CRYPTO whiz kid Justin Sun has taken the world by storm in recent years after founding Tron, postponing a $4.6 million charity lunch with Warren Buffett and finishing runner-up in the record-breaking auction of Beeple’s $69 million NFT in March 2021.
But what’s the story behind Justin Sun and what’s his net worth?
Who is Justin Sun?
Justin Sun was born in 1990 in Xining, China.
He graduated with a BA in History from Peking University followed by an MA in East Asia Studies from the University of Pennsylvania.
In 2011 Sun featured on the cover of the Chinese magazine Yazhou Zhoukan, a competitor of Asia Week.
Sun joined Ripple Labs as a chief representative and adviser in Greater China at the end of 2013 and worked at the startup for just over two years.
He then went on to create Peiwo in 2013, with plans to make it China’s Snapchat.
Peiwo matches and connects users by analyzing 10-second voice samples along with their interests.
Peiwo has matched more than 4 billion chats to date.
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Sun was the youngest member of the first class at Hupan University, a Chinese business school founded by Ma in 2015 and is a protégé of the Alibaba founder.
Sun’s oldest photo on Instagram shows him receiving a certificate from Ma with the caption: “Inspired by the best to shape the future for the better.”
Ma recruited 30 students who he believed could revolutionize the Chinese business world.
Sun wrote his thesis on the blockchain industry, titling it “The Birth of a Decentralized Internet.”
He graduated from Hupan in 2018.
In 2014 he was then mentioned as a Global Youth Leader at the annual Davos forum in Switzerland and in 2015 the Chinese television channel CNTV named him the most noteworthy new entrepreneur.
Between 2015 and 2017 he was listed as Forbes Asia under 30.
In July 2017, Sun founded the Tron Foundation, a blockchain company with its own cryptocurrency that is “dedicated to building the infrastructure for a truly decentralized Internet.”
The initial coin offering (ICO) for the TRN token happened just a few days before the Chinese government banned ICOs.
Sun is believed to have been aware of the impending ban and pushed for the sale to occur before the ban could be announced.
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Sun then soon left China for the US.
Tron was created to allow people to create content that can be shared and traded – from text to pictures, audio and video.
Just like Ethereum, Tron has its own smart contracts, Dapps and a wallet.
But unlike Ethereum, Tron plans to create a decentralized gaming network for developers to build upon.
In July 2018, TRON acquired BitTorrent, a pioneer of decentralized services with nearly 100 million monthly active users for around $126 million.
TRON gradually grew into a blockchain ecosystem and transitioned into a DAO featuring self-governance after reaching full decentralization in December 2021 after Sun resigned as CEO.
In 2019, Sun made the headlines again after paying $4 million for a charity lunch with investor Warren Buffett but cancelling it three days before.
The lunch with Buffett eventually happened in January 2020.
He invited eToro founder and CEO Yoni Assia, Litecoin creator Charlie Lee, and other crypto advocates to dine with them.
Sun then went on to invest $10 million in GameStop and $1 million in each of AMC and the iShares Silver Trust during the meme-stock frenzy in January 2021.
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In 2021, Justin Sun bought artwork by Picasso, Giacometti, Andy Warhol, Beeple, Puk, and KAWS worth over $800 million – most of which he later donated to the APENFT Foundation.
In December 2021, Sun bid $28 million to be the first paying passenger to fly on the Blue Origin vehicle in July 2021.
However, he wasn’t able to fly because of a scheduling conflict.
He does, however, intend to go to space in late 2022 with five others.
Most notably Sun was the runner-up in the record-breaking Christie’s auction of a $69 million non-fungible token (NFT)in March 2021.
He allegedly tried to bid $70 million for Beeple’s artwork after he was outbid with 20 seconds to go, but his offer wasn’t received by Christie’s systems.
In December 2021, Justin Sun retired as CEO of TRON to become a diplomat for Grenada.
Sun retains a powerful presence on social media with more than 2 million Twitter followers.
What is Justin Sun’s net worth?
Justin Sun’s net worth is more than $500 million.
Sun became a multi-millionaire in 2017 when he launched Tron.
He is well-known for having one of the largest public wallets in crypto that has over $500,000 million in assets currently.
Sun owns more than $100 million worth of Aave V2, $90 million of TrueFi, $80 million of Convex, $50 million of Curve, $35 million of Venus, $30 million of PancakeSwap, $20 million of Ellipsis, $15 million of Uniswap V3, $12 million of Liquity, $10 million of Alpaca Finance and $5 million of Compound as of October 2022.