Expensive banana purchaser and crypto founder Justin Sun just tripled the amount invested in Trump’s cryptocurrency
Thanks to Sun’s investment, World Liberty Financial hit its (revised) $30 million target, passing a threshold for Trump to be eligible for payouts.
Here’s a fun one: Justin Sun — the TRON cryptocurrency founder who was sued by the SEC in March 2023 under allegations of a market-manipulation scheme involving celebrities Lindsay Lohan, Jake Paul, Soulja Boy, Austin Mahone, Michele Mason, Lil Yachty, Ne-Yo, and Akon — invested $30 million in Donald Trump’s World Liberty Financial, becoming the cryptocurrency’s largest investor.
(In case you need reminding, Sun is the guy who just paid $6.2 million for a banana taped to a wall.)
We are thrilled to invest $30 million in World Liberty Financial @worldlibertyfi as its largest investor. The U.S. is becoming the blockchain hub, and Bitcoin owes it to @realDonaldTrump! TRON is committed to making America great again and leading innovation. Let's go! pic.twitter.com/cISTsVYP1f
— H.E. Justin Sun 🍌 (@justinsuntron) November 25, 2024
For context, on October 15, World Liberty Financial launched with the goal of “onboarding Web2 users to Web3 with the Trump brand,” according to its “gold paper”:
“A key part of our mission at World Liberty Financial is to leverage the global reach and recognition of the Trump brand to bring as many Web2 users into the world of Web3 as possible. Inspired by ‘Chief Crypto Advocate’ Donald J. Trump, we aim to introduce DeFi to a broader audience that may have previously been unfamiliar or hesitant to engage with decentralized assets and cryptocurrency.”
The project hoped to raise $300 million at a $1.5 billion valuation, but through three weeks, even after Trump’s election win, its fundraising efforts were lackluster. By November 6, for example, the project had only generated $14.8 million in sales, less than 5% of its expected $300 million, and it revised its fundraising target to $30 million.
There were a couple of issues facing the project from its inception, including that the sale was limited to accredited investors (which minimized retail participation), and the coin was only available on WLF’s website. With a $30 million investment, Sun effectively tripled the total outside capital put into the project.
With respect to this project, that $30 million number is pretty significant, because WLF needed to raise at least that much money for Trump to receive any proceeds from the project. From the project’s gold paper (emphasis ours):
“$30 million of initial net protocol revenues will be held in a reserve controlled by a WLF Multisig to cover operating expenses, indemnities, and obligations. Net protocol revenues include revenues to WLF from any source, including without limitation platform use fees, token sale proceeds, advertising or other sources of revenue, after deduction of agreed expenses and reserves for WLF’s continued operations. The remainder of net protocol revenues will be paid to DT Marks DEFI LLC, Axiom Management Group, LLC WC Digital Fi LLC, which are entities affiliated with our founders and certain service providers (‘Initial Supporters’).
World Liberty Financial agrees that DT Marks DEFI LLC will receive 22.5 billion $WLFI tokens and a right to receive 75% of the net protocol revenues as defined in the services agreement after deduction of agreed operating expenses and the initial treasury reserve.”
DT Marks is a Delaware-based company whose owners and principals include Donald Trump. That vehicle is in line to receive 75% of net protocol revenues after accounting for the initial $30 million of reserves, and Justin Sun’s investment pushed it over that threshold.
So what, exactly, is WLF planning to do? According to the gold paper, it will “help safeguard the US Dollar’s future as the global reserve currency,” though what exactly that looks like has yet to be determined. Additionally, WLF holders don’t have voting rights on the governance of the project and the coins are nontransferable, meaning that those who invested can’t sell them.
While Sun told Bloomberg that the investment is “not related to any political purpose,” the project doesn’t appear to have any purpose at all besides sending 75% of protocol revenue to Trump’s Delaware shell company and 25% of protocol money to a Puerto Rican LLC, Axiom Management Group. But who knows, maybe WLF is going to prove to be an integral part of a strong US dollar.
