I like to call him “the man with the mystery money” because, to date, no one knows exactly how rich Justin Sun is. This is because the Chinese crypto guru has many income pools, and most sites only have access to his public ventures. So, the best we can do is make generalizations from efficient investigations of his public assets and investments, netting his worth to around $1.4 billion.
Justin Sun (@hejustinsun) is renowned as the father of the popular cryptocurrency blockchain platform TRON. He established TRON after gathering knowledge from his stints at other companies that provide similar services. Creating the TRON blockchain DAO ecosystem has fetched Justin Sun’s enormous wealth, taking his net worth to the financial skies. Presently, Justin Sun is one of the most influential, most controversial, and wealthiest individuals in the crypto world.
But is the estimated worth of this Chinese entrepreneur in the global market the highest? How did he rise from his humble beginnings to becoming one of the world’s “greats?” And what businesses fetched him the largest chunk of his wealth? Let’s solve the puzzle by learning about the life and career workings of the prestigious founder of TRON, Justin Sun.
Who is Justin Sun? Early Life and Background
Justin Sun (Sūn Yûnchén) was born on July 30, 1990, in Xining, Qinghai, China, but is a citizen of Grenada, which is a Caribbean island. He moved to the United States in his youth to acquire better academic knowledge. Little is known about his high school life, but Justin Sun holds a Bachelor of Arts degree with a major in history from Peking University. He also bagged a Master of Arts in East Asian Studies from the University of Pennsylvania.
Justin Sun was an exceptional student all through his academic life. This excellence paved the way for him to get life-changing opportunities even while he was still a student, particularly at the University of Pennsylvania. Justin Sun first picked interest in cryptocurrency at the University of Pennsylvania, focusing more on the just-emerging Bitcoin. His curiosity and smart analysis prompted him to invest in the coin very early, hoping for a massive pump as soon as possible.
Justin Sun also enrolled and learned at Jack Ma’s Zhejiang Hupan Entrepreneurship Research Center. His dedication, cleverness, and high performance in his studies led him to be the face of Yazhou Zhoukhan in 2011. He was also placed at the forefront of Davis Global Shaker in 2014.
What is Justin Sun’s Net Worth?
Earlier, I mentioned that no one could place a single value on Justin Sun’s net worth. However, our estimations are determined by a calculation of his total public assets. So, without further ado, what is the net value of TRON’s founder, Justin Sun? Justin Sun’s net worth is around $1.4 billion as of April 2024. This figure is a fair approximation of Justin Sun’s total funds in his public crypto wallets.
PS: The Grenadian investor is worth more than $1.3 billion if we consider his other investments and non-crypto assets. Justin Sun holds numerous cryptocurrencies, including BTC, ETH, and TRX. In descending order, Sun’s major crypto holdings are BTC, WSTETH, USDD, TRX, USDJ, and BTT, and their values hit over $2 billion altogether.
Sometime in February 2024, Sun wrote on X (formerly Twitter) about his BTC holdings. Sun revealed to his 3.5 million followers that he holds over 28,614 Bitcoins worth about $1.6 billion.
How Did Justin Sun Start Making Money?
Justin Sun started taking big steps in his wealth-making journey beginning in 2013. That year, after finishing his entrepreneurship program at Hupan University in China, Justin Sun joined Ripple as the company’s first Chinese employee. Ripple was one of the best cryptocurrency Blockchain technology firms, and working there was kind of a big deal back then. Also, the company motivate s its employees well enough, so Justin Sun’s finances started to find its footing.
However, Justin Sun left the firm one year later to launch Peiwo – a Chinese voice-based social networking app. Peiwo was a huge success, earning massive income and fame for the Chinese entrepreneur. As a result, Justin Sun was named in the Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia list from 2015 to 2017.
TRON: The Big Bang!
For Justin Sun, TRON was an angel sent from above to multiply his wealth by multiple folds. TRON was founded in 2017 as a blockchain-based operating platform. That same year, Sun launched the $TRX token (TRON’s native token). TRX was initially launched based on the ERC-20 token standard but then moved to its unique blockchain protocol in 2018.
In September 2017, TRON held an initial coin offering (ICO) for the TRX token that yielded about $70 million. However, the Chinese government banned ICOs a few days later, and Justin Sun migrated from China to the United States afterward. Today, TRON is one of the top 10 cryptocurrencies in the industry. For example, $TRX has the most active users daily, with 1.6 million, compared to 968,000 and 617,000 for BNB Chain and Bitcoin, respectively.
Indeed, the firm had its way with customers, and, in turn, Justin Sun’s net worth gained fat earnings. The Big Bang, really!
Still, Justin Sun knew launching TRON was not enough to make him the man he intended to be. So, he continued to diversify his wealth streams even more. In June 2018, Sun bought BitTorrent, Inc. (later renamed Rainberry Inc.) for $140 million. He acquired the company through TRON, and during his reign as BitTorrent’s CEO, the company launched its native utility token, BTT.
Justin Sun’s Other Crypto Ventures
Years after the purchase of BitTorrent, Justin Sun saw the need to reinvest in other ventures. His next move, therefore, was to acquire the crypto exchange Poloniex. Poloniex was also a hit with millions of daily users and bonuses for its new CEO, Sun. However, Poloniex attracted a lot of controversy for Justin Sun.
He was once criticized for demanding personal ownership of misplaced Poloniex customer funds (about 300 Bitcoin) that users accidentally sent to the wrong wallet addresses. In November 2023, hackers stole about $120 million from the company, generating more buzz around Justin Sun.
Sun also joined a competition hosted by Animoca, a crypto and blockchain video game maker like The Sandbox. The competition was a $65 million funding round, and his involvement indirectly fetched him some earnings.
Lastly, Justin Sun spent over $100 million on artworks from Pablo Picasso, Andy Warhol, Alberto Giacometti, and Pak. This was to contribute to the success of several non-fungible tokens (NFT) related projects and funds. He also deposited $480 million to the Ether.Fi protocol in March 2024.
Major Controversies Involving Justin Sun
Fame, fortune, crypto investments, and controversies are the constants in Justin Sun’s life. Although he is still respected as one of the world’s most prestigious crypto investors and entrepreneurs, he’s had his fair share of frowns and appraisals from the public and legal agencies, among others. Let’s check out some of such controversies:
- In June 2019, Sun placed a record bid of $4.6 million to have a private meal with Berkshire Hathaway CEO, Warren Buffett and Donald Trump. He canceled it, however, to everyone’s surprise. Eventually, Sun releases his inner prankster talent as the private meal took place later in January 2020. The catch, however, was that the lunch initially coincided with the US-China trade war. So, he canceled the meeting at first to calm the tensed nerves of concerned Chinese authorities. It was after the war had died down that he was able to host the lunch meeting in 2020.
- 2021 presented a brand new opportunity for Justin Sun, as he was appointed Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Grenada to the World Trade Organization (WTO). This divided his attention between being a full-time crypto CEO and a diplomat at the WTO. In December 2021, he retired as the CEO of TRON to focus on his diplomatic duties. However, this new career only lasted about two years after he retired as the Grenadian representative to the WTO in 2023.
- Justin Sun also saw the dark eyes of the law in March 2023 when the Securities and Exchange Commission filed charges against him. They accused him of selling unregistered securities related to selling and promoting $TRX and BTT. He and a few convicted celebrities had to pay over $400,000 to settle the case before it escalated.
