How does a small town boy become a billionaire?
Friends in the cryptocurrency circle, you can’t get around this name, right? He made 2 billion from Tron at the age of 28, had lunch with Buffett for 31 million at the age of 29, ate 45 million bananas at the age of 34, and became Trump’s crypto advisor! Some people call him “Sun Ge”, and some people call him “Sun Ge”, but can you believe that this man was once an ordinary person like you and me?
I spent 3 days, looking through hundreds of websites and nearly a thousand documents, and I tore through his marketing talent and the fog of controversy. The full text of 12,000 words tells the story of Justin Sun, who went from 0 to 10 billion. The most exciting secrets of the cryptocurrency circle are hidden in the text. Don't skip it, the full text is detailed by year, read it patiently, and it will definitely change your view of Brother Sun!
1990: From a small town baby to a billionaire!
On July 30, 1990, Justin Sun was born in Xining, Qinghai (his ancestral home is Qingdao, Shandong). His father, Sun, was a middle-level manager of a state-owned enterprise in Xining, his mother, Li, was a local primary school teacher, and his grandfather was the deputy mayor of Xining in charge of education.
However, Sun Yuchen's grandfather died when he was young. Although his grandfather's status did not directly benefit him, his parents' intellectual background gave him a better starting point in childhood than the local average. When he was born, China was in the early stages of economic reform. Although his family was not rich, it was warm and stable.
1994: Too poor to have air conditioning, Sun Yuchen’s dream of counterattack started from here
In 1994, his father went to work at the Huizhou Planning Bureau and his mother worked as a reporter for the Huizhou Daily. At the age of four, Justin Sun moved with his parents from Qinghai to Huizhou, Guangdong. When they moved to Huizhou, the family's former glory had faded. His mother placed her hopes of reviving the family business on her son, repeatedly teaching him to be the best.
In the first one or two years after arriving in Huizhou, what he remembers most is the lack of wealth. In the summer, his family had no money to install air conditioning, and he could not stand the heat. Every evening, he dragged his parents to the Friendship Store, which had air conditioning. When the store closed at 9:30 p.m., he hugged the pillars of the store and cried and refused to leave.
1998: The dream of becoming a Go genius was shattered. What was the first lesson he learned?
When Sun Yuchen was still young, he was reading (Family) magazine and was attracted by an article about Go genius Chang Hao. Chang Hao, a disciple of Nie Weiping, became the world Go champion. Sun Yuchen also wanted to be the next Chang Hao, the next world champion, so he decided to learn Go.
Sun Yuchen's parents repeatedly confirmed with him whether he really wanted to learn. Sun Yuchen was very determined, so his mother immediately decided to send him to a private elementary school in Wuhan that taught Go and had Nie Weiping as the honorary principal. His mother sent Sun to the airport and handed him over to the flight attendant. The young boy set out on his journey alone and lived in Wuhan for three years.
There is an episode: In the book written by Justin Sun, he said that he started learning Go at the age of 9; in the interview with He Tao of (GQ), he said he was 8 years old; in the speech "I am a Creative Sharer", he first said he was 6 years old, and later said he was 7 years old. I don’t know which one is more accurate, but from this we can see that Justin Sun’s words are inconsistent!
2001: He failed to advance to the next level and his parents divorced. How did he survive?
After studying for 3 years, Sun Yuchen failed in his attempt to reach a higher rank in Go. He became depressed and didn't want to learn Go anymore. He returned to Huizhou, Guangdong alone. But when he got home, he was greeted with even more shocking news: it turned out that his parents had divorced a long time ago, but had just kept it a secret from him. What was even worse was that his parents did not break up peacefully, but instead went through a family war.
After the divorce, the two of them competed for their child's love and rushed to pick him up from school at the same time many times, which made him feel embarrassed. Not long after, his mother remarried and moved to Italy. His father suffered a double blow from the breakdown of his marriage and the hopelessness of his career. He became an alcoholic for a long time and ignored Justin Sun.
Justin Sun once described in a speech at Peking University: "Every day after school, I had to cross three streets to go to the bar and drag my drunk father home." This experience shaped his obsessive desire for "success."
2003: From rebelling in the Internet cafe to making a comeback in the high school entrance exam, how ruthless was his awakening?
In 2003, due to his parents' divorce, Justin Sun attended a boarding junior high school. Without his parents' supervision, Justin Sun was not considered a "good student" by his teachers and classmates throughout his middle school period.
In order to play games, he often took leave, pretended to be sick and rested at home, sneaked to the Internet cafe at night when his father was asleep, and then secretly ran back home before his father woke up in the morning.
But half a year before the high school entrance examination, he suddenly "woken up", and through temporary frantic study, he significantly improved his academic performance in a short period of time. Finally, after half a year of crazy hard study, he stumbled into Huizhou No. 1 High School.
2005: From a gaming loser to a literary fanatic, what did he learn?
In 2005, Sun Yuchen was studying at Huizhou No. 1 Middle School. After entering high school, his enthusiasm for online games waned because he discovered a new interest - novels. He came into contact with Wang Xiaobo's works and began to read all kinds of novels crazily. He said: "Everyone who is addicted to novels inevitably has a seducer, and my seducer is Wang Xiaobo.
Under the "enticement" of Wang Xiaobo's "Times Trilogy", he immersed himself in the world of literature all day long. Except for the English class of his homeroom teacher, which was inconvenient for him to skip, he spent most of his time reading novels in the library. Among the 48 students in the class, his grades were "consistently in the bottom ten", and the teachers' expectations for him were to "keep his place in Huizhou University and strive for Shantou University".
With scores of 20 or 30 in math and physics, Sun Yuchen had to choose to switch to liberal arts in his second year of high school. At this time, he found that he was no longer "reading for the sake of reading" without any utilitarianism like in his first year of high school, but had begun to desire recognition from others. He firmly believed that he had extraordinary talents, while many of his classmates "didn't know what else there was in the world besides solving problems."
2006: After failing the New Concept exam, how did he force himself to turn things around?
At that time, Sun Yuchen's idol was Han Han, and his dream was to become a writer. He was obsessed with writing and spent almost all his time on it. He believed that he was talented in writing and hoped to become famous like Han Han. However, he neglected other subjects in his studies, and his grades were basically around the third-tier line. In the mock exam, Sun Yuchen's scores were 91 in Chinese, 79 in mathematics, 65 in English, 106 in politics, and 118 in comprehensive, with a total score of 459.
Although his mock test score was only over 400, far from reaching a second-tier university, a second-tier university was obviously not his ultimate dream. He had already chosen a way - to participate in the 8th New Concept Writing Competition and win the first prize. Sun Yuchen studied all the first-prize winning articles in previous years, wrote in various styles, and submitted one article after another, but failed to win any award.
The failure to pass the New Concept in his second year of high school was a huge blow to him. His original self-deception was completely shattered. He had always believed that he could take a path other than the college entrance examination. But now that path was clearly blocked, he began to be realistic and began to realize that idealism would not give him a way out, at least in high school. He decided to try the college entrance examination. After he made up his mind, he began to plan to put it into action in two stages.
The first stage was from the second year of high school to the first half of the third year of high school. The first thing I did was to move all the books that were not related to the exam home. I only kept a copy of Hu Shi's late-life conversations. The second thing was to never go to the library again and not miss any class. The third thing was to put away my love and hate for teachers and to seek knowledge for the exam. The fourth thing was to ensure that I had time for evening self-study and actively practice for the exam for three hours. The fifth thing was to make a daily plan and complete it. After this stage, his grades improved a lot: Chinese 115, Math 127, English 97, Politics 117, Comprehensive 138, and a total score of 594.
According to this result, it was almost hopeless for him to enter a key university in Guangdong. However, he unexpectedly qualified for the 9th National New Concept Composition Competition with an essay (Memories of a Trip to Zhangjiajie). However, his teachers and parents advised him not to participate because the college entrance examination was only six months away. His grades were at a bottleneck and needed to be broken through, so he could not afford to miss classes for two weeks.
Sun Yuchen knew there was another reason. They did not believe in his talent. They did not believe that he could win the first prize. At this time, only he believed in himself. His idealism began to sprout again, and he longed for recognition from others. At this time, he planned to participate in this competition at all costs.
2007: New Concept became a legend, and he got into Peking University with an essay!
At this time, even his father, with whom he had a distant relationship, was shocked and made an exception to accompany him to Shanghai for the semi-finals. When he arrived in Shanghai for the semi-finals, the 17-year-old Sun Yuchen stood on the bustling streets of the metropolis and felt a strong impact again. However, this time, he was no longer as helpless and confused as he was at the age of 9. Looking at the brightly lit "Wall Street of the East" in front of him, Sun Yuchen secretly made up his mind in his heart: "This kind of city is my city, and my life is destined to belong to such a place."
Repeated rejections aroused the strong self-esteem of the young Justin Sun. He moved his base from the gaming cafe to the library, and studied the winning works of previous years word by word. It is said that the harder you work, the luckier you are. Even more fortunately, the topic of the semi-final (The journey from here is the longest) just suited Justin Sun’s taste, because he always considered himself an idealist, especially a liberal arts idealist, and he was originally on a journey that was the longest from here. So fortunately, in February 2007, he won the first prize in the 9th New Concept Composition Competition!
On one hand, you can enter the school without taking the entrance exam, and on the other hand, you still have to take the college entrance exam. Sun Yuchen, who usually has a score of more than 400, chose the latter. In those years, the first prize of the New Concept Essay Competition could directly recommend students to some very good schools, such as Xiamen University. Sun Yuchen finally could go to college without the help of his friends, and it was not a second-tier university, but a first-tier university. But he gave up everything and said, I want to apply to Peking University.
At the subsequent college meeting, Peking University professor Cheng Yuzhui and admissions office director Liu Mingli, perhaps because of his idealism and a little talent, granted him the qualification to participate in independent enrollment, but he was admitted with 20 points lower than the admission score in the college entrance examination.
Fall 2007: He got into Peking University with 650 points and won the first round of his life.
The second phase of the plan, at the end of the winter vacation, there were only 100 days left before the college entrance examination. He re-made a review plan, a 100-day plan, and he would not go home for 100 days. In order to make a better breakthrough in his grades, he changed his main focus to history, which I am better at, and focused on English. Perhaps because of his change of mood, his English improved rapidly. In the first English test after returning from the New Concept, he improved from 97 points to 122 points, and his ranking improved by 452 places. With confidence and hard work, he has locked on his goal - Peking University, and no longer has to hesitate about applying for admission.
At that time, he was open-minded and planned to go to Peking University. If he failed the entrance exam, he would repeat the year. In the following exams, his scores really rose like sesame seeds blooming, 606, 615, 630, 646, and then in the second mock exam in Guangzhou, he scored 656, a very high score.
On the eve of the college entrance examination, Sun Yuchen was so happy that he did not sleep all night. He took the exam the next day, but did not get the best score. His final total score was 650 (Chinese 115, Mathematics 132, English 130, History 127, Comprehensive 146). That year, the admission score of Peking University in Guangdong was 653 points, and Sun Yuchen was 3 points short. Fortunately, with the bonus points for the first prize of New Concept Composition, he was able to successfully enter the Chinese Department of Peking University by reducing the score by 20 points.
2008: Peking University blasted Yu Minhong, why did he dare to be so arrogant?
In the fall of 2007, Sun Yuchen studied in the Chinese Department of Peking University and moved into the Shaoyuan dormitory of Peking University. He wrote an article (an argumentation question) about his struggle in high school (see the attachment) and submitted it to the magazine (Mengya), the organizer of New Concept Composition. In this article, he proposed that one year in high school can make up for all regrets, as long as you are determined and hope that people with ideals will not bow to reality. At the end of the article, he left his contact information at Peking University. Later, he received more than 10,000 letters from readers.
However, the Chinese Department of Peking University is full of talented people. Sun Yuchen, who was lucky enough to be admitted, found himself too inconspicuous. He has always wanted to study abroad. If he was in the Chinese Department, he would definitely not be able to apply for a good school based on his academic ranking, let alone get a scholarship and go abroad.
In 2008, Peking University invited Yu Minhong to give a speech at the opening ceremony as an alumni representative. Sun Yuchen criticized the money-grubbing that tainted the purity of the ivory tower. During this period, Sun Yuchen carefully studied the school's regulations on changing majors and the examination rules of various subjects, and found that the history exams had a high proportion of subjective scores, so he switched to the history major - in order to change his major, he even dropped a grade (starting from freshman year again).
2009: One semester in Hong Kong, he went from a bumpkin to a radical fanatic
In the fall of 2009, when he was a sophomore in the history department, he went to the Chinese University of Hong Kong for an exchange semester. There, his values were completely overturned. According to his classmates, he became a completely different person after returning from CUHK. The "country bumpkin" who always wore sportswear became fashionable and his thoughts became radical. He began to frequently post articles on social networks under the name "Shi Xiaobo", fiercely criticizing Peking University. As time went on, the targets of his criticism expanded to the broader public sphere, and his words became more and more intense, so much so that his roommates could not stand it.
This high-profile and flamboyant style lasted throughout his four years at Peking University. In this school with a tradition of "free thought and inclusiveness", students had different opinions on him. Some saw him as "one of the few Peking University students who are not mediocre", while others said he "just wanted to be famous". Others, although they did not agree with his specific views, also said "a hundred Sun Yuchens are better than a hundred silent ones".
He organized underground salons, inviting liberal intellectuals to exchange ideas in coffee shops near Peking University. After an event was blocked by national security personnel, he hoped that the organization could be "regularized" and applied to the Peking University Youth League Committee to register the "Western Learning Society", but it was disbanded by the school only three days after its establishment. Since then, his various online accounts have become the focus of school monitoring and he has often been banned from speaking.
2010: (Southern Weekend) published an article in which he cursed everyone in the world and aroused public anger
In 2010, he took the initiative to add controversy to himself by announcing that he would run for the president of the Peking University Student Union as an independent candidate, but he was not elected in the end. Later, Justin Sun began to intern at Southern Weekend. During that period, Southern Weekend was at its peak of fame. Every time Sun published an article, it was signed "Justin Sun in the News Department of Southern Weekend". This leverage, like countless other leverages by Justin Sun since then, gave Justin Sun a huge endorsement, which dramatically increased the spread of his articles.
In (Weekly Review), he published a series of articles criticizing social reality, which caused a fierce response in society. Several articles may reflect Sun Yuchen's writing ideas and style at the time. On the day of mourning for the victims of the Zhouqu mudslide in Gansu, he wrote an article criticizing the government for ignoring humanity and life and losing credibility. The title of the article summarized his understanding of the change in the mentality of the Chinese people: (Whoever doesn't donate is an idiot - I don't donate I'm an idiot - I donate I'm an idiot - Whoever donates is an idiot). Another article satirizing the government's "anti-vulgarity" action was titled (I want both Guo Degang and Sora Aoi!). Similar articles were reposted crazily on Renren.com, with polarized reviews.
2011: Appearing on the cover of Asia Weekly at the age of 21, how did he become the cover star?
The 21-year-old Justin Sun's popularity has risen rapidly amid controversy due to his series of posts discussing the "consultation system". In July of the same year, he and Jiang Fangzhuo, who was then a student at the School of Journalism and Communication of Tsinghua University, were selected as the cover characters of (Asia Weekly). Later, the label "Asia Weekly Cover Character" was used by Justin Sun for many years. Zhang Jieping, a Hong Kong media person who wrote the cover article at the time, recalled: What impressed me most about Justin Sun was that he was "not shy". "I was born in the 1980s. People of our generation always feel embarrassed when talking about our strengths with others. You can't see this from him. He will always talk about how outstanding he is."
After reading the article in Asia Weekly, you will find that Sun Yuchen was able to appear on the cover mainly because of his anti-establishment stance. In the interview with Asia Weekly, Sun Yuchen said that a course he took in Hong Kong had a very drastic impact on his personality. The name of this course is indescribable. The teacher of the class was named Chen Jianmin. (A few years later, Sun Yuchen's teacher Chen Jianmin would become known as one of the "Occupy Central Three". In 2019, Chen Jianmin was sentenced to 16 months in prison by a Hong Kong court for "incitement".)
By the time he was a junior, Justin Sun had become irreconcilable with the school. He felt that if he continued like this, he might be expelled. So he applied for early graduation and combined two years of courses. At the same time, he was interning, preparing for TOEFL and GRE, preparing for graduation thesis, and preparing for his study abroad application. With so many things put together, it was exhausting and painful. But Justin Sun pulled through, and in the end, he applied for a master's degree in East Asian studies at the University of Pennsylvania with the first place in the history department that year.
There is quite a story behind this top-ranked student in the history department: First of all, Justin Sun’s decisive decision to transfer from the Chinese Department to the History Department in his early years played the most important role. Secondly, at the beginning of each course, Justin Sun would ask the teacher for his phone number and email address to establish a good relationship with the teacher. As a result, not only did Justin Sun score very high in the exams where the teacher gave subjective scores, but when the teacher gave a low score, Justin Sun would try his best to do public relations. In an interview with He Tao of (GQ), Justin Sun said proudly: "At least four courses were originally below 85 points, but after asking the teacher, the scores were changed to above 85."
Fall 2011: After the plagiarism scandal, he went to the United States to make his first fortune
In September 2011, Justin Sun left Peking University and went to the United States to study at the University of Pennsylvania. After arriving in the United States, he was still obsessed with his political ideals. One month after entering the school, he started an online magazine (Xinxin Youth) based on the one founded by Chen Duxiu (New Youth). However, half a month later, Princeton University graduate Shen Danqi published a long blog on Renren.com, accusing Sun Yuchen of plagiarizing her article (One Million in 1989) in the magazine (Old Soldiers Never Die, 1949). She compared the similarities between the two articles one by one and demanded that Justin Sun make a public apology.
The incident quickly escalated, and the headline "International student Justin Sun involved in 'plagiarism scandal' and once the cover character of (Asia Weekly)" appeared in the newspapers, and criticism of him continued for many days. Faced with Shen Danqi's solid evidence, the editorial board of (Xinxin Youth) quickly admitted that the plagiarism was true, deeply apologized to Shen Danqi, and also expressed apologies to readers and the public. However, Justin Sun himself refused to admit plagiarism. He wrote an article (My Final Response) to forcefully defend himself. Even several years later, he still strongly denied plagiarism.
It is amazing that he could still insist on making excuses in the face of solid facts. However, although he never admitted it, he was deeply hurt. From then on, he lost interest in literature, history and philosophy. He never spoke on Renren again and stopped participating in the affairs of (Xinxin Youth). A few months later, Sun Yuchen's life took another 180-degree turn.
2012: Investing in Bitcoin and Tesla, the secret of his 20-fold wealth
After a period of silence, his passion shifted again. Justin Sun began to try various commercializations. He looked for internships everywhere and joined the Investment Association in an attempt to meet rich people. But he didn't get a single internship offer, and the Investment Association didn't help him much. He and a group of international students made a program called "Three People Studying in the United States". Although the number of hits was good, it was just a way to make a profit. He had no other choice. He saw that being a lawyer in the United States was very profitable, so he postponed his master's program application for one year and worked hard to prepare for the doctor of law exam.
During this period, he started to make some investments, buying Tesla stocks and Bitcoin. At that time, Tesla was not so successful yet, and Bitcoin had just emerged and could be bought for a few dollars. Sun Yuchen invested all his tuition fees for the next year and bought a lot.
The prices of stocks and Bitcoin had not improved for a long time, which made Justin Sun desperate for a while. But then, Tesla’s stock began to soar, and Bitcoin took off. Sun Yuchen, who bet on the right thing, earned more than 20 times the profit and made a fortune all of a sudden.
This experience later became the capital for Justin Sun to show off to the media. He gradually transformed from a literary youth to a capital player, and often stayed up late to study cryptocurrencies.
2013: Ripple paved the way, and he returned to China to ignite his blockchain ambitions
When Sun Yuchen graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a master's degree in East Asian Studies, he already had millions of dollars in his hands and no longer needed to take the doctoral degree in law. He found a job related to blockchain. A company called Ripple was engaged in blockchain business. At that time, the total number of employees was only more than 20. Not long after joining, the CEO sent Sun Yuchen back to China to develop business.
At that time, Sun Yuchen was given the position of "Chief Representative of Ripple Greater China" to promote $XRP. After he returned to China at the end of the year, his undergraduate degree from Peking University, his master's degree from the University of Pennsylvania, and the title of Chief Representative of Ripple Greater China made Sun Yuchen shine. Although he was young and encountered some setbacks, he finally got the investment from IDG (IDG also invested in Ripple).
2014: Ruibo set sail, using Peiwo App to test the market worth hundreds of billions
In March 2014, Justin Sun started his own business based on the Ripple open source protocol and founded his own company, Ruibo Technology. Claiming to be the "pioneer of China's blockchain", Ruibo Technology had a difficult journey. The concept of blockchain started too early at that time, resulting in no one paying attention to it.
Sun Yuchen retweeted "Peiwo App", a voice social product, which aims to become the third pole of social interaction for young Chinese people besides WeChat and Momo. He frequently accepted interviews, calling himself a "post-90s entrepreneurial star" and promoting himself as a "post-90s entrepreneurial leader". Visiting major business media and looking for forum speaking opportunities became his top priority at the time.
2015: He became Jack Ma’s apprentice and received tens of millions in financing. How pure are his love affairs?
With Sun Yuchen's talent and IDG's strong support, Sun Yuchen has become a representative figure of China's "post-90s entrepreneurs", received a lot of media exposure, and won honorary titles such as Davos Forum Global Outstanding Youth, Forbes China's 30 Entrepreneurs Under 30, and CNTV China Internet Newcomer of the Year.
After Jack Ma founded Lakeside University, Sun Yuchen, as a representative of the blockchain industry, became a student in the first class. Since then, he has begun to regard himself as "Jack Ma's youngest disciple", a label he would always mention wherever he went, wishing to stick it on his forehead, until Jack Ma expressed his dissatisfaction through Alibaba's public relations, and he restrained himself.
In April, Sun Yuchen's Ruibo company received a multi-million-dollar Series A financing led by Xinzhongli Capital, followed by IDG Capital, Zhongke Capital, Tsinghua Holdings and other investment institutions. He publicly stated: "The post-90s are the natives of mobile Internet", "The post-90s will definitely subvert the world", "We are not competing with our opponents in the same dimension. We can defeat you, but it has nothing to do with you."
For a long time, the "Peiwo APP" has become Sun Yuchen's main business. However, according to Sun Yuchen's disclosure on "Luyu Youyue", their profit model is to collect commissions. The commission ratio is relatively small, only 5%, so the "Peiwo" APP is not very profitable.
Sun's love life has always been very secretive: She should be Sun Yuchen's recognized girlfriend - Ma Jiajia, whose real name is Zhang Mengning. She was born in Yunnan in 1990, won the top scorer in Chinese in the Yunnan Province College Entrance Examination in 2008, and graduated from Communication University of China in June 2012. Ma Jiajia is her pseudonym, which is the homophone of "Vest", and she uses this fake name to roam the Internet world. How much of the relationship between the two is true and how much of it is mutual hype (crowdfunding marriage) may only be known by the parties involved.
2016: The wealth freedom revolution course begins, a prelude to cutting leeks?
In early 2016, Justin Sun was elected as a member of the 14th CPPCC Panyu District Committee of Guangzhou. In February of the same year, Justin Sun was interviewed by Dragon TV (New Generation) and shared his entrepreneurial thoughts: "If you want to wear the crown, you must bear the weight."
When knowledge payment began to rise, Sun Yuchen opened a 156-issue paid voice column on "Himalaya", and gave it a very tempting name, "The Road to Wealth Freedom Revolution". This name is exactly the same as Li Xiaolai's column "The Road to Wealth Freedom". The two are indeed highly similar in some aspects, and they will be entangled in the future.
When talking about the original intention of opening the column "Road to Financial Freedom Revolution", Justin Sun said that he hopes to "witness my friends, readers, peers, including myself, who are not afraid of rumors, believe in the truth, preserve themselves, and step by step firmly towards financial freedom, and welcome the liberation of one person, a group of people, and a generation."
2017: He made a whopping $76 million from ICO. How many billions did he cash out before he left?
In March, Sun also published a book (This World is Cruel and Gentle), and was ranked 58th on the Chinese Writers Rich List by royalties. In July of the same year, Sun Yuchen, who had just celebrated his 27th birthday, put down his original Peiwo APP, found a few classmates from Peking University, and borrowed the support of the big guys behind him. He returned to the cryptocurrency circle with great ambition and started the TRON project. Sun Yuchen served as the founder.
A month later, TRON launched its ICO, and the day before the ban was announced, it pushed TRX to complete its token ICO, raising a total of about $76 million. Subsequently, Sun transferred from Seoul to San Francisco. On September 4, China banned ICOs, and Sun withdrew his funds and lived in a high-rise apartment in San Francisco. After returning the money and collecting the coins, he became the largest holder of TRON coins.
A few months later, the value of $TRX soared, and Sun quickly sold 6 billion TRON coins at the peak of the price of TRON, cashing in $300 million, or about 2 billion RMB. There are also rumors that Sun sold 6 billion TRON coins from the end of 2017 to 2018.#TRX Convert to#以太币 , cashing out about 12 billion yuan, but this statement was denied by Sun.
No one knows whether Justin Sun cashed out or not, but according to public information, less than 10 months after Tron was founded, Sun claimed that his net worth was over 10 billion (I won’t go into details about the gossip about Sun and Martian Xu Zijing, if you are interested, search for it yourself or send me a private message).
2018: He bought BitTorrent for 140 million. Can his boast come true?
In March, the Tron testnet was launched. In order to build momentum for Tron, Sun set his sights on Ethereum, the big brother of the public chain. On Twitter, Sun Yuchen listed 7 reasons why Tron is better than Ethereum, including TPS, handling fees, underlying language, etc., and was later hit back by Vitalik Buterin!
In May, the mainnet of TRON was officially launched. The project was heavily promoted, claiming that it was going to create the "future of decentralized Internet". A live broadcast was also held, claiming that it would compete with Ethereum. At that time, the TRON team burned 1 billion TRX.
In July, Sun bought BitTorrent for $140 million and successively issued BTT, BTTC, etc. BitTorrent had hundreds of millions of users at the time. Sun Yuchen said he wanted to transform it with blockchain technology and launched a "Project Atlas" plan to combine BT downloads with TRON. However, there was no major progress in the follow-up, and the founder of BitTorrent jumped out and claimed that Sun Yuchen did not give enough money.
In August, it was revealed that Tron’s white paper plagiarized Ethereum and other projects. This incident caused quite a stir, but Justin Sun did not back down and responded directly on social media, saying that the white paper was open source and it was normal to borrow from others!
By the end of the year, the total number of accounts on the TRON mainnet exceeded 1 million, but the overall cryptocurrency market entered a bear market, and the price of TRON also fell sharply. Sun Yuchen's momentum cooled, and he basically faded out of the domestic sight.
2019: Three jokes about Buffett, the truth behind his account being blocked
In February, a man named Zhao Yu posted on Weibo that he was detained for his heroic act. The next day, Justin Sun announced that he would provide Zhao Yu with a donation of 10 million yuan. There was also some gossip about the Tron super community that followed, so I won’t go into details!
In March, TRON and Tether announced their cooperation and launched the TRC20-USDT stablecoin based on the TRON network.
In early June, Justin Sun did something sensational - he spent 4.56 million US dollars (about 31 million RMB) to bid for a charity lunch with investment tycoon Buffett, and then began his famous "Three Plays with Buffett" performance, repeatedly canceling and delaying the meal time with reasons such as kidney stones.
At the end of October, TRON announced its partnership with Samsung, and Samsung’s blockchain wallet began to support TRX tokens. This did bring some exposure and user growth to TRX, but it did not completely change TRON’s position.
In November, Justin Sun took the lead in investing in the cryptocurrency exchange Poloniex, reportedly investing tens of millions of US dollars. A month later, Weibo was blocked and the official Tron statement replied, "Everything is fine."
In 2019, the ecosystem on the ETH chain ushered in unprecedented development. DEX (decentralized exchanges) based on the AMM mechanism, such as Uniswap and Sushiswap, matured, and anyone could quickly exchange assets and pledge to make profits through wallets. Sun also seized the opportunity to press Ctrl+C, and then issued his own DEX on the Tron chain, which again trapped countless people and caused a sharp drop in digital assets in the DEX sector.
2020: Eating Buffett’s meal during the epidemic, the ultimate way to take advantage of the hot spots
At the beginning of the year, when the epidemic had just emerged and China was relatively calm, Sun Ge went to the United States. On January 23, he finally had a belated charity lunch with Warren Buffett. Then on February 6, he tweeted: "I met Buffett at the Happy Hollow Club in Omaha!" He also posted photos and brought a few familiar faces in the blockchain circle. During the period, he also gave Buffett 1,930,830 $TRX coins.
In February, when the epidemic was really severe in China, Sun announced the acquisition of Steemit through the Tron Foundation. Unexpectedly, he hit a wall and was opposed by the community. In March, the community forked Hive and kicked Sun out.
In July, Justin Sun almost had a big accident. Twitter was hacked that day, and Sun's account was not spared. The hacker used Sun's account to post a fraudulent tweet about "10,000 Bitcoins for free". Sun quickly posted a statement to clarify. Even Sun has been cheated, haha!
In September, Sun Ge’s Tron mainnet account exceeded 10 million, and in December, BitTorrent, which Sun Ge acquired, became a partner with Huawei! However, it did not have much impact on the price of the currency.
This year, Sun braved the epidemic and was busy with a bunch of projects, from the Buffett dinner to the failure of Steemit, to JUST, BTFS, TRON 4.0, SUN, etc. He also donated some supplies, brought in Huawei, and finally finished TRON 4.6.
2021: Buying ambassadorial status, how big is his ambition to expand his empire?
In January, Sun Ge's Tron mainnet account exceeded 20 million, and he was hired as an editorial board member by (China Information Industry), and he also said "Bitcoin is 50,000 dollars, Tron is 10 dollars". Now Bitcoin has broken 100,000, and Tron has not broken 1 dollar. Later, he announced that he would launch a DeFi mining of TRX, BTT, JST, SUN, and WIN, which became popular for a while.
In June, Sun bought a seat on the first flight of Bezos' space company's 'New Shepard' for $28 million. However, he failed to go on July 20, saying it was a "schedule conflict". He was criticized on Twitter and stood up again! In September, Sun wrote that Tron was going to set up a trust and follow the compliance path. The funny thing is that the gambling-type gray industry is the most common on Tron.
In July, Sun announced his withdrawal from the daily management of Tron, and the cryptocurrency community went wild. Many people said that Sun had run away. Then the Tron Foundation issued a statement saying, "Justin Sun will focus on longer-term things. I am puzzled. Why does Sun focus on longer-term things and still jump on the hot topics every day? This foundation speaks exactly like Sun.
The bull market was already on the decline in December, but Sun was still making big promises that the bull market would continue. After the rise of NFT, Sun spent $78.4 million on artworks. He also supported the APENFT Foundation, imitated the BAYC concept, and attracted "leeks" to enter the market by doing left-right and right-hand operations, and trapped another wave of people (do you remember horse racing?). Although he kept cutting leeks, he still has countless fans.
At the end of December, Sun Ge posted a message saying that he would serve as Grenada's ambassador to the WTO. In fact, the epidemic made the small country short of money, so Sun invested some money to change his diplomatic status! Later, Sun also made up for the space ticket for June next year, and said that he would take 5 warriors with him. It has not taken off yet!
2022: USDD decoupling and Huobi failure, how long can it last?
This year, the epidemic is still lingering around the world, the cryptocurrency market has plummeted from a bull market, and supervision has become increasingly stringent.
In May, Sun's TRON DAO Reserve officially released the decentralized stablecoin USDD, and circulated it on global mainstream public chains such as BSC and Ethereum through the BTTC protocol, claiming to be anchored to 1 US dollar. At that time, Terra's UST had just collapsed and the market was bleeding, but Sun jumped out and said that USDD was different and wanted to "change the history of stablecoins." As a result, within a few days, USDD decoupled and fell to US$0.97.
In August, USDD was launched on Huobi Exchange, pegged to 1 USD and backed by TRX. Sun also said that he wanted USDD to become the new king of stablecoins! However, the highest price was only 0.99 USD, and it still did not stand firm at 1 USD.
In October, Justin Sun joined Huobi and became a global advisor to Huobi's Global Advisory Committee. He began to slowly take over Huobi, including 30 million melons. A few days ago, he and Li Lin had a heated argument and even hired lawyers. Under the capital operation, Justin Sun actually controlled Li Lin's Huobi. Huobi officially entered the Justin Sun era. Of course, to this day, Huobi still calls Justin Sun a member of the Global Advisory Committee. Everything is confusing and self-explanatory.
In November, the FTX exchange collapsed, and the cryptocurrency world was wailing. Sun then jumped out and said that he would use a "1 billion US dollar fund" to save the market. In those days, Sun sent several tweets in a row, posing as a savior. In the end, nothing was done, and FTX still went bankrupt! Sun got a wave of popularity again.
At the end of December, Sun resigned from his post as Grenada's ambassador to the WTO, a position I invested in 2021. He did not directly announce his resignation on Twitter, but the news spread in the circle that he officially retired on December 17.
2023: SEC accuses Carnival of farce, is he going to be finished?
At the beginning of 2023, the cryptocurrency market was immersed in darkness, and the entire market continued to be engulfed by the aftermath of the FTX crash. The SEC then accused Justin Sun of committing securities fraud by fraudulently exaggerating TRON's trading volume and misleading investors through undisclosed celebrity endorsements - Sun said the allegations were unfounded.
At the beginning of the year, Sun Yuchen's new book "Blockchain and the New Digital World" was released. However, several former Huobi employees confirmed that it was actually written by a graduate student, and the ghostwriting fee was as high as 200,000 yuan. Since many publishing houses were unwilling to take over, the public relations team finally published it at their own expense.
In April, Justin Sun appeared at the Hong Kong Web 3 Carnival. At the Hong Kong Web3 Conference, the "bounty" crowdfunding for Justin Sun caused a sensation, and it was planned to have someone go on stage to "smack him". "If I get smacked, I will only hold you responsible" was Justin Sun's "warning" to the security team.
In order to prevent possible incidents, he even set the security budget for the day at 80,000 USDT, equivalent to nearly 600,000 yuan. This episode was later considered to be just an expensive marketing. Sun Yuchen's friend Du Jun said that he never gave up any marketing means.
In July, Sun supported the 10th anniversary of S.U.N. Festival in Hungary, with TRON as the sponsor. Sun didn't say much on Twitter, but the TRON community was very excited. This is an electronic music festival, and Sun said that he was also celebrating the sixth anniversary of TRON.
In November, Sun was involved in the Huobi incident. Huobi exchange was a bit chaotic at the time, and the market rumored that it was a funding problem. Later, the TRON team said that "TRON ecosystem has no risk association with Huobi", helping Sun to survive the crisis.
2024: $6.2 million for eating bananas, his new way to hang out with Trump
On January 25, the first HTX DAO People's Conference was successfully held. Huobi HTX Global Advisor Justin Sun concluded at the conference that Huobi HTX has gone through a decade of centralization and hopes that in the next decade, it will be able to complete the transformation to decentralization and achieve long-term stability - a completely democratic mechanism, transparency that everyone can see, and a true people's exchange.
On May 17, Wiki Finance EXPO Hong Kong 2024 was held in Hong Kong, China. Justin Sun, the founder of TRON, attended the event live and delivered a keynote speech entitled "Web3 New Era: Innovative Cooperation Promotes New Development". Sun said that Web3 is not only a technological innovation, but also a new way of cooperation and symbiosis. On this basis, TRON has always been adhering to the concept of promoting innovation and cooperation, and has continued to explore and move forward in the field of Web3.
On August 13, Sun announced the launch of SunPump based on the Pump platform. Before SunPump went online, Justin Sun had made many statements on his social media to promote it. Now half a year has passed, and it has been popular for less than half a month. Now we hardly hear any news about SunPump, but Pump is doing well.
On October 11, Justin Sun confirmed on social media that he had been elected Prime Minister of Liberland.
On November 21, Justin Sun bought the "Banana on the Wall" by the famous Italian contemporary artist Maurizio Cattelan at Sotheby's "NOW Contemporary Art Evening Sale" for $6.2 million, making this banana stuck with tape the most expensive fruit ever. On November 29, Sun ate it in public at the Peninsula Hotel in Hong Kong and said, "It tastes better than ordinary bananas!" He also threatened to buy 100,000 bananas to share with everyone.
On November 26, Sun Yuchen added another title to his long list: consultant to the Trump family cryptocurrency project WLFI. The day before, Sun Yuchen invested $30 million in WLFI, becoming the largest investor in the project.
2025: USDD is fooling people again, will it really not slap its face this time?
In early January, Sun tweeted: "USDD has zero threshold, zero permissions, and is completely decentralized!" He used the 20% annualized return to continue to encourage fans, and also involved him and Li Lin, two big names in the cryptocurrency circle, in another crossfire over the "30 million US dollars" account when acquiring Huobi. In February, a KOL questioned USDD and wrote a long article to get clarification, but Sun directly blocked the person.
On January 19, Justin Sun announced an additional investment of US$45 million, bringing the total investment to US$75 million. On January 20, the day of President Trump’s inauguration, the DeFi project#WLFIsupported by the Trump family increased its holdings of TRX worth US$4.7 million, of which TRX was listed for the first time, meaning that Justin Sun, as WLFI’s strategic advisor and largest investor, has already started in-depth cooperation with the Trump family.
One day later, the WLFI treasury added another $2.65 million in TRX reserves. It was obvious that this was the role played by strategic advisor Justin Sun behind the scenes. Sun then said excitedly: "We have become part of history."
All resources are utilized to the maximum by Sun. It was so in the past, it is so now, and it will most likely be so in the future!
This article is compiled based on public information and has not been reviewed by the relevant parties. If there are any errors, please contact me to modify them!
In 35 years, Justin Sun has soared from a small town boy to the top of the crypto world. He has made billions and lost countless money by taking advantage of the market. It is useless to criticize him. It is only true to learn from his strengths! In the future, will he continue to ride the wind and waves, or fall from the altar? Time will tell us the answer.
After reading this, do you admire his courage or complain about his tactics? Don’t hold back, tell me in the comments!
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