A public spat between Tron founder Justin Sun and a Trump-linked crypto project escalated on Wednesday after Sun sharply criticized a new government proposal, calling it “one of the most absurd government scams” he has seen.
In a lengthy post on X, Sun accused the project of designing a vote that penalizes dissent, where token holders who vote against the proposal risk having their tokens locked up indefinitely.
He also claimed that he and other large owners had been excluded from the process, claiming that tokens tied to around 4% of the voting power under his control had been frozen.
More broadly, Sun questioned whether the vote has any real authority, arguing that control of the protocol rests with anonymous wallet addresses, including a multi-signature setup that can override results and a separate account with the power to blacklist users.
“This proposal is not governance,” Sun said in the post. “It is an exercise of power by the select few who are carefully engaged in a further consolidation of power and property expropriation operation.”
WLFI proposal
The criticism centers on WLFI’s new proposal that would overhaul token lockups across the ecosystem. More than 62 billion WLFI tokens will be subject to new terms, including multi-year lockups and vesting plans.
Under the plan, tokens held by insiders – such as team members, advisors and partners – will face a two-year lockup followed by a three-year gradual release, along with a 10% token burn upon signing up. Early adopters would face slightly shorter vesting periods, but no burnout. In total, up to 4.5 billion tokens can be permanently destroyed.
Holders who do not accept the new terms will remain locked out indefinitely, according to the proposal.
Sun was not alone in pushing back. Simon Dedic, founder of Moonrock Capital, said early investors had in fact been “harsh”.
“All the early $WLFI investors who thought they were sitting on solid profits just got roughed up by the Trump family themselves,” Dedic wrote on X, adding that the move appeared to give the project another chance to extract value from investors. He also criticized what he described as “blatant misconduct” with little effort to hide it.
A spokesperson for World Liberty Financial told CoinDesk that the proposal “was designed to further align all participants in the WLFI ecosystem for the long term,” adding that it aims to “optimally secure long-term participation in our ecosystem and help ensure healthy market supply.”
Escalating feud
The setback marks the latest episode in the breakdown in relations between Sun and the project.
Earlier this week, WLFI threatened legal action, saying they had “contracts” and “evidence” after Sun accused the team of exploiting users through DeFi transactions.
The dispute has been building for several months. In September, WLFI blacklisted a blockchain address linked to Sun, which at the time held about $107 million worth of its governance tokens. It marks a sharp turnaround from late 2024, when Sun was a key backer, investing $30 million in WLFI tokens and taking on an advisory role to help support the project.
Tensions intensified after WLFI deposited 5 billion of its own tokens into the lending protocol Dolomite – where one of its advisors is a co-founder – and borrowed around $75 million in stablecoins. The tokens fell 12% to a record low the following day, after which Sun publicly accused the project of treating users like “personal ATMs”, triggering the latest legal threats.
