World Liberty Financial put a governance proposal live on April 15, 2026, asking token holders to approve a vesting and unlock schedule covering 62,282,252,205 WLFI tokens. The vote opened the same morning Justin Sun, the Tron founder and one of the project’s largest backers, posted a thread on X calling the entire process a “governance scam.”
The WLFI Gold Paper states the project “is not a decentralized autonomous organization.” It is incorporated as a Delaware non-stock corporation. That same document says the protocol is controlled by one or more Gnosis Safe Multisignature Wallets, with the number of signers set at WLFI’s sole discretion.
What the Proposal Actually Says
The governance forum post breaks the 62 billion tokens into two pools. Founder, team, advisor, and partner tokens totalling 45,238,585,647 WLFI would move to a two-year cliff and three-year linear vest if holders opt in. Ten percent of that pool, up to 4,523,858,565 WLFI, gets permanently burned on opt-in. Early supporter tokens, 17,043,666,558 WLFI, get a two-year cliff and two-year linear vest with no burn attached.
The catch sits in one line of the proposal text. Holders who do not affirmatively accept the new schedule “will continue to have their tokens locked indefinitely.” A NO vote leaves existing lock terms unchanged, with no unlock path offered.
WLFI posted on X that the proposal “represents one of the strongest long-term governance alignment signals in DeFi” and that billions of tokens burned upon opt-in show long-term commitment. The post listed recent milestones including USD1, described as the fastest-growing stablecoin in history, and a national trust bank charter OCC application.
Sun Says the Vote Was Decided Before It Opened
Justin Sun wrote on X that he holds roughly 4% of voting power. His tokens, he said, were frozen before the vote began.
“I personally hold approximately 4% of the voting power, yet my tokens have been frozen… The voter pool has been purged,” Sun posted on X.
He framed the opt-in structure as deliberate coercion. Vote yes, get a vesting path. Vote no, stay locked with no route out. Sun wrote the design “rewards agreement and imprisons dissent.”
His posts from April 12 and 13 had already demanded the project name who controls its contracts. On April 12, Sun posted on X:
“Whoever is hiding behind this official account, step forward and identify yourself. As the largest investor in this project, I demand that those responsible come forward by name.”
By April 13, his focus sharpened to contract mechanics. Sun posted on X:
“I am calling on World Liberty Financial to publicly disclose who controls the single guardian EOA and the 3/5 multisig… Real power sits with one anonymous EOA and a 3-of-5 multisig.”
The Gold Paper confirms this structure. It says the WLF Governance Platform and WLF Protocol are “administratively controlled” by one or more Gnosis Safe Multisig wallets. Sun’s April 15 thread called this setup “dictatorship wearing the mask of a DAO.”
Corporate Structure vs. Governance Claims
WLFI’s project website describes token holders as “the ones steering the future of the platform” and calls itself “community governed.” The Gold Paper says DT Marks DEFI LLC received 22.5 billion WLFI tokens and the right to collect 75% of net protocol revenues.
The staking thread runs parallel to all this. WLFI posted on X on March 6 that a Snapshot vote on enabling staking for token holders was live. A prior staking proposal had gone up on February 25. Neither passed before the unlock vote absorbed community attention.
WLFI token was trading near $0.079 on Tuesday, down roughly 48% from the average price the treasury paid during $65.6 million in open-market buybacks. Voting runs for seven days from Wednesday.
Sun closed his April 15 thread calling on all WLFI holders to voice opposition across every public channel and to “reserve all legal rights of recourse.”
