At the same time, Sun was being sued by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) “for the unregistered offer and sale of crypto asset securities, for defrauding investors by manipulating the price of his own cryptocurrency with fake transactions called ‘wash trading,’ and for orchestrating a scheme to pay celebrities including Lindsay Lohan and Jake Paul to promote his assets without disclosing their compensation,” as Artnet News reported in 2024. Sun denied the charges. Sun’s 2024 purchase of World Liberty Financial coins made him that company’s largest investor, and resulted in a payout of at least $15 million to the Trumps, reported Bloomberg.

In the new complaint, filed in federal court in California, Sun alleges that Trump’s company put tools in place to prevent him from selling his coins and threatened to permanently delete his holdings from his own digital wallet, or “burn” them, reports NBC. The lawsuit says that Sun bought $45 million worth of $WLF, or 3 billion coins, and was awarded another billion after he was named an adviser to the company. The 4 billion coins would be worth about $320 million, according to NBC.

Sun’s legal claims “are entirely meritless,” said Zach Witkoff, World Liberty Financial’s chief executive and cofounder, in a post on X on Wednesday, adding that “World ​Liberty looks forward to getting the case thrown out promptly.” “He engaged in misconduct that required World Liberty to take action to protect itself and its users,” ⁠added Witkoff. Trump’s son Eric, another World Liberty cofounder, resorted to a contemporary art slam when he weighed in on X, saying, “The only thing ​more ridiculous than this lawsuit is spending $6 million on a banana duct-taped to a wall.” Sun purchased Maurizio Cattelan’s Comedian (2019) at auction in November 2024.

In a publicity stunt, he later ate it. Sun has been in the news several times recently for filing lawsuits. In August 2025, he sued Bloomberg News to prevent the publication from revealing news about his finances while including him in its Billionaires Index.

He also sued billionaire collector David Geffen in February 2025, alleging fraud and demanding the return of an Alberto Giacometti sculpture, claiming it was sold out from under him by a rogue art adviser in an elaborate scheme of forged signatures and fictitious lawyers. He had bought Le Nez (1947) at Sotheby’s New York for $78.4 million. Geffen countersued.