The founder of the TRON blockchain and the head of the crypto exchanges HTX and Poloniex, Justin Sun, announced that he has become the largest investor in Donald Trump’s DeFi protocol World Liberty Financial. The entrepreneur invested $30 million in the project, noting that the United States, thanks to the efforts of the elected 47th president, will become a global blockchain hub. “TRON is committed to making America great again and leading in innovation,” Sun concluded.
“Together, we will drive innovation with a strong blockchain, contributing to the development of the ecosystem. Exciting times lie ahead!”, said the World Liberty Financial team.
It is noteworthy that the announcement did not have a positive impact on the rate of the native TRON token (TRX). The asset lost 5% in a day and is trading at $0.1989. TRX ranks 11th in the overall cryptocurrency rating with a capitalization of $17.2 billion.
The World Liberty Financial project, headed by the Trump family and investors Steve and Zach Witkoff, Zachary Folkman and Chase Herro, was announced in August as an alternative to traditional banking services.
In September, details were announced about the distribution of non-transferable WLFI governance tokens: 62.66% was allocated for the token sale under the supervision of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), 17.33% was reserved for paying rewards to system participants, and 20% was intended for the team.
The token sale was planned to attract $300 million, which will be divided between the project’s reserve wallet with a multi-signature and the team.
Sales were slow at the start, raising only $11.6 million in the first 24 hours, with the site experiencing several glitches. By the end of the month, the team had cut the sales plan by 90%, from $300 million to $30 million.
Despite Trump’s victory in the November 5 presidential election, which caused a sharp rise in the crypto market, WLFI has not yet reached its initial sales plan.
In addition, Sun-led exchanges HTX (formerly Houbi) and Poloniex lost over $210 million in a hack late last year, and HTX’s HECO Network blockchain recently announced it was shutting down.
As for TRON, the blockchain is actively developing as a platform for launching meme tokens, which continue to grow in popularity in the crypto market. The leader in this segment remains the Solana blockchain with its PumpFun launchpad, but TRON offers a similar platform SunPump, where anyone can launch their asset for a small fee. In August, SunPump halved trading fees, which contributed to the growth of on-chain activity and revenue for TRON.