Not long ago, according to a report by a technology media in the United States, Sun Yuchen, the founder of "TRON", was investigated by the FBI on suspicion of a large number of crimes, including fraud, money laundering, etc.
Suddenly, the name Sun Yuchen once became the top of the domestic social media topic list.
Sun Yuchen, the most well-known person in China, should be the fact that he spent 30 million yuan to photograph Buffett's luncheon, and since then, Sun Yuchen, who is born in the 90s, has gradually become a frequent visitor in the public eye.
But many people don't know much about the virtual currency industry he is engaged in, and while virtual currency brings wealth to Sun Yuchen, it is also gradually pushing him to the cliff.
Investigated by the FBI
After learning that he was being investigated by the FBI, Sun Yuchen posted several responses on social media: "I haven't had any dealings with the FBI in my life, and the rumors can be stopped!"
The meaning is nothing more than to explain that this incident is pure slander and slander, and even wrote in a response: If some shameless US media carry out bottomless rumors against me, I will not rule out countering by means of running for president of the United States!
Although this response is ridicule, we can see from it that Sun Yuchen has some views on the United States, as a person who does not have a U.S. green card and does not live in the United States, the only thing Sun Yuchen can intersect with the United States is the virtual currency industry he is engaged in, virtual currency, which is one of the main reasons for the FBI to investigate him.
Another reason is that "Sun Yuchen was involved in deception, money laundering through immigration and other acts on the virtual currency exchange Poloniex", but for these accusations, Sun Yuchen responded with "rumors and slander", and whether Sun Yuchen's "crimes" are false or the evidence is conclusive remains to be further determined by the relevant departments.
But before that, Sun Yuchen had several negative news.
First of all, the virtual currency industry is a gray industry, and many countries do not recognize it as an orthodox industry, and the mainland has not yet recognized the legal status of any virtual currency in China.
This also declares that the transaction of virtual currency and other activities in China is not protected by law.
Justin Sun's relationship with virtual currency was in 2017 when Bitcoin was on fire, and at that time, the emergence of this virtual cryptocurrency gave birth to a new industry, and since then, a variety of virtual currencies have emerged in an endless stream.
It was not long after this that Sun Yuchen established his own company "TRON" and officially entered the virtual currency industry.
Soon after the company was founded, Sun Yuchen started his first fundraising, announcing a self-created virtual currency, TRON TRX, and in just a few days, TRON was quickly subscribed.
The whole process seems to be very smooth, but in fact it is thrilling, because when Sun Yuchen was raising funds, the relevant state departments issued the "Announcement on Preventing the Risk of Token Issuance and Financing" in order to prevent the phenomenon of committing crimes with the help of virtual currency.
As soon as this announcement came out, the domestic virtual currency market suspended fundraising, but Sun Yuchen got the news from somewhere, and the day before the announcement, he officially released TRON TRX, and then quickly flew to Seoul, and then transferred to San Francisco.
At the end of 2017, the market price of TRON surged, from the initial two cents to two yuan, an increase of up to 100 times.
As the issuer of the currency, Sun Yuchen took advantage of this opportunity to sell up to 6 billion TRON coins in his hand to the market, and they were quickly sold out, and Sun Yuchen successfully cashed out 12 billion.
Anyone with a little economic knowledge will know that a large-scale sell-off will inevitably affect the market price of goods.
Sure enough, the day after Sun Yuchen sold 6 billion TRON coins, the market price of TRON coins plummeted by one-fifth, making those who saw the opportunity to make a big profit lose a lot of money, and Sun Yuchen was also abused by many TRON holders.
In his opinion, what does it have to do with the profit or loss of others and himself? As the issuer of the currency, Sun Yuchen will never lose, and the loss will always be the holders of those TRON coins.
Is it a "liar" or a "genius"?
During his time in San Francisco, Sun continued to expand his business, acquiring BitTorrent, a software protocol company in the United States, and shortly after the acquisition, he conducted a public offering and released a new virtual currency, BTT.
Sun Yuchen bought the company to use the company's technology to develop a virtual currency trading software that can bypass the real-name authentication mechanism, which he claims is for the security of users.
But from here, we can also see that Sun Yuchen knows that virtual currency transactions are risky, otherwise how could he spend a huge amount of money to let users bypass the real-name authentication mechanism?
In addition, in 2019, Sun Yuchen also acquired Poloniex, which was once one of the world's largest digital currency exchanges, and the purpose of the acquisition of the exchange is self-evident.
Immediately after the acquisition, Sun moved the exchange to the Seychelles Islands in Africa, which can be called a paradise for digital currencies, as there is almost no regulation of virtual currencies in this country.
Next, Sun Yuchen's move was jaw-dropping, he took all the small assets that had been unclaimed in the exchange for a long time as his own, and made a lot of money from it, which is undoubtedly illegal possession, so his behavior has also become one of the many reasons for the FBI to investigate him.
In order to evade regulation and scrutiny, Sun Yuchen has constantly changed his identity, and it is reported that he has passports from several small countries, and he has also invested in some small countries in exchange for citizenship, all in order to evade censorship, regulatory systems and taxes.
According to an employee who used to work for Justin Sun's company, Justin Sun has more than once publicized his views on censorship and taxation within the company, and he thinks that taxes are stupid, and it is not difficult to see some of Sun's values and worldview from this sentence, and it is no wonder that he has spent huge sums of money to avoid various constraints.
In January 2019, TRON launched a new Super Community feature that guides users to download the TRX Super Community app.
This app allows users to become members by purchasing virtual currency, and then developing subordinates in a certain order, defrauding TRON TRX coins, and then selling the fraudulent coins in the form of cash to make a profit.
When thousands of people who want to make a fortune with virtual currency buy into the game, this huge harvesting machine starts to work, and when the number of people who enter the game is enough, the trader behind it starts the second step: roll up and run.
Starting from 10 a.m. on June 30, the TRON Super Community APP was closed, and users found that it was no longer possible to withdraw money, and all assets had been transferred out.
The official claimed that "the platform is being upgraded and optimized", but soon after the user found that the APP could not be logged in, and the customer service no longer replied to messages.
According to statistics, in just 5 months after the super community was launched, a total of hundreds of thousands of users entered the game, and the funds reached 1 billion yuan.
The incident continued to ferment on the Internet, and Sun Yuchen finally couldn't sit still and came out to respond: He had nothing to do with this incident, and it was someone with ulterior motives who was doing it in the name of TRON.
As the CEO of TRON, if this matter really has nothing to do with him, then why didn't he stand up and clarify when TRON was well-known and was pretended, and advised users not to enter the game, but waited until the matter was exposed, and only responded under the pressure of public opinion?
Even on the third day after the incident fermented, the news of a middle-aged female investor who wanted to commit suicide because she borrowed money and was now unable to repay it was circulated on the Internet, accompanied by a picture of a suicide note, the authenticity of which has not been confirmed.
But this means that the occurrence of this incident is enough to bankrupt many investors, and judging from the research and speculation of the media, institutions and individuals from all sides, Sun Yuchen will not be able to shake off this pot no matter what.
Returning to Sun Yuchen himself, in a way, he is a "genius": smelling business opportunities and setting up a company to make a lot of money, this seems to be the template of a successful businessman.
But it should be noted that his so-called success is based on virtual currency, which does not exist in the real world, and the reason why virtual items are valuable is, in the final analysis, because it is artificially endowed with too many attributes, since it can be given, it can also be deprived, and the value of virtual currency is destined not to exist for a long time.
Judging from Sun Yuchen's various behaviors and experiences, he is a person who cannot be summed up in one or two words, whether he is a "liar" or a "genius", depending on your perspective and your personal three views, at least in the view of the "stock god" Buffett, the virtual currency represented by Sun Yuchen is worthless.
Dine with Warren Buffett, the "god of stocks".
In June 2019, at the auction of "Buffett's 20th Anniversary Charity Banquet", Sun Yuchen successfully auctioned off the opportunity to dine with Buffett for a record-breaking $4.568 million.
But the banquet was not held in the end, and Sun Yuchen issued a letter of apology afterwards, saying that due to his immaturity, this banquet that should have been meaningful turned into an over-marketing.
For Justin Sun, there is nothing to regret, because just half a year later, he successfully met with Buffett and had dinner, at which Justin Sun expressed his opinion on virtual currency to Buffett.
Sun said that the future of virtual currency will be "bright", but in Buffett's view, virtual currency is worthless: I think my grandson would prefer to use dollars to inherit my wealth.
Although the two have different opinions on this, Sun Yuchen still presented Buffett with a Samsung mobile phone containing Bitcoin and Tron.
But Buffett didn't seem to give Sun enough face, and shortly after the dinner, he donated the phone, to which Buffett said: "Virtual currency has no value. ”
Perhaps for Warren Buffett, the time it takes to mine a bitcoin is enough for him to make a lot of money in other areas.
Although Buffett doesn't like Sun Yuchen's virtual currency, this does not affect Sun Yuchen to continue to develop the industry, but because of this dinner, he became famous, and Sun Yuchen also used this dinner to promote himself in a high-profile manner.
In fact, this kind of use of celebrities to promote himself is not the first time Sun Yuchen has done it.
As early as 2015, after being admitted to Lakeside University founded by Jack Ma, Sun Yuchen announced on social media that he had received an admission letter from Lakeside University and became the first batch of students of the school.
Among the first batch of students, Sun Yuchen is the only post-90s generation, and for a long time since then, Sun Yuchen often calls himself a "disciple of Ma Yun", the purpose is nothing more than to borrow Ma Yun's fame to attract traffic for himself.
But having said that, being able to be admitted by Ma Yun shows that Sun Yuchen is still very good.
A year ago, in 2014, Sun Yuchen founded Ruibo Technology Co., Ltd. in Beijing, engaged in the development of clearing systems, and later launched a social APP "Accompany Me".
On June 13, 2021, Sun Yuchen announced in a high-profile manner that he spent $28 million to buy a ticket to space, and would go to space with Bezos, the founder of Amazon, which pushed him into the focus of media attention.
But a month later, when Bezos' rocket was officially launched, Mr. Sun did not go into space with Mr. Bezos, and his spot was taken by an 18-year-old high school student.
Perhaps in Sun's view, these are the mediums he can use to promote himself in a high-profile manner, and just two months after failing to make it to space, he announced again on social media that he had bought an avatar for $10.5 million.
Yes, 10.5 million US dollars only bought an avatar, Sun Yuchen wrote in the circle of friends: "This may be the most expensive avatar in human history", which is incomprehensible in the scope of ordinary people's cognition.
Looking at Sun Yuchen's experience in the past few years, it seems that he has always flouted the rules: evading censorship, exploiting legal loopholes, and being incompatible with the world, maverick, but such behavior will only bring disaster to him in the end, with the FBI investigation, many countries have greatly increased the supervision of virtual currency, and the future of virtual currency seems unpredictable.
Over the years, with the development of the "currency circle", more and more people want to make a profit from it, but often they only see the glamour of the currency circle, but they don't know how many people are bankrupt behind it.
In China, the road of virtual currency has gone nowhere, and I believe many people are waiting to see where Sun Yuchen will go.