This article will help you understand Sun Yuchen's path to fame:
The miracle of senior year: with only 450 points in the second year of high school (below the third-tier line), he made a comeback in the college entrance examination with 650 points after a year of intense effort (establishing five strict rules: eliminating non-exam books, attending classes regularly, focusing on exam training, etc.) and was admitted to Peking University’s History Department, winning the first prize in the New Concept Writing Competition. Exam-oriented education can polish sharp edges, but it cannot erase talent—he proved through action that short-term goals require a 'burning the boats' focus.
Facing setbacks: He founded (Weekly Review) to critique the education system during college, and after moving to the U.S., faced public backlash over the (New New Youth) plagiarism scandal, but decisively shifted to the business sector; in the early days of entrepreneurship, his company could not pay salaries for two years, yet he persisted in iterating projects.
Role transformation: from 'Peking University dissident' to Wharton Business School student, from literary youth to cryptocurrency evangelist, and then becoming a member of the first cohort of 90s graduates at Lakewood University (taught by Jack Ma). Investment instincts: early bets on Bitcoin ($100 → $20,000) and Tesla ($30 → $300), using tuition fees to earn his first pot of gold. 'I'm not here to change the world; I'm here to make money'—his pragmatic transformation has been controversial but confirms the survival wisdom of pragmatism. Embracing change and daring to abandon old labels are essential to standing firm when opportunities arise.
Event hype: He paid $4.56 million for a lunch with Buffett (later postponed due to 'kidney stones,' sparking widespread online discussion), and for $28 million, he undertook a space journey, surpassing Musk to become 'the first Chinese astronaut'. In 2024, he purchased a banana artwork (from a comedian) for 45 million yuan, and a week later publicly ate half of it, criticized as 'performance art marketing.' In the 'Trump's Number One Fan' incident (May 2025), Sun Yuchen spent $19.67 million (about 140 million yuan) to buy 1.43 million 'Trump coins,' holding far more than the second-place contestant, earning the nickname 'Trump's Number One Fan' from netizens. Previously, he also invested $75 million in a cryptocurrency project operated by the Trump family, from which 75% of the profits (about $56 million) directly flowed to the Trump family, with TRON going public via a reverse merger and so on.
Underlying logic: Personal branding deeply tied to projects brought TRON $250 million in exposure, transforming hype into community consensus. 'The premise of falling pies from the sky is that you have been consistently doing one thing'—he calls this 'Serendipity.' Continuous action attracts opportunities, but it also takes courage to turn opportunities into milestone events. His path is not replicable: wealth accumulation relies on the gray areas of cryptocurrency regulation, with controversies over cashing out and border control rumors always accompanying him. But if we strip away the speculative colors, we can still extract universal experiences:
Methods to adopt: goal decomposition ability (senior year five-item plan), resource integration ability (cross-disciplinary learning), adversity resistance;
Risks to avoid: short-sighted hype is unsustainable; true influence must be rooted in value creation. 'The vision of the stars and the sea must match the tests of the star level'—this is a confession from Sun Yuchen in his 2024 New Year message. If you are experiencing a dark night, remember: **all seemingly legendary comebacks are just ordinary people turning 'unwillingness' into 'execution power.'#加密市场回调