect these principles, unlock my tokens, and let’s move forward together toward the success of World Liberty Financials.”
“Tokens are sacred and inviolable—this should be the most basic value of any blockchain. It’s also what makes us stronger and more fair than traditional finance,” added Sun.
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Sun was among the first investors to join the Trump family-linked WLFI pre-sale, and said that he was looking to hold the tokens long-term.
Sun “stated he will not be selling soon (his words) and is creating yield on HTX for WLFI deposits — plus minting $200M USD1 on Tron to power the ecosystem,” wrote the WLFI platform in a Tuesday X , referencing Sun’s earlier statement.
“Justin and the WLFI team are in active communication about this matter,” a spokesperson for Justin Sun previously told Cointelegraph.
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The blacklisting occurred shortly after Sun had started moving WLFI tokens to the HTX cryptocurrency exchange.
“Justin Sun moved $9M of his still-unlocked $WLFI to HTX. In total, he sent $10M to CEXs over the past 3 days,” wrote Bubblemaps in a Friday X .
Other crypto analysts have also suggested that Sun was selling his allocation, despite earlier promises.
“If Justin Sun really lured in WLFI tokens from HTX users with a 20% APY to lock them, and then sell them to get out of ‘his’ own position while they’re still unvested, then he deserves to get his account frozen,” wrote Quinten François, cryptocurrency analyst and the co-founder of social decentralized application weRate, in a Friday X .
Others, including Nansen crypto intelligence platform founder Alex Svanevik, contend that Sun has not been selling his allocation.
“At first, it (an AI agent) thought @justinsuntron caused the dump. Then I asked it to scrutinize the timestamps. Conclusion seems to be: he did not,” wrote Svanevik in a Friday X , referencing his conversation with the Nansen AI agent.
However, other industry analysts are alleging that Sun circumvented HTX to end up selling via the Binance exchange instead.
“A Binance deposit wallet connected to Justin Sun received over 60 million WLFI tokens worth $12M yesterday from HTX,” according to Conor Grogan, head of product at Coinbase exchange.
“The 60M WLFI deposit represents about 52.6% of HTX’s total WLFI holdings at present from what I can find onchain based on HTX’s public wallets,” added Grogan in a Thursday X .
In April 2020, Major Steem stakeholder Dan Hensley accused Sun of attempting to bribe his way to the top of the Steem hierarchy.
“Justin was losing the voting war halfway through and started offering people $2,500 each month to run a witness node for him on Steem. I own a dApp called 3speak that was on Steem. He offered us money, power and users,” Hesnley told Cointelegraph.
The remarks came a month after Steem was the subject of what many supporters deemed a hostile takeover by Justin Sun, Cointelegraph reported in early March 2020.
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