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In May 2025, on the tarmac of Los Angeles Airport, 35-year-old Justin Sun bent over and put his palms to the ground. Behind this slightly exaggerated action was his dramatic transformation from a wanted person in the United States to a VIP guest of the president. This cryptocurrency tycoon with a net worth of US$8.5 billion has spent more than ten years writing a fortune-telling legend full of opportunities, controversies and controversies. Beginning as a top student: from winning essays to evangelizing on blockchain Justin Sun, who was born in Xining in 1990, showed his extraordinary ability to break through early on. In 2007, he opened the door to Peking University's independent enrollment with the first prize in the New Concept Essay Contest. He entered the Chinese Department with a score of 650, and then transferred to the History Department. Not only did he graduate with the first grade in his grade, he also won the title of the top ten speeches at Peking University, and was sponsored by Dr. Li Zhengdao's "Monarch Fund" to go to Taiwan for exchange. This experience of being a top student has shaped his instinct to accurately seize opportunities. As he wrote in "Sprouting" magazine: "High school can take one year to make up for any regrets." While studying for a master's degree in the United States in 2011, Justin Sun's life trajectory quietly changed. He used his tuition fees to invest in Tesla and get a 4-fold return, and then invested in Bitcoin and got a 20-fold return. This amazing return made him give up his doctorate in law and join the blockchain company RippleLabs, becoming its first employee in Greater China. After returning to China in 2014, he founded Ruibo Company and became one of the earliest blockchain evangelists in China. With his prediction of the industry, he obtained tens of millions of dollars in financing from IDG Capital and others, laying the groundwork for his future rise. The Rise of Tron: The "Marketing Master" Who Hits the Trend" In 2017, the cryptocurrency ICO craze swept the world. Justin Sun accurately seized this historical opportunity and founded the blockchain project "Tron" in Beijing. At that time, the ICO market was so crazy that even "Dental Coin" could raise over a million US dollars. However, Sun Yuchen, who was well versed in marketing, even if he failed to clarify the core purpose of Tron - sometimes promoted as an entertainment system, sometimes positioned as an app store - still successfully raised 70 million US dollars. What is even more dramatic is that two days after the completion of the ICO, the Chinese government announced a ban on such activities. His precise time control was called "perfect." What really gave TRON a foothold was its cooperation with stablecoin giant Tether in 2019. At that time, Tether was deeply involved in the reserve investigation, but its feature of anchoring to the US dollar happened to solve the US dollar settlement problem of overseas encryption companies. Justin Sun quickly seized the market by leveraging Tron's "fastest speed and lowest cost" advantages. Today, Tron handles $600 billion in stablecoin transactions every month, more than four times that of Paypal. It carries more than 60% of the world's stablecoin flows and is known as the "digital payment highway." During this period, he spent money to acquire the exchange Poloniex and the file sharing application BitTorrent, quickly building an encryption ecological landscape. Controversy-ridden: Shades of Gray in the Halo Justin Sun's journey to fortune has always been accompanied by controversy. He is famous for his extravagant public relations tactics: he paid $4.6 million for Buffett’s lunch, asked an Oscar composer to compose a theme song for Tron, was elected prime minister of the micro-state "Liberland", and even ate a $6.2 million banana artwork in public in Hong Kong. The lawsuits filed by former employees revealed the truth behind the management: employees were required to address him as "Your Excellency," subordinates accused him of violent behavior, and the internal culture was filled with exaggerated flattery. The more serious controversy arises from the business itself. Tron's "pseudo-anonymity" and efficient transfer characteristics make it the preferred tool for criminal groups. A United Nations report shows that Tron is the "tool of choice" for money laundering by Asian criminal groups, and Hamas has directly provided Tron wallet addresses to receive donations. The 2024 TRM Labs report states that TRON handles 45% of the world's illegal encryption activities, ranging from drug trafficking to North Korean hacker financing. Idaho State Police Detective Brad Thorne said bluntly that Tron has significantly reduced the recovery rate of fraudulent funds, and criminals are moving funds much faster than judicial procedures. In 2023, the U.S. SEC filed a lawsuit against Justin Sun, accusing him of hiring employees to manipulate the market and paying celebrities such as Lindsay Lohan for endorsements without disclosing the paid relationship. Faced with the accusation, he denounced the chairman of the SEC as a "tyrant" and fled to Hong Kong, which has no extradition treaty, to start a tug of war with supervision. Twist of fate: $90 million "identity swap"" In 2024, the U.S. encryption industry spent more than $40 million on lobbying to defeat regulatory opponents. After accepting a $20 million donation from Bitcoin investors, Trump completely turned to support cryptocurrency, promising to fire the SEC chairman and promote deregulation. Justin Sun keenly grasped the political trend and spent US$90 million to purchase the Trump family's cryptocurrency, transforming himself from a wanted person into a VIP guest and business partner of the president.  In 2025, Justin Sun's life reached a new height: he appeared on the global cover of Forbes, completed a suborbital space sightseeing flight, and became the youngest Chinese commercial astronaut. From a student in Qinghai to a crypto tycoon, his fortune history is like a microcosm of the crypto industry—it not only has explosive growth brought about by technological innovation, but is also full of regulatory arbitrage and ethical controversies. As he wrote in his autobiography: "Like a devout preacher, he is not afraid of the snow-capped mountains ahead." However, opportunities and risks always accompany him on this road. |
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