Justin Sun and TRON: The Evolution of a Crypto Empire
Born in 1990 in Xining, Qinghai, Sun Yuchen’s life trajectory has been different from the very beginning. With a first prize in the New Concept Writing Contest, he successfully opened the door to the Chinese Department of Peking University, later transferring to the History Department and graduating as the top of his class.
During his studies at the University of Pennsylvania, his interest shifted from history to finance, joining the investment association and taking courses at the Wharton School, laying the groundwork for future entrepreneurship. In 2014, Sun Yuchen returned to his home country to start a business with a blockchain dream, being recognized as a Global Outstanding Youth by the Davos Forum.
Early Trajectory and Entrepreneurial Gene, Breaking the Deadlock from the Margins to the Core
Sun Yuchen’s entrepreneurial journey began with a keen eye for opportunities. In 2017, he gathered his classmates from Peking University to establish TRON, aiming at the public chain track of a “decentralized internet.”
At that time, it was the explosive period of the blockchain industry, and TRON raised about 400 million USD through ICO. However, the Chinese regulatory authorities struck hard with the “9.4” policy, and the early project team almost dispersed, with partners leaving one after another due to security concerns.
“My six years of entrepreneurship, the first three years were almost all in vain,” Sun Yuchen later described that difficult period. But he did not give up.
April 2019 marked a crucial turning point: Tether decided to issue the TRC-20 version of USDT on the TRON network. This decision became the catalyst for the explosion of the TRON ecosystem.
Sun Yuchen invested all resources into the promotion of stablecoins, a strategy that allowed TRON to stand out among numerous public chains. At that time, he predicted: “The USDT issued on the Tron blockchain will soon become the largest stablecoin in the world.”
The Rise of TRON and the Controversy Surrounding It
The development of TRON is not a linear rise. In early 2018, Sun Yuchen was reported to have sold 6 billion TRX, cashing out about 300 million USD, which sparked controversy over “cutting leeks” and earned him the nickname “Sun Cut” in the crypto community.
In June of the same year, he acquired BitTorrent for $140 million, a P2P protocol that once carried 40% of global internet traffic. He then launched the BTT token, attempting to blockchainize the established technology.
In 2019, Sun Yuchen won a record-breaking lunch with Buffett for $4.567 million, but canceled at the last minute citing “kidney stones,” causing global uproar. This incident caused his public image to waver between “genius” and “fraud.”
The evolution of technology has never stopped. In 2023, the TRON mainnet completed multiple upgrades and released version GreatVoyage v4.7.3, significantly improving transaction throughput, reducing fees, and enhancing smart contract capabilities.
By 2025, the daily trading volume of TRON will exceed 8.7 million transactions, and Justin Sun has proposed the “SunPump” plan, aiming to drive the daily trading volume to exceed 20 million transactions within three months.
Stablecoins have become the cornerstone of the TRON ecosystem. The circulation of TRC20-USDT exceeds 64 billion USD, accounting for more than 98% of the activities on the TRON blockchain. Users pay a fee of 0.3-8 USD for each USDT transfer, bringing over 2.1 million USD in daily revenue to TRON, with an annualized total of 770 million USD.
Building an encryption empire, capital expansion and compliance game
2025 will be a highlight moment for Sun Yuchen. In April, he graced the cover of Forbes Global, hailed as the “billionaire pioneer in the encryption field,” becoming the third Chinese entrepreneur to receive this honor after Jack Ma and Zhao Changpeng.
In June, he completed a milestone capital operation - TRON merged with SRM Entertainment to be listed on Nasdaq, and the shell company’s stock price soared by 647% due to the merger news.
However, controversy follows closely. In 2023, the U.S. SEC sued Sun Yuchen for “illegal sale of securities, fraud, and market manipulation,” accusing him of artificially inflating TRX trading volume through “wash trading.”
Within TRON, Justin Sun led the innovation of token economics. Proposal No. 102, implemented in June 2025, reduced the block reward for nodes to 8 TRX and increased the voting reward to 128 TRX, driving the annual deflation rate of TRX from 0.85% to 1.29%.
This design shifts economic benefits towards the community, transforming voting from an expression of rights into a source of actual income.
Future Outlook
Today, the total market capitalization of TRON is $26.96 billion, with a daily transaction volume exceeding 8.7 million, supporting a circulation of $64 billion in TRC20-USDT stablecoins.
When Sun Yuchen stood at the New York Nasdaq Stock Exchange, behind him was the logo of “Tron Inc.” which went public through a reverse merger. This former history student from Peking University has quietly built a cryptocurrency empire worth hundreds of billions of dollars.
The TRON network processes millions of transactions every day, from cross-border remittances by overseas workers in the Philippines to trade settlements by merchants in South America. Technology may no longer be disrupting the world, but it has quietly changed the way the world operates.
