Cryptocurrency billionaire Justin Sun is suing World Liberty Financial, a crypto venture co-founded by President Donald Trump and his sons, alleging the company illegally blocked him from selling digital tokens worth up to $1 billion. 

The lawsuit, filed on Tuesday in California federal court, also accuses World Liberty Financial of trying to pressure Sun into investing "hundreds of millions of dollars to mint USD1, World Liberty's stablecoin." The complaint alleges that the company froze his World Liberty Financial tokens after Sun refused to commit more money to the business. 

World Liberty Financial co-founder and CEO Zach Witkoff dismissed Sun's allegations as "entirely meritless."

"Justin Sun's recent lawsuit against [World Liberty Financial] is a desperate attempt to deflect attention from Sun's own misconduct," Witkoff wrote on social media on Wednesday. "He engaged in misconduct that required World Liberty to take action to protect itself and its users. World Liberty will continue to take all necessary steps to protect its community."

The litigation threatens to chill Sun's relationship with President Trump. The entrepreneur, best known as the founder of blockchain company Tron, revealed last year that he was the largest holder of another Trump-backed crypto token, dubbed $TRUMP.

"Fraudulent scheme"

In a social media post on his rationale for the lawsuit, Sun said he remains a supporter of Mr. Trump and blamed "certain individuals" for the alleged issues.

"They wrongfully froze all of my tokens, stripped me of my right to vote on governance proposals, and have threatened to permanently destroy my tokens by 'burning' them — all without any proper justification," he wrote. "I do not believe President Trump would condone these actions if he knew about them."

Sun's complaint also accused World Liberty Financial executives, including co-founder Chase Herro, of seeking to "leverage the Trump brand" to illegally drive profits.

"Even though Mr. Sun was one of World Liberty's anchor investors and biggest supporters, that did not stop Mr. Herro and the company's other principals from making Mr. Sun a prime target of their fraudulent scheme."