Sun Yuchen (Justin Sun) @justinsuntron
Nicknames: Sun Ge / Sun Ge (割)
Born in 1990, he is 36 years old this year.
TRON @trondao founder, and one of the most prominent—and most controversial—Chinese entrepreneurs in the crypto industry over the past decade.
In 2007, he won first prize in the 9th New Concept Essay Competition. This earned him eligibility for Peking University’s independent admissions. After the college entrance exam, he entered Peking University’s Chinese Language and Literature program, later transferred to the History Department, and graduated early in 2011 as the top student in his grade.
That same year, he appeared on the cover of Asia Weekly. He then went to the University of Pennsylvania in the United States to pursue a master’s degree in East Asian Studies. During his time at Penn, he became exposed to Bitcoin and began investing in crypto assets.
At the end of 2013, he joined Ripple Labs as the Chief Representative for Greater China, becoming one of the earlier blockchain evangelists in China. After returning to China, he founded the voice social app “Im With You” (陪我) and the related company Raybo (锐波). In 2015, he entered the first cohort of the Lake Benaissance Institute founded by Jack Ma, at the time the only post-1990s student in the program.
What truly changed his trajectory was 2017. He founded TRON, positioning it as a decentralized content and smart contract platform. On the eve of China’s comprehensive crackdown on ICOs, he completed the token issuance, raising about $70 million.
After that, TRON expanded rapidly: in 2018, it acquired BitTorrent for about $140 million; it promoted TRC20-USDT, making TRON one of the world’s most prominent stablecoin settlement networks; and it also formed deep ties with exchanges such as Poloniex and Huobi (later renamed HTX).
By the mid-2020s, TRON had hundreds of millions of accounts. The amount of stablecoins on-chain has long ranked near the top. In 2025, a related company obtained a Nasdaq listing via a reverse merger, and the stock code was changed to TRON.
He is very good at jumping on trending topics and doing marketing.
In 2019, he paid about $4.57 million to bid for the opportunity to have lunch with Warren Buffett, briefly setting a record. Later, he also became a focus of public attention due to controversy over his itinerary.
In 2024, he paid about $6.2 million to buy the artwork “Comedian,” a banana by Cárten stuck to a wall with tape, and then ate it in public.
In August 2025, he completed a suborbital flight aboard Blue Origin’s new Shepard.
From late 2021 to 2022, he also served as the Grenada ambassador to the World Trade Organization. In recent years, organizations such as Forbes have estimated his net worth at around $8 billion, with his wealth mainly coming from crypto assets and equity in related platforms.
$TRX
Nicknames: Sun Ge / Sun Ge (割)
Born in 1990, he is 36 years old this year.
TRON @trondao founder, and one of the most prominent—and most controversial—Chinese entrepreneurs in the crypto industry over the past decade.
In 2007, he won first prize in the 9th New Concept Essay Competition. This earned him eligibility for Peking University’s independent admissions. After the college entrance exam, he entered Peking University’s Chinese Language and Literature program, later transferred to the History Department, and graduated early in 2011 as the top student in his grade.
That same year, he appeared on the cover of Asia Weekly. He then went to the University of Pennsylvania in the United States to pursue a master’s degree in East Asian Studies. During his time at Penn, he became exposed to Bitcoin and began investing in crypto assets.
At the end of 2013, he joined Ripple Labs as the Chief Representative for Greater China, becoming one of the earlier blockchain evangelists in China. After returning to China, he founded the voice social app “Im With You” (陪我) and the related company Raybo (锐波). In 2015, he entered the first cohort of the Lake Benaissance Institute founded by Jack Ma, at the time the only post-1990s student in the program.
What truly changed his trajectory was 2017. He founded TRON, positioning it as a decentralized content and smart contract platform. On the eve of China’s comprehensive crackdown on ICOs, he completed the token issuance, raising about $70 million.
After that, TRON expanded rapidly: in 2018, it acquired BitTorrent for about $140 million; it promoted TRC20-USDT, making TRON one of the world’s most prominent stablecoin settlement networks; and it also formed deep ties with exchanges such as Poloniex and Huobi (later renamed HTX).
By the mid-2020s, TRON had hundreds of millions of accounts. The amount of stablecoins on-chain has long ranked near the top. In 2025, a related company obtained a Nasdaq listing via a reverse merger, and the stock code was changed to TRON.
He is very good at jumping on trending topics and doing marketing.
In 2019, he paid about $4.57 million to bid for the opportunity to have lunch with Warren Buffett, briefly setting a record. Later, he also became a focus of public attention due to controversy over his itinerary.
In 2024, he paid about $6.2 million to buy the artwork “Comedian,” a banana by Cárten stuck to a wall with tape, and then ate it in public.
In August 2025, he completed a suborbital flight aboard Blue Origin’s new Shepard.
From late 2021 to 2022, he also served as the Grenada ambassador to the World Trade Organization. In recent years, organizations such as Forbes have estimated his net worth at around $8 billion, with his wealth mainly coming from crypto assets and equity in related platforms.
$TRX
