Written by: Rhythm BlockBeats

"I measure a person's worth by how much money they make." This was a statement made by Justin Sun eight years ago during a speech as he returned to China to start his entrepreneurial journey.

True to his words, Justin Sun has indeed lived by this principle. Starting in 2014 when he became the legal representative for the "陪我 App" ("陪我" translates to "Accompany Me"), Sun, who is pragmatic to the point of seeming cold, had always harbored a dream of building a business empire. He aimed to maximize the use of rules, leverage resources, and ultimately win at his own game.

Fast forward eight years, Justin Sun has realized what is undeniably the ultimate dream of many entrepreneurs—going public.

His latest deal, valued at $100 million, involves a publicly listed U.S. company named SRM Entertainment. Through a reverse merger, TRON successfully gained a backdoor entry onto Nasdaq. At 35 years old, Justin Sun has become the head of a publicly traded company. Beyond that, this post-90s entrepreneur has ownership stakes in seven or eight other recognizable businesses and projects.

Justin Sun’s Blockchain Empire

TRON: Justin Sun’s First Big Gamble in the Crypto Space

Justin Sun joined Ripple’s China team in 2013, where he served as an ambassador and earned his first substantial fortune. During that time, he also cultivated valuable connections in the blockchain industry. Leveraging these resources, he quickly conceived his entrepreneurial ambitions and set his sights on making a mark in the blockchain space.

By 2017, Ethereum had already established itself as a rising star. Just after celebrating his 27th birthday, Justin Sun shelved his earlier social app venture and regrouped with a few Peking University classmates. Armed with the backing of influential capital investors and fueled by his determination to "storm the crypto world again," Sun launched the TRON blockchain project (TRX).

Fortunately, the launch of the TRX token and its accompanying ICO helped TRON raise approximately $400 million. However, when the Chinese government cracked down on ICOs with the infamous "9.4 ban," the entire crypto scene in China went into a tailspin. Project teams and exchanges scrambled to flee, vowing never to touch blockchain again—not even for generations to come.

During that most tumultuous period, Justin Sun returned the funds raised through the ICO, and TRON’s early core team dispersed. Partners left the company en masse, citing security concerns. Reflecting on those tough times, Sun admitted, "In my six years of entrepreneurship, the first three years were almost entirely wasted."

A turning point came in April 2019 when Tether decided to issue a TRC-20 version of USDT on the TRON network. From that point onward, TRON firmly set its sights on promoting and popularizing USDT. This strategic move laid the foundation for 99% of TRON’s current market valuation. "Very soon, the USDT issued on the TRON blockchain will become the world’s largest stablecoin," Justin Sun once predicted. Years later, his prophecy turned into reality. Today, a significant share of global on-chain USDT transactions is powered by TRON’s infrastructure.

Data Source: DefiLama

The latest on-chain data shows that USDT now accounts for over 98% of the transaction volume and gas consumption on the Tron network. In other words, Tron’s on-chain activity is almost entirely sustained by USDT’s "infusion." For each USDT transfer, users typically pay transaction fees ranging from $0.3 to $8. Based on current statistics, Tron’s daily on-chain revenue has surpassed $2.1 million, with an annualized revenue of $770 million, most of which comes from the high-frequency transfer fees associated with USDT. The network processes over 2.46 million transactions per day, with an average transaction fee of approximately $0.85, which aligns closely with the actual cost of transferring USDT.

As of now, Tron’s total market capitalization has reached $26.96 billion, surpassing Mixue Bingcheng and firmly establishing itself as one of the leading global public chains. It also maintains a strong position as a core platform for stablecoin on-chain circulation.

The “Nostalgic Acquisition” of BitTorrent

In the summer of 2018, beyond the creation of Tron, Justin Sun made a move that seemed even more "out of the box" at the time—he acquired an "outdated" download tool, BitTorrent, for $140 million.

BitTorrent is a name that might ring familiar to many born in the 80s and 90s. Founded in 2001, it was the first large-scale peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing protocol to gain global traction. At its peak, around 40% of global internet traffic came through the BitTorrent protocol. In an era before the dominance of centralized internet platforms, BitTorrent embodied the collective imagination of an entire generation for "freedom of downloads."

However, for Justin Sun, this was not merely a "nostalgic acquisition." Acquiring the BitTorrent client was just the beginning. What he truly envisioned was to bring the entire BitTorrent protocol onto the blockchain—to enable the "rebirth" of this legacy P2P network.

Shortly after the acquisition, Justin Sun launched the BTT token, using the TRC-10 standard, alongside the introduction of the "BitTorrent Speed" project. In this system, users could pay BTT to achieve faster download speeds while uploaders could earn BTT rewards by seeding files.

This vision appears promising, but its implementation is not so straightforward.

As of now, the circulating supply of BTT is 986 trillion tokens, with a price of approximately $0.00000068, a total market cap of about $670 million, and a 24-hour trading volume consistently hovering around $10 million. The annualized trading volume exceeds $2.6 billion. Although it is still down approximately 78% from its all-time high of $0.00000304 reached in January 2022, in today’s meme-coin-dominated market, such performance can be considered modest but acceptable.

Poloniex and HTX: Justin Sun's "Cash Flow"

For quite a long time, Justin Sun's secondary business in the crypto space has been cryptocurrency exchanges. He currently owns two exchanges: Poloniex and HTX (formerly Huobi).

Let’s start with Poloniex. This veteran exchange was initially acquired in February 2018 by crypto startup Circle for $400 million. At that time, Circle aimed to make Poloniex a compliance pioneer, but those plans didn’t last very long. In October 2019, Poloniex spun off from Circle with the backing of an Asian investment consortium and Justin Sun, pivoting toward a deep collaboration with TRON. This included integrations in areas such as the TRC20-USDT stablecoin, DeFi, and TRON-specific zones.

Fast forward to June 9, 2022: Justin Sun made another move. In collaboration with PoloniDEX Reserve Fund and several well-known investment firms, he formally acquired Poloniex and rebranded its Chinese name to "TRON Exchange." This acquisition was seen as a strategic step to fill the gap in TRON’s ecosystem regarding the lack of an exchange platform. It marked the beginning of a new "public chain + exchange" dual-engine growth phase for TRON. As of now, Poloniex registers a daily trading volume of approximately $500 million.

Just a few months later, in October of the same year, Justin Sun turned his attention to another veteran exchange—Huobi, now rebranded as HTX.

He first joined HTX's Global Advisory Board as a global advisor, announcing his ambition to drive internationalization and upgrade the HTX ecosystem. Soon, HTX’s executive team underwent significant reshuffles. Ultimately, through the Hong Kong-based asset management firm About Capital, Justin Sun acquired HTX’s equity for $1 billion, stepping in as an advisor. Currently, HTX remains one of the top 10 cryptocurrency exchanges by market share, with a daily trading volume of $2.4 billion.

Data Source: coingecko

In February 2018, Poloniex was first acquired by the crypto startup Circle for $400 million. By October 2019, the exchange broke away from Circle with the support of an Asian investment group as well as Justin Sun, marking the start of collaboration with Tron in areas such as the TRC20-USDT stablecoin, decentralized finance (DeFi), and the TRON trading zone. This allowed Poloniex to transition from being North America-centric to a globally recognized platform.

On June 9, 2022, TRON founder Justin Sun announced the acquisition of the well-known trading platform Poloniex in collaboration with Poloniex Reserve and several prominent investment institutions. In parallel, the platform was rebranded under the TRON trading platform as its Chinese community brand. This acquisition addressed the lack of an exchange platform within the TRON blockchain ecosystem, symbolizing the official launch of TRON's dual-engine strategic model of "blockchain + exchange platform."

In October 2022, Justin Sun joined the HTX Global Advisory Board and announced plans to expand HTX Global's strategic initiatives and enhance its international brand promotion. As of now, HTX remains ranked among the top 10 crypto exchanges by trading volume, reaching an impressive $2.4 billion in daily volume.

USDD, TUSD, and WBTC

Beyond blockchain and exchanges, stablecoins and wrapped Bitcoin also form an indispensable part of Justin Sun's crypto business strategy.

USDD, TUSD, and WBTC are the three tokens closely associated with Justin Sun, and they represent his pivotal moves in the realms of stablecoins and cross-chain assets.

First, let's talk about USDD. USDD is a decentralized stablecoin personally spearheaded by Justin Sun. It is issued and managed by the Tron DAO Reserve. According to the latest data, USDD's on-chain market capitalization is approximately $432 million, ranking around 10th among stablecoins by market capitalization.

Data Source: Coinmarketcap

Speaking of TUSD. Although TUSD ostensibly does not fall under Justin Sun's personal assets, multiple on-chain evidence and fund flow analyses have essentially confirmed his shadow holding position. Since 2023, TUSD has become a critical liquidity support asset for TRON and HTX. However, this piece on the chessboard isn’t without its liabilities: TUSD has faced multiple de-pegging incidents due to controversies surrounding custody and audits and has been targeted by the SEC with lawsuits. In 2024, Binance delisted its major trading pairs, and by 2025, it was entirely delisted in the EU following the implementation of MiCA regulations, with only withdrawal channels remaining. To stabilize the situation, Justin Sun had to personally fork out over $400 million at the beginning of 2025 to prop up TUSD, further tying the stablecoin firmly under his control. Currently, TUSD’s market capitalization stands at $492.6 million.

Source: CoinMarketCap

Lastly, we have WBTC (Wrapped Bitcoin), an ERC-20 token issued on the Ethereum network. It was first proposed in 2017 and officially introduced with its whitepaper in 2019, pegged 1:1 to Bitcoin. Each WBTC is backed by an equivalent Bitcoin held in reserve, managed via a custodian institution (currently Bitgo), ensuring that WBTC holders can redeem it for Bitcoin at any time.

Although WBTC is not a project directly controlled by him, this heavyweight asset within the TRON stablecoin framework is perceived by some foreign media as an encapsulated Bitcoin under Justin Sun’s direct oversight. Related reading: 《Why Did Justin Sun’s Involvement in WBTC Trigger Such Strong Market Reactions?》

According to the latest data from CoinMarketCap, WBTC’s market capitalization has reached a staggering $13.784 billion, making it one of the largest Bitcoin-pegged assets globally.

Source: CoinMarketCap

DLive: Justin Sun Has a Live Streaming Platform?

Compared to some of the previous projects, DLive might seem a bit niche.

Initially, DLive was a decentralized live streaming platform built on the Lino Chain. By the end of 2019, it was acquired by BitTorrent, after which the entire team and its tech stack transitioned into the TRON ecosystem.

Behind this integration was yet another strategic move by Justin Sun in his pursuit of the "content platform + blockchain" trajectory. DLive incorporated BTFS (BitTorrent File System) for decentralized storage, while the BTT token was utilized for tipping streamers and as an incentive for content distribution, creating a closed-loop ecosystem entirely powered by blockchain from creation to storage to tipping and revenue sharing. Additionally, DLive shared its user account system with platforms like BitTorrent, uTorrent, and Steemit, gradually positioning BTT as the "universal token" within this content ecosystem.

For this reason, DLive even managed to attract high-profile international streamers like PewDiePie, which led to a steady increase in monthly active users. It became one of the most traffic-heavy content platforms within the TRON ecosystem. However, the platform's relaxed community management sowed the seeds for future challenges.

The top global streamer PewDiePie live streaming on DLive

In early 2021, DLive came under heavy criticism from media and regulatory bodies after users streamed the U.S. Capitol riots on the platform, raising concerns about its content moderation and risk control mechanisms.

The Art Arsenal: APENFT Marketplace

Mention Justin Sun, and beyond being a businessman, perhaps his most notable identity is that of a fervent art collector. His portfolio includes a long list of world-class masterpieces: original works by Picasso, Andy Warhol, Giacometti, and Basquiat are all part of his collection. Most recently, his $6.2 million purchase of an art piece featuring "a single banana" propelled him to the top of trending topics.

As a top-tier art collector, it’s hardly surprising that Justin Sun also owns an NFT trading platform.

On March 29, 2021, Justin Sun officially registered the APENFT Foundation in Singapore, aiming to leverage this platform to bridge the gap between traditional art and the NFT world. The core mission of APENFT is straightforward: on one hand, acquire top-tier traditional artworks and NFT pieces as underlying assets; on the other hand, incubate young NFT artists by building bridges for their development. Additionally, the foundation sponsors galleries, organizes exhibitions, establishes awards, supports art criticism and research, and provides a blockchain-based pathway for the global art community.

To ensure better security for on-chain art, APENFT has chosen Ethereum and TRON as its dual-layer foundation technology. Ethereum is used for enabling smart contracts and achieving global recognition, while TRON provides high throughput and low gas fees to meet real-world implementation needs. Justin Sun’s earlier venture, the BTFS (BitTorrent File System), has also been integrated to offer decentralized storage, ensuring that artwork files remain accessible, tamper-proof, and protected from single-point failures.

Starting in 2021, the APENFT Marketplace officially went live as an NFT marketplace based on TRON, focusing on digitizing these top-tier artworks and fragmenting them into NFTs for issuance. This allows global users to own "fractionalized ownership rights" of these collections. In 2022, Justin Sun spent tens of millions of dollars acquiring collectibles like "The Digital Zodiac Heads," "The Nose," and "Reclining Nude with Necklace," which were directly donated to the APENFT Foundation to further enhance its influence in the digital art space.

Capitalize on the traffic from the TRON community, Justin Sun’s innate ability to generate buzz, and the TRON network's ultra-low transaction fees—less than $1—APENFT Marketplace quickly attracted a large number of creators and players. Justin Sun also pledged that 100% of the transaction fees collected by the platform would be used for buying back and burning the platform's token. Additionally, various activities like speed contests and hackathons have been launched, turning the NFT space into a bustling and dynamic ecosystem.

Currently, the market capitalization of the APENFT Marketplace platform token, $NFT, stands at $420 million.

From TRON to BitTorrent, from Poloniex to HTX, and to stablecoins like USDD, TUSD, and WBTC—these "liquidity cash pools" capable of mobilizing on-chain capital at any time—alongside APENFT Marketplace, this "on-chain art museum."

In under a decade, Justin Sun has refined his business empire in the crypto industry, spanning public blockchains, trading platforms, stablecoins, NFTs, cross-chain solutions, and even international politics, into a comprehensive and cohesive ecosystem.

Behind this seemingly decentralized yet highly interconnected network, based on data found by Rhythm BlockBeats, the core assets held by Justin Sun are estimated to exceed $43 billion in market value.

Now, with a $100 million acquisition of SRM Entertainment, Justin Sun has successfully brought TRON onto the Nasdaq through a backdoor listing. His greatest confidence may stem from the increasingly warming connections with the Trump family network behind the scenes.

Justin Sun and His Love-Hate Relationship with America

Justin Sun's ties with America trace back to his days as a student at the University of Pennsylvania.

In 2011, while pursuing a master’s degree in East Asian Studies, he packed his elective courses with investment, entrepreneurship, and venture capital classes at Wharton Business School. In his spare time, he co-created "Three Amigos Abroad," a video program showcasing the life of Chinese international students, which became a hit on platforms like Youku, Bilibili, and YouTube, even catching the attention of CCTV.

It was during this time that Justin Sun was introduced to the concept of Bitcoin through Reddit and campus tech communities. Compared to today's $100,000 range, Bitcoin was an absolute bargain at merely $10 back then. He started making small investments and gradually increased his holdings.

By the end of 2013, Justin Sun gave up an opportunity to pursue further studies in law school and joined Ripple Labs as one of the earliest evangelists of the Ripple protocol in China. In 2014, he returned to China, secured funding from IDG Capital, and founded Raybo Technologies. Despite enduring challenges such as the ICO ban, a dissident founding team, fleeing overseas, and being mocked as the "Jia Yueting of the crypto world," he managed to persist and survive.

However, in the eyes of the Biden administration, Justin Sun has always been a "troublesome agitator on the blockchain."

In 2023, the U.S. SEC officially filed a lawsuit against him, accusing him of manipulating the prices of TRX and BTT and illegally selling unregistered securities. Even the celebrities who endorsed him—such as Akon, Ne-Yo, Soulja Boy, Lindsay Lohan, and Jake Paul—were fined. As a result, he has been unable to enter the United States for years.

Justin Sun understands that in a politically volatile United States, no setback is permanent, and no story is beyond redemption. For him, the 2024 presidential election might just be the best opportunity to make a comeback.

Back when the old-guard financial titans on Wall Street were just dipping their toes into cryptocurrencies and U.S. politicians were embroiled in heated debates over crypto regulation, Justin Sun had already quietly set the stage. "I believed early on that President Trump would bring many positive impacts to the crypto space. After his election, the entire crypto world transformed significantly," he once told the media.

The Trump family has boldly bet on the cryptocurrency industry and personally participated in the World Liberty Financial project. From the end of last year to this year, Justin Sun poured a total of $75 million into the project, earning him the title of the "top contributor." As a result, he was appointed as a core advisor for the project by the Trump family.

Meanwhile, HTX, under Justin Sun's stewardship, became the first exchange to list WLFI's new stablecoin, USD1. Advisor? Check. Capital? Check. Platform? Check. Having connected all the dots, Sun even went on to become the largest whale of the Trump Coin ($Trump), holding 1.43 million tokens valued at about $23 million.

Shortly thereafter, the Trump team officially announced plans to invite the top 220 $Trump holders to a private dinner. Justin Sun wasted no time, taking to Twitter to reveal his position as the largest holder. It’s reported that Trump only attended the dinner for about half an hour, leaving the latter part of the evening to become what many netizens jokingly dubbed the "Justin Sun Dinner Show."

Justin Sun was presented with a gold watch at Trump’s dinner as the largest holder of Trump Coin

"I see myself as a bridge between the crypto industry and the president, and to some extent, perhaps even a future bridge for China-U.S. communication," Sun said in an interview. "My original intention was to establish good relations with the Trump family and bring more people from the traditional world into the blockchain sphere. We will maintain long-term and continuous collaboration with President Trump's cryptocurrency project to advance the development and progress of the entire industry."

Left: Justin Sun; Right: Donald Trump Jr.

For an entrepreneur, beyond the numbers in their accounts, what they value most is freedom. Compared to Binance's CZ, who paid an astronomical $4.4 billion fine to secure his ability to freely enter and exit the United States, the cost Justin Sun bore seems comparatively negligible.

Therefore, regarding his return to the United States, Justin Sun appeared quite delighted. Not only did he visit various places and enterprises, but he also posted several tweets expressing his apparent "admiration" for Trump.

From being a "quasi-suspect" pursued by the FBI and SEC to now flaunting a gold watch gifted by the President at the White House, Justin Sun navigated through this crypto-political spectacle in the way he knows best. The story seems to have reached its pinnacle.

However, for "Brother Sun," who is obsessed with making money, it’s very likely that he doesn’t plan to stop here.

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