A Chinese cryptocurrency entrepreneur who paid more than $6 million for a banana duct-taped to a wall has purchased $30 million in crypto tokens from a Donald Trump-backed venture.
TRON founder Justin Sun, who ate his $6 million conceptual-art banana after buying it at auction, said his company was committed to “making America great again” after buying into World Liberty Financial for $30 million.
The purchase stands to directly benefit the president-elect.
Prior to Sun’s involvement, World Liberty Financial had only sold roughly $24 million in tokens, falling short of a $30 million threshold that would allow a Trump-owned company to begin collecting “75 percent of net protocol revenues,” according to filings reviewed by Popular Information.
With Sun’s new stake in World Liberty Financial, Trump can reap massive profits — to the tune of $18 million.
Last year, Sun and three of his companies were charged by the Securities and Exchange Commission for the unregistered offer and sale of crypto assets and for “fraudulently manipulating the secondary market” with a crypto token “through extensive wash trading,” or the manufacturing of interest and sales around tokens to “make it appear actively traded without an actual change in beneficial ownership.”
Sun is accused of “orchestrating a scheme to pay celebrities” to promote his crypto tokens without disclosing they were being paid to do so. Those celebrities included Akon, Lindsay Lohan, Lil Yachty, Jake Paul and Soulja Boy.
Sun is also joining World Liberty Financial as an adviser, effectively making him business partners with the incoming president.
The president-elect serves as World Liberty Financial’s “Chief Crypto Advocate,” while his oldest sons Donald Jr. and Eric are the company’s “Web 3 Ambassadors.” Trump’s 18-year-old son Barron Trump is the company’s “DeFi Visionary.”
Through Sun’s purchase, Trump’s company was awarded more than 22 billion World Liberty Financial tokens, which are worth more than $300 million at its current sale price. But the tokens are effectively worthless because they cannot be transferred, circumventing securities law with a disclaimer the tokens are “locked indefinitely in a wallet or smart contract until such time, if ever, [the tokens] are unlocked through protocol governance procedures in a manner that does not contravene applicable law.”
That could change under a more permissive regulatory environment for crypto under his incoming administration.
Trump has made overtures to the cryptocurrency industry and could appoint new leadership at the SEC that would allow World Liberty Financial tokens and other crypto assets to be legally traded, which could boost their prices in an open market and allow Trump to reap in billions of dollars.
The president-elect is reportedly “asking the crypto industry to weigh in on potential picks” for SEC chair, according to WIRED.
Former SEC commissioner Paul Atkins — who now runs a firm that works with crypto companies and chairs a lobbying group for the industry — is reportedly in the running.
