'I measure a person's standard by how much money they have made.' This was what Sun Yuchen said eight years ago when he returned to China to start his business.
He said so, and he indeed did so. Since becoming the legal representative of the 'Accompany Me App' in 2014, the pragmatic and almost cold Sun Yuchen has always harbored a dream of building a business empire. He aims to maximize the use of rules, leverage resources, and win the game that belongs to him.
And eight years later, Sun Yuchen has indeed realized nearly every business person's greatest dream—being listed.
His latest deal, valued at $100 million, involves a U.S.-listed company called SRM Entertainment, where through a reverse acquisition, Tron successfully went public on Nasdaq. At 35 years old, Sun Yuchen is now the head of a publicly listed company, and this post-90s entrepreneur has several notable businesses and projects in hand.
Sun's blockchain map
Tron: Sun Yuchen's first big gamble in the cryptocurrency world
Sun Yuchen joined the Ripple China team in 2013, accumulating his first bucket of gold during his time as an ambassador, and also meeting valuable contacts within the blockchain circle. With these resources, he quickly developed the idea of starting his own business, planning to make a significant impact in the blockchain arena.
Time rolled to 2017, and Ethereum was already gaining fame. Just past his 27th birthday, Sun Yuchen put down the social app he was originally running, reassembled a few classmates from Peking University, and with the support of capital tycoons behind him, set out on the entrepreneurial journey of the Tron (TRON) public chain with the ambition of 'venturing into the cryptocurrency world again.'
Fortunately, when launching the TRX token and starting the ICO, he successfully raised about $400 million. Unfortunately, the era of the '9.4' crackdown on ICOs arrived, and Chinese project parties and trading platforms went silent, hastily fleeing, vowing never to engage in blockchain again for generations to come.
During those most difficult days, Sun Yuchen refunded the ICO money, and nearly the entire early core team of Tron dispersed, with partners leaving due to security concerns. Sun Yuchen admitted, 'The first three years of my six years of entrepreneurship were almost all wasted.'
The turning point came in April 2019 when Tether decided to issue a TRC-20 version of USDT on the Tron network. Since then, Tron has firmly locked its development focus on the promotion and popularization of USDT, a move that has almost laid the foundation for 99% of Tron's market value today. 'The USDT issued on the Tron blockchain will soon become the largest stablecoin in the world,' Sun Yuchen's words have also come true years later. A considerable amount of USDT on-chain transfers globally are supported by Tron.
Data source: DefiLama
The latest on-chain data shows that the transfer volume and Gas consumption of USDT on the Tron network now account for over 98% of the total public chain volume. In other words, the on-chain activity of Tron is almost entirely sustained by USDT 'blood transfusions'. For each USDT transfer, users usually pay a fee ranging from $0.3 to $8. According to current statistics, the daily on-chain revenue of the Tron network has exceeded $2.1 million, with an annual revenue of $770 million, most of which comes from the high-frequency transfer fees of USDT. The number of daily transactions exceeds 2.46 million, with an average transaction fee of about $0.85, which is basically consistent with the actual transfer cost of USDT.
As of now, the total market value of Tron has reached $26.96 billion, surpassing Mixue Ice City, firmly securing its position among the leading mainstream public chains globally and holding a core position in the circulation of stablecoins on-chain.
BitTorrent's 'sentimental acquisition'
In the summer of 2018, compared to creating Tron, Sun Yuchen did something that seemed more 'out of the box' at the time—he spent $140 million to buy the now 'outdated' download tool BitTorrent.
BitTorrent, a name that many people born in the 80s and 90s are familiar with: it was born in 2001 as the world's first large-scale P2P file-sharing protocol. At its peak, about 40% of global internet traffic was transmitted through the BitTorrent protocol. In the era when centralized internet had not yet prevailed, BitTorrent almost supported that generation's imagination of 'freedom to download.'
However, for Sun Yuchen, this was not just a 'sentimental acquisition.' Acquiring the BitTorrent client was just the beginning; what he truly wanted to do was to blockchainize the entire BitTorrent protocol—giving this old P2P network a 'rebirth.'
Shortly after the acquisition was finalized, Sun Yuchen launched the BTT token, adopting the TRC-10 standard, and simultaneously launched the 'BitTorrent Speed' project. Users can pay BTT for faster download speeds when downloading torrents, while uploaders can earn BTT rewards by seeding.
This vision seems beautiful, but the reality is not so easy.
As of now, the total circulation of BTT is 986 trillion, with a price of about $0.00000068, a total market value of about $670 million, and a stable 24-hour trading volume of around $10 million, with an annual trading volume exceeding $2.6 billion. Although it is still about 78% below its historical peak (reached $0.00000304 in January 2022), such performance is considered decent in today's meme coin market.
Poloniex and HTX: Sun's 'cash flow'
For a long time, Sun Yuchen's second industry in the cryptocurrency world has been trading platforms, and he owns two trading platforms: Poloniex and HTX.
Let's first discuss Poloniex. This established trading platform was initially bought by the crypto startup Circle for $400 million in February 2018. At the time, Circle intended to make it a compliance pioneer, but it didn't last long. In October 2019, with the support of an Asian investment consortium and Sun Yuchen, Poloniex officially broke away from Circle and began in-depth cooperation with TRON, linking in multiple directions such as TRC20-USDT stablecoins, DeFi, and TRON zones.
On June 9, 2022, Sun Yuchen made another move, joining forces with the Tron Reserve and several well-known investment institutions to officially acquire Poloniex and directly name its Chinese brand 'Tron Trading Platform'. This acquisition is seen as filling the gap in the Tron ecosystem 'lacking a trading platform', also signaling that Tron has officially entered a new stage of 'public chain + trading platform' dual-driven strategy. As of now, Poloniex has a daily trading volume of about $500 million.
In October of the same year after acquiring Poloniex, Sun Yuchen turned his attention to another established trading platform—Huobi.
He first joined the Huobi Global Advisory Committee as a global advisor, announcing plans to promote Huobi's internationalization and upgrade the HT ecosystem. Soon, the Huobi executive team underwent a series of changes. Ultimately, through the Hong Kong asset management company About Capital, he acquired Huobi's equity for $1 billion, becoming the actual leader of the trading platform. As of now, Huobi still ranks among the top 10 trading platforms in the market, with a daily trading volume of $2.4 billion. The price of Huobi's platform token HTX is currently $0.29, with a market value of $47 million.
Data source: coingecko
Poloniex was first acquired by the crypto startup Circle for $400 million in February 2018. In October 2019, with the support of an Asian investment group and Sun Yuchen, the trading platform broke away from Circle and began collaborating with Tron in many areas, including TRC20-USDT stablecoins, DeFi decentralized finance, and TRON trading zones, taking Poloniex from North America to a global stage.
On June 9, 2022, Tron founder Sun Yuchen announced the formal acquisition of the well-known trading platform Poloniex in conjunction with the Tron Reserve and several well-known investment institutions, while also launching the Tron trading platform as its Chinese community brand. With this acquisition, Poloniex broke the situation of Tron public chain ecosystem lacking trading platforms, marking the official launch of Tron's 'public chain + trading platform' dual-driven strategy.
In October 2022, Sun Yuchen joined the Huobi Global Advisory Committee, announcing plans to expand Huobi's global strategic plan, develop international brand promotion, and focus on the operation of Huobi Token, aiming to empower HT significantly. Subsequently, Huobi executives resigned one after another, and Sun Yuchen acquired Huobi's equity through the Hong Kong asset management company About Capital for $1 billion, becoming the actual controller of Huobi.
As of now, Huobi still ranks among the top 10 trading platforms in the market, with a daily trading volume of $2.4 billion.
USDD, TUSD, and WBTC
In addition to public chains and trading platforms, dollar stablecoins and wrapped Bitcoin are also indispensable parts of Sun Yuchen's business layout in the cryptocurrency world.
USDD, TUSD, and WBTC, these three tokens highly associated with Sun Yuchen, are his three trump cards in the stablecoin and cross-chain asset landscape.
First, let's talk about USDD. USDD is a decentralized stablecoin personally led by Sun Yuchen, issued and managed by Tron DAO Reserve, with an operating mechanism designed by him. To ensure USDD does not lose its peg to the dollar, Sun directly controls the most critical assets in the collateral pool—TRX, USDT, Bitcoin, and other large reserves. Whenever the market fluctuates and the peg is at risk, he has repeatedly injected funding with his own funds and reserves to stabilize it, making him the 'behind-the-scenes controller' of USDD. According to the latest data, USDD's on-chain market value is approximately $432 million, ranking around 10th among stablecoins.
Data source: Coinmarketcap
Now let's talk about TUSD. Although TUSD is not formally an asset under Sun Yuchen's name, multiple on-chain evidence and funding flows have basically confirmed his shadow holding position. Since 2023, TUSD has become an important supporting currency for liquidity in TRON and HTX (formerly Huobi). However, this piece also comes with risks: TUSD has repeatedly lost its peg due to custody and auditing disputes and has been targeted by the SEC for lawsuits. In 2024, Binance delisted its main trading pairs, and by 2025, it was fully delisted in the EU due to the implementation of MiCA regulations, keeping only withdrawal channels. To rescue the situation, Sun Yuchen had to spend over $400 million of his own money in early 2025 to stabilize TUSD, further tying this stablecoin firmly to his name, and the current market value of TUSD is $492.6 million.
Data source: Coinmarketcap
Lastly, there is WBTC (Wrapped Bitcoin), an ER20 token issued on the Ethereum network, which was first proposed in 2017 and officially released its white paper and put into use in 2019, with its value pegged to Bitcoin at a one-to-one ratio; each WBTC has a corresponding Bitcoin as reserve, managed by a custodian (currently Bitgo), ensuring that WBTC holders can exchange it for Bitcoin at any time.
Although WBTC is not a project he directly controls, this heavyweight role in the TRON stablecoin framework is seen by some foreign media as a Bitcoin wrapped under Sun Yuchen's direct control. Related reading: (Why is the market response to Justin Sun entering WBTC so strong?)
Tron DAO Reserve holds a significant amount of Bitcoin over the long term. To facilitate collateral on-chain, the team converts some BTC into WBTC through cross-chain transfers to support the stable operation of USDD. It can be said that without WBTC, there would be no safety buffer for USDD on TRON today. According to the latest data from CoinMarketCap, WBTC's market value has reached $13.784 billion, making it one of the largest Bitcoin-mapped assets in the world.
Data source: Coinmarketcap
DLive: Does Sun have a live streaming platform?
Compared to the previous few projects, DLive may be somewhat niche.
Originally, DLive was a decentralized live streaming platform built on the Lino chain, and after it was acquired by BitTorrent in late 2019, the entire team and technology stack transitioned into the TRON ecosystem.
This integration is another foreshadowing laid by Sun Yuchen along the line of 'content platform + blockchain'. DLive introduced BTFS (BitTorrent File System) for decentralized storage, and the BTT token was used for rewards for streamers and incentives for content distribution, forming a closed loop running on-chain from creation, storage to reward sharing. At the same time, DLive shared a user account system with BitTorrent, uTorrent, Steemit, etc., allowing BTT to gradually become the 'universal point system' in this content ecosystem.
Because of this, DLive attracted overseas streaming stars like PewDiePie, with the platform's monthly active users continuing to grow, becoming one of the most traffic-heavy content windows in the TRON ecosystem. However, the loose community management also buried potential risks.
The overseas streaming superstar PewDiePie was live on DLive at that time.
In early 2021, DLive faced intense criticism from public opinion and regulatory agencies for users streaming the U.S. Capitol riot on the platform, leading to doubts about its content review and risk control mechanisms.
Collection arsenal APENFT Marketplace
When talking about Sun Yuchen's identity, aside from being a businessman, he is perhaps most famously a passionate art collector. He holds a long list of world-class artworks: original works by Picasso, Andy Warhol, Giacometti, and Basquiat are all in his collection. Recently, he made headlines by purchasing an artwork titled 'A Banana' for $6.2 million.
As a top art collector, it is not unusual for Sun Yuchen to have an NFT trading platform.
On March 29, 2021, Sun Yuchen officially registered the APENFT Foundation in Singapore, hoping to use this platform to bridge traditional art and the world of NFTs. APENFT's core mission is straightforward: to buy top traditional artworks and NFT pieces as underlying assets while incubating young NFT artists and paving the way for them; at the same time, it sponsors galleries, holds exhibitions, sets awards, supports art criticism and research, providing a new path on-chain for the global art circle.
To ensure that on-chain art is better protected, APENFT chose a dual underlying technology of Ethereum and Tron, using Ethereum to support smart contracts and global recognition while utilizing Tron to meet high throughput and low Gas needs. Sun Yuchen's other early venture, BTFS (BitTorrent File System), was also integrated to provide decentralized storage, ensuring that art files are always accessible, immutable, and not lost due to single points of failure.
Since 2021, the APENFT Marketplace has officially launched as a TRON-based NFT trading market, specifically responsible for digitizing and issuing NFTs for these top artworks, allowing global users to hold 'fragmented collection rights.' In 2022, Sun Yuchen invested tens of millions of dollars to purchase collectibles such as 'Digital Twelve Zodiac Animal Heads', 'Nose', and 'Nude Woman with Necklace', directly donating them to the APENFT Foundation to continue increasing its leverage in the digital art field.
With the traffic from the Tron community, Sun Yuchen's personal visibility, and the on-chain fees on the TRON network being less than $1, the APENFT Marketplace quickly attracted a large number of creators and players seeking it out. Sun Yuchen also announced that 100% of the fees collected by the trading platform would be used for repurchasing and destroying platform tokens, in addition to various racing competitions, hackathons, and other activities, which nearly made the NFT field lively.
Currently, the market value of the APENFT Marketplace platform token $NFT is $420 million.
From Tron to BitTorrent, from Poloniex to HTX, and then to USDD, TUSD, WBTC—these stablecoins can readily leverage on-chain liquidity, plus the APENFT Marketplace, this 'on-chain art museum'.
In less than ten years, Sun Yuchen has polished his business map in the cryptocurrency world into a complete entity spanning public chains, trading platforms, stablecoins, NFTs, cross-chain assets, and international politics.
Behind this seemingly decentralized yet tightly connected network, according to data found by Rhythm BlockBeats, the core assets held by Sun Yuchen have surpassed $43 billion in market value.
Now using $100 million to acquire SRM Entertainment, Sun Yuchen successfully took Tron public on the Nasdaq through a reverse acquisition, and perhaps his greatest confidence comes from the warming relationship with the Trump family behind him.
Sun's love-hate relationship with the U.S.
Sun's connection with the U.S. can be traced back to his days studying at the University of Pennsylvania.
In 2011, he studied for a master's degree in East Asian studies but filled his elective courses with investment, entrepreneurship, and venture capital courses at Wharton. In his spare time, he co-founded (Three People in the U.S.) with classmates, turning the life of international students into a video program that became popular on Youku, Bilibili, and YouTube, and was even discussed by CCTV.
It was also at that time that Sun Yuchen came into contact with the concept of Bitcoin through Reddit and campus tech communities. Compared to today's $100,000 price, at that time Bitcoin was quite 'cheap', around $10; he started with small investments and gradually increased his holdings.
At the end of 2013, Sun Yuchen gave up the opportunity for further study at law school and joined Ripple Labs, becoming one of the first evangelists for the Ripple protocol in China. In 2014, he returned to China, secured IDG investment, and founded Rui Bo Tian Xia Technology. Despite experiencing ICO crackdowns, team dispersals, fleeing overseas, and being mocked as the 'Jia Yueting of the crypto world', he persevered.
However, in the eyes of the Biden administration, Sun Yuchen has always been a 'troublesome maker on the chain.'
Around 2020, due to the extensive use of Tron in black market fund flows, the FBI and the U.S. Department of Justice launched an investigation against him. According to the Wall Street Journal, he had not dared to set foot in the United States for many years because of it.
In 2023, the U.S. SEC officially filed a lawsuit against him, accusing him of manipulating the prices of TRX and BTT and illegally selling unregistered securities. Even the many celebrities who helped him—Akon, Ne-Yo, Soulja Boy, Lindsay Lohan, Jake Paul—were named and fined.
In order to preserve his freedom, he had to search for 'amulets' everywhere. First, in 2021, he took on the title of WTO ambassador for the Caribbean island nation of Grenada, gaining valuable diplomatic immunity. However, good times were short-lived, and after the change of government in Grenada in June 2022, Sun Yuchen's diplomatic status gradually became marginalized.
To continue receiving immunity, Sun Yuchen, who lost his Grenadian identity, was appointed as 'Speaker' and 'Prime Minister' in Liberland. This is a self-proclaimed liberal micro-nation claiming sovereignty over a small area in the Danube floodplain on the border of Serbia and Croatia.
Sun Yuchen is well aware that in the U.S., where power changes hands, nothing is eternally lost, and nothing cannot be rewritten. The 2024 election may present him with the best opportunity for a comeback.
Long before Wall Street's old financial giants began to test cryptocurrencies and U.S. politicians were embroiled in heated debates over crypto regulation, Sun Yuchen had quietly laid the groundwork. 'I have long believed that President Trump will bring many positive impacts to the cryptocurrency field. After his election, the entire crypto world was rejuvenated,' he once told the media.
The Trump family is making a high-profile bet on the cryptocurrency industry and personally involved in the World Liberty Financial project, while Sun Yuchen has invested a total of $75 million in two separate bets from late last year to this year, becoming the 'big brother', and was thus appointed as the project's core advisor by the Trump family.
Sun Yuchen's HTX has also become the first exchange to list the new stablecoin WLFI USD1. With advisors, funding, and a venue in place, he even bought the Trump Coin ($Trump), holding 1.43 million coins, worth about $23 million.
Not long after, the Trump administration officially announced it would invite the top 220 holders of $Trump to dinner. Sun Yuchen was the first to tweet, revealing that he was the largest holder. It is said that Trump only attended the dinner for half an hour, while the second half was almost a personal show by Sun Yuchen, leading many netizens to jokingly call it the 'Sun Yuchen dinner.'
Sun Yuchen was awarded a gold watch as the largest holder of Trump Coin at the Trump dinner.
'I am the bridge between the crypto industry and the president, and in some ways, I may also be the bridge for future communication between China and the U.S.' he said in an interview, 'My original intention is to build a good relationship with the Trump family and bring more people from the traditional world into the blockchain world. We will collaborate long-term and continuously with President Trump’s cryptocurrency projects to promote the development and progress of our entire industry.'
Left: Sun Yuchen; Right: Donald Trump Jr.
For an entrepreneur, besides the numbers in their account, what they value most is freedom. Compared to CZ, who paid a hefty fine of $4.4 billion to freely enter and exit the U.S., Sun Yuchen's cost is relatively small.
Therefore, Sun Yuchen appeared quite happy to return to the U.S., visiting multiple places and companies, and tweeting several times to express his 'fondness' for Trump.
From being pursued by the FBI and SEC as a 'potential crime suspect' to showcasing a gold watch gifted by the President in the White House, Sun Yuchen has navigated his way into this feast of crypto politics using his most adept methods, and the story seems to have reached its climax.
But the money-obsessed Sun is likely not planning to stop anytime soon.