Justin Sun's World Liberty Fight Stays in Public Court, For Now

In brief

• U.S. District Judge James Donato ruled Thursday that Justin Sun's personal claims against World Liberty Financial stay in open court,
• Claims from Sun's two holding companies, Blue Anthem and Black Anthem, weren't fully sent to arbitration either.

A federal judge in San Francisco ruled Thursday that Justin Sun's fight with World Liberty Financial over roughly $45 million in frozen tokens stays in open court, not a private arbitrator's hands.

U.S. District Judge James Donato rejected the Trump family venture's bid to compel arbitration on Sun's individual claims.

He stopped short of a clean win for World Liberty on the rest, too. Claims brought by the crypto entrepreneur’s two BVI entities, Blue Anthem Limited and Black Anthem Limited, weren't sent to arbitration wholesale—Donato ordered both sides to sort out which of those belong in court.

The forum matters because it decides who gets to watch. Arbitration under the American Arbitration Association rules is confidential; a federal docket is public. "The judge ruled that all of my individual claims will remain in open court," Sun wrote on X, in Chinese, translated afterward.

What happened

Sun—the Chinese-born creator of the Tron network, among other crypto projects—became World Liberty's largest backer in November 2024, buying $30 million of WLFI, then added $15 million more in January 2025 plus advisor tokens, for a stake near 4 billion WLFI tokens. World Liberty quietly added a blacklist function to the WLFI contract in August 2025.