Justin Sun

Justin Sun is a Chinese-born entrepreneur, cryptocurrency enthusiast, and former CEO of the blockchain DAO ecosystem, Tron

Personal Stats

Age:	33
Source of wealth:	Entrepreneur
Residence:	Grenada
Citizenship:	China, Grenada
Marital status:	Single
Education:	Peking University

Education

Justin Sun holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in history from Peking University and a Master of Arts degree in East Asian studies from the University of Pennsylvania. Sun became interested in cryptocurrency while studying at the University of Pennsylvania and invested early in Bitcoin. He was recognized as the first Millennial graduate from Hupan University, a business school in China founded by Alibaba Group founder Jack Ma.

Career

Before Tron, Sun founded Peiwo, an application that was intended to be a Chinese equivalent of Snapchat by analyzing 10-second voice samples and interests to match and connect users. In 2014, He also served as the representative for Ripple, a Bitcoin settlement platform, in China.

In September 2017, Sun's company, Tron, held an initial coin offering (ICO) for the TRN token just a few days before the Chinese government banned ICOs. Sun was aware of the impending ban and pushed for the sale to occur before the ban could be announced. Shortly after the sale, Sun left China for the United States.

Sun has also been involved in several controversies throughout his career. In 2018, he acquired the file-sharing platform BitTorrent, which was later accused of violating copyrights. He was also criticized for announcing a partnership with Warren Buffett and then canceling a charity lunch with the investor.

In March 2021, Sun was the underbidder on the historic $69 million auction at Christie's New York of the Beeple non-fungible token (NFT) collection Everyday: the First 5000 Days. In October 2021, Sun participated in a $65 million funding round in Animoca.

In December 2021, Sun retired as CEO of Tron and became the Permanent Representative of Grenada to the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Geneva.

In March 2023, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filed a lawsuit against Sun for selling unregistered securities related to the sale and promotion of Tronix (TRX) and BitTorrent (BBT) tokens. The lawsuit also alleged that Sun engaged in wash trading in the secondary market for TRX in order to manipulate its price