The crypo dealer who went viral for paying $6.2 million for a piece of art work consisting of a banana duct taped to a wall – and then subsequently eating the banana – has also invested in President-elect Donald Trump.
Chinese-born TRON founder Justin Sun announced on X last Monday that he had purchased $30 million in crypto tokens from World Liberty Financial, which lists Trump as its ‘Chief Crypto Advocate.’
Additionally, sons Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump and Barron Trump are referred to as ‘Web3 Ambassadors’ for the company.
‘The U.S. is becoming the blockchain hub, and Bitcoin owes it to @realDonaldTrump!’ Sun wrote in the post. ‘TRON is committed to making America great again and leading innovation. Let’s go!’
The Popular Information newsletter reported Monday that Sun’s investment tipped the scales in such a way that the Trumps would directly profit.
The way World Liberty Financial was set up, was that the company intended to sell $300 million worth of crypto tokens.
Prior to Sun’s $30 million investment, only $22 million of the tokens had been sold.
A ‘gold paper’ released in October explained that ‘$30 million of initial net protocol revenues’ would he ‘held in reserve … to cover operating expenses, indemnities, and obligations.’
After the reserve was met – entirely by Sun’s investment – a company owned by Trump entitled DT Marks DEFI LLC receives 75 percent of the profit.
Popular Information’s Judd Legum crunched the numbers and found that as of December 1, $24 million in World Liberty Financial tokens had been sold, earning the president-elect $18 million.
Additionally, one day after Sun announced his $30 million infusion, the Chinese national was named an adviser to Trump’s World Liberty Financial.
‘Justin’s insights and experience will be instrumental as we continue to innovate and grow,’ the company’s X account gushed.
In March, the Securities and Exchange Commission had charged Sun and the three companies he owns with fraud and other securities law violations.
The SEC accused Sun and his companies with ‘fraudulently manipulating the secondary market for TRX (Tronix) through extensive wash trading, which involves the simultaneous or near-simultaneous purchase and sale of a security to make it appear actively traded without an actual change in beneficial ownership, and for orchestrating a scheme to pay celebrities to tout TRX (Tronix) and BTT (BitTorrent) without disclosing their compensation.’
Essentially, Sun was being accused of making it look like there was a lot of interest in the crypto tokens he was selling, but the trading was actually manufactured by Sun.
Eight celebrities were ensnared in the charges including actress Lindsey Lohan, Jake Paul, Soulja Boy, Ne-Yo and Lil Yachty.
Six of the celebrities, including Lohan, Paul, Ne-Yo, adult film performer Michele Mason and Lil Yachty quickly agreed to pay thousands of dollars to settle the case.
Soulja Boy and pop singer Austin Mahone did not immediately reach a settlement.
Last week the head of the SEC, Gary Gensler, said he would resign on January 20, the day of Trump’s inauguration.
Trump had previously said he would fire Gensler on ‘day one,’ after the chairman took legal action against crypto firms.