By Tom Wilson
LONDON, April 13 (Reuters) – A major investor in U.S. President Donald Trump’s World Liberty Financial crypto venture has claimed the firm has “secretly” implemented a device to unilaterally freeze and restrict private holdings of its WLFI token.
In posts on social media platform X on Sunday, crypto entrepreneur Justin Sun said, without evidence, that World Liberty had embedded what he described as a “backdoor blacklisting function” into the blockchain-based contracts used for the tokens.
The move, Sun wrote, gave World Liberty the “unilateral power” to “freeze, ban and effectively confiscate the property rights” of any token holder, without cause and without recourse.
Reuters could not establish whether World Liberty has or is using such equipment. The news agency also could not find any details about Surya’s business activities.
The official World Liberty account on X posted a response to Sun’s allegations on Sunday: “We have deals. We have evidence. We have the truth. See you in court.”
When contacted for comment, a company spokesperson directed Reuters to its posts on X. Sun did not respond to a Reuters message on Telegram and a spokesman for him did not respond to a Reuters request for comment.
World Liberty is the most prominent of several lucrative crypto businesses co-founded by the Trump family. In its 2024 launch, the crypto company said it will power financial flows to small investors through a “decentralized finance” app, which has been launched.
According to a Reuters analysis published last year https://www.reuters.com/investigations/inside-trump-familys-global-crypto-cash-machine-2025-10-28/ it generated more than $460 million for the Trump family in the first half of 2025.
In late 2024, Sun became the largest publicly known investor in New World Liberty, investing tens of millions of dollars in WWFI tokens and being named as an advisor to the firm. He later increased his holdings to at least $75 million in tokens, according to social media posts from January 2025.
In 2024, Sun told a New York Times reporter about his investment vote of confidence https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/29/us/politics/trump-crypto-world-liberty-financial.html in what he called the Trump family’s “brilliant project”.
In March, the Securities and Exchange Commission settled a 2023 lawsuit against Sun https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/justin-sun-settles-sec-fraud-case-10-million-2026-03-05/ for $10 million. The lawsuit alleged fraud, selling unregistered crypto securities and concealing payments to celebrities to promote their products. Surya did not admit any wrongdoing.
