The crypto world is never short of drama, but Sun Yucheng, the so-called 'King of Cutting' among post-90s, has once again pushed absurdity to the limit with his latest move—just hours after spending $75 million to align himself with the Trump family, he turned around and betrayed them, causing the Trump family a loss of 19.3 billion RMB while he personally reaped huge profits.
These past few days, WLFI, the crypto company under the Trump family, suddenly blacklisted Sun Yucheng's wallet address, freezing all 540 million unlocked tokens and 2.4 billion unvested tokens he held. A political-business alliance ultimately collapsed due to Sun Yucheng's deeply ingrained speculative nature.
🤯 The iconic backstab! The story of investing 75 million to become the 'top brother' and then cashing out on retail investors’ losses begins with a mutually beneficial alliance.
The Trump family started a crypto company, WLFI (World Liberty Financial Inc.), leveraging Trump’s political endorsement to gain attention in the crypto space, focusing on cryptocurrencies and stablecoin business.
Understanding the art of 'latching onto influencers', Sun Ge wasted no time dropping 75 million to purchase WLFI tokens, directly entering the ranks of core investors, even snagging a WLFI advisor title, getting close to the Trump family, and was invited to private presidential dinners, briefly becoming Trump’s 'top brother' in the crypto world.
On September 1, WLFI tokens officially launched, allowing early investors to unlock 20% of their holdings, and new retail investors flocked in, causing the token price to surge temporarily; many thought, 'Following Trump means guaranteed profits.' But the celebration was short-lived—token prices suddenly crashed, dropping over 40%, leaving retail investors stunned—entry price was 0.3 dollars, now only 0.18 dollars, resulting in a 40% loss.
Upon investigation, the hidden hand revealed itself: a mysterious account sold off over 100 million tokens in one go, cashing out 9 million dollars and directly causing market panic. The owner of this account turned out to be Sun Ge.
You should know that before the listing, Sun Ge boldly declared, 'The future of finance lies in WLFI; I will be a long-term investor,' only to turn around and embody the 'King of Cuts'. Furious, WLFI directly blacklisted his address, freezing all tokens; Sun Ge quickly shifted blame, claiming it was just a 'test for exchange deposits, not a real sale', even publicly crying for WLFI to unfreeze, but the market simply didn’t buy it.
The most ironic part is that Sun Ge made a profit throughout. His early investment cost was only 0.026 dollars per token, and even with the price plummeting, his tokens are still valued at 530 million dollars, with floating profits as high as 6 times; meanwhile, the Trump family lost 2.7 billion dollars (around 19.3 billion RMB) due to this crash, completely severing their partnership.
🔪 From Peking University speculator to 'King of Cuts': Sun Yuchen's playbook is all about profit. His life script revolves solely around 'speculation'.
As a post-90s guy, he’s sharp but doesn’t follow the norm—mediocre grades led him to switch from sciences to humanities, targeting a new concept essay competition to overtake, studying the strategies of Han Han and Guo Jingming, and landing a spot at Peking University through a first prize in self-recruitment, showcasing a 'from third-tier to Peking University' narrative.
At Peking University, he didn’t focus on his studies: mediocre grades in the Chinese department led him to switch to history, where he became an 'opinion leader' by writing 'manifestos' against the school administration, falsely claiming he was 'imprisoned' while running for student council president. Later, he aced his way into UPenn's history department, aiming straight for Wharton to build connections and make money.
After starting his business, he maximized his 'hype' talent: spending big to attend forums, gracing magazine covers, donating 1.5 million dollars to snag the title of 'Jack Ma's disciple', flaunting high-end brands like Prada and GUCCI, with former colleagues stating that his desire for money was extreme. What truly made him the 'King of Cuts' was TRON (TRX). In July 2017, TRX's ICO raised over 70 million dollars in just two months, but the ICO was abruptly halted in September. Forewarned, Sun Ge fled to the U.S. with a massive sum, making TRX a 'star coin' with a market cap of 200 billion—his method was brutally simple: he spread positive news in San Francisco while his domestic team pumped the price, cashing out with billions in profits as the price skyrocketed. Even more ruthless, he cut not just retail investors but also large partners, stating bluntly, 'These big players have money but no brains; they can be manipulated easily.'
There’s another iconic moment: he swapped tokens with a crypto mogul for keepsake; the mogul sincerely gave him quite a bit, but he turned around and sold all the tokens, making 30 million, causing the other party's tokens to crash and leaving them empty-handed.
As he himself said: 'I measure a person by how much money they make.'
💰 Asset exposure of 165 billion! Surviving on hype, escaping with Trump's help?
Just how rich is Sun Ge? Bloomberg's operations stripped him bare: using the 'global billionaires index' as bait, he agreed to disclose his assets under the promise of confidentiality, only to have everything exposed—600 billion TRX, 17,000 bitcoins, 224,000 ethers, 700,000 USDT, totaling approximately 23.1 billion dollars (165 billion RMB) at current prices.
To safeguard these fortunes, Sun Ge hyped for attention while spending money to 'pave the way': he spent 33 million to bid on a lunch with Buffett but flaked, 45 million to buy a banana like Buffett's and ate it on the spot, and 28 million for a commercial space flight with Amazon, hyping himself as the 'youngest Chinese commercial astronaut'—all these moves were just to boost his profile for better precision in cutting retail investors.
His biggest trouble is the SEC's accusations. In 2023, the SEC sued him for issuing tokens without registration and market manipulation; lawyers estimate that if found guilty, he could face 25 years in prison. To escape charges, he frequently changed nationalities (Malta, St. Kitts and Nevis, finally settling in Grenada), even snagging a 'WTO ambassador' title, and was elected as the acting prime minister of the blockchain virtual 'nation' Liberland. Only after currying favor with Trump did the SEC pause their investigation into him.
But now, backstabbing Trump is undoubtedly cutting off his own path. For Sun Ge, there’s no 'friendship' to speak of, only eternal interests—initially, he latched onto Trump for absolution, and now he cashes out for profit; even if it means tearing faces, as long as there’s money to be made, it doesn’t matter.
💡 There are no true friends in crypto, only profit calculations. The fallout between Sun Ge and the Trump family is just a microcosm of the profit battles in the crypto space.
From speculating into Peking University through new concept essays to manipulating tokens to harvest retail investors, and leveraging political connections to survive, every step Sun Ge takes is precisely on the node of 'maximizing profit'. He never hides his thirst for money, nor does he adhere to any unwritten rules; backstabbing big shots, cutting retail investors, hyping personas—all his actions revolve around the word 'profit'.
This also exposed the harsh truth of the crypto world: the so-called 'mutual benefit' and 'long-term investment' are merely a facade for profit collusion. Once their own interests are at stake, turning against each other happens faster than flipping a book. The WLFI incident is still unfolding; whether Sun Ge's tokens can be unfrozen and if the SEC will restart their investigation remains uncertain. But one thing is sure: as long as there’s space for speculation, 'Sun Ges' won’t stop their harvesting.
💬 Discussion topic: What do you think about Sun Ge backstabbing Trump? What other bizarre hype tactics do you know he has employed? Let’s chat in the comments～