Justin Sun purchased $30 million in crypto tokens from World Liberty Financial (WLF), a new venture backed by President Donald Trump and his family.

In December, Popular Information reported that Chinese crypto entrepreneur Justin Sun purchased $30 million in crypto tokens from World Liberty Financial (WLF), a new venture backed by President Donald Trump and his family.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and crypto entrepreneur Justin Sun have requested a stay of proceedings in the case pending against Sun, according to a joint letter filed Wednesday with a federal judge.

The regulator and Sun are seeking a 60-day stay of the case to “allow the Parties to explore a potential resolution of the claims and allegations in the complaint.” The judge has granted the SEC's request.

The SEC sued Sun and three of his companies in March, accusing him of defrauding investors by marketing unregistered securities and fraudulently manipulating the secondary market for a crypto token.

The regulator claimed that Sun engaged in wash trading activity to artifcially increase the price of the token and create the impression of active trading.

The complaint also accused Sun of paying celebrities, including Lindsay Lohan, Jake Paul and Soulja Boy, for posting endorsements of his crypto on social media without disclosing their compensation, a violation of federal law.

A few weeks after former President Donald Trump won the 2024 presidential election, Sun announced that he had become the largest investor in World Liberty Financial (WLF), a new venture backed by Trump and his family, buying $30 million of its tokens.

Sun’s purchase resulted in a cash windfall for Trump. WLF was entitled to $30 million of initial net protocol revenue in a reserve “to cover operating expenses, indemnities, and obligations.” After the reserve was met, a company owned by Trump would receive 75% of the net protocol revenues.

Sun’s purchase covered the entire reserve. As of December 1, this amounted to $18 million for Trump — 75% of the revenues of all other tokens sold at the time.

Sun also joined WLF as an advisor. While the purchase benefited Trump, WLF tokens are essentially worthless for Sun, as they are non-transferable and locked indefinitely.

Nevertheless, Sun has since invested another $45 million in WLF, bringing his total investment to $75 million.

This means that Sun’s purchases have sent more than $50 million to Trump, Bloomberg reported.

Sun has also continued to shower Trump with praise. On January 22, Sun posted on X: “if I have made any money in cryptocurrency, all credit goes to President Trump.”

We started a new publication, Musk Watch. NPR covered our launch HERE. It features accountability journalism focused on one of the most powerful humans in history. It is free to sign up, so we hope you’ll give it a try and let us know what you think.

Subscribe to Musk Watch

Now, the SEC seems poised to negotiate a favorable settlement with Sun or drop the case entirely.

Yesterday, the SEC and Sun filed a joint request for a 60-day stay in the case against Sun to “allow the Parties to explore a potential resolution of the claims and allegations in the complaint.”

Sun seems pleased. He responded to news of the request for a stay on X, posting three handshake emojis.

Last week, Brian Armstrong, CEO of the crypto trading platform Coinbase, announced that the SEC was dismissing its lawsuit against the company.

The move came after Coinbase boosted Trump's crypto meme coin, donated $75 million to a pro-Trump Super PAC and chipped in $1 million to Trump's inauguration celebration.