Sun Yuchen’s money—why Bloomberg only recognizes half
How much money does Sun Yuchen actually have? It depends on who you ask.
When Forbes updated its rich list in 2025, it interviewed him. He reported it as $40 billion. In the end, Forbes only recognized $8.5 billion, for a very straightforward reason: Sun Yuchen did not authorize his crypto wallets, so any parts that couldn’t be verified were simply excluded.
Bloomberg also contacted Sun Yuchen’s financial team last year and obtained wallet information. More than 6.0 billion TRX, 17,000 BTC, 224,000 ETH, 700 million USDT—plus HTX’s 90% equity stake. Based on then-current prices, that adds up to a paper net worth of $23 billion.
But Bloomberg was only willing to endorse $12 billion. The missing $11 billion is almost entirely in TRX. Bloomberg applied a 75% liquidity discount to TRX and counted only 25% as actual value. The reason isn’t mysterious. The batch of TRX Sun Yuchen holds has a single-address position that exceeds 60% of the circulating supply. If he tried to sell it at market prices, the price would drop before his tokens could be sold off. So while the on-paper figure is $23 billion, the portion that can be treated as “real money”—liquid and realizable—is only $12 billion.
That difference is the key. Old money and new elites don’t really hold much cash either, but when they do need to use money, their path to liquidation is much shorter. Sun Yuchen’s wealth is highly concentrated in TRX—a super-concentrated position. His truly liquid assets are far lower than the book number.
Even funnier, Sun Yuchen later sued Bloomberg. His logic was: I show you my wallet so you can confirm I’m not lying and add up the totals—you’re not supposed to write out the details of my holdings. If you publicly reveal that my TRX holdings are more than 60% of the circulating supply, how am I supposed to run?
In the end, the lawsuit ended with him withdrawing it. There’s no evidence Bloomberg promised confidentiality, so the case couldn’t go forward.
Whether it’s $8.5 billion or $12 billion, both are astronomical figures for ordinary people. I also don’t believe Sun Yuchen specifically went to ask an AI whether it should give $50 million—but the confidence behind his remark—that even if it did, it wouldn’t affect existing assets—seems to hold. $50 million divided by $12 billion is 0.4%. Put that into the shoes of someone with just $10,000, and it’s like $40.
It’s just that most people genuinely don’t care about $40. Sun Yuchen does—so he keeps his money tightly controlled, and that’s how he’s made it to today. The irony of this whole episode is more interesting than the numbers themselves.
How much money does Sun Yuchen actually have? It depends on who you ask.
When Forbes updated its rich list in 2025, it interviewed him. He reported it as $40 billion. In the end, Forbes only recognized $8.5 billion, for a very straightforward reason: Sun Yuchen did not authorize his crypto wallets, so any parts that couldn’t be verified were simply excluded.
Bloomberg also contacted Sun Yuchen’s financial team last year and obtained wallet information. More than 6.0 billion TRX, 17,000 BTC, 224,000 ETH, 700 million USDT—plus HTX’s 90% equity stake. Based on then-current prices, that adds up to a paper net worth of $23 billion.
But Bloomberg was only willing to endorse $12 billion. The missing $11 billion is almost entirely in TRX. Bloomberg applied a 75% liquidity discount to TRX and counted only 25% as actual value. The reason isn’t mysterious. The batch of TRX Sun Yuchen holds has a single-address position that exceeds 60% of the circulating supply. If he tried to sell it at market prices, the price would drop before his tokens could be sold off. So while the on-paper figure is $23 billion, the portion that can be treated as “real money”—liquid and realizable—is only $12 billion.
That difference is the key. Old money and new elites don’t really hold much cash either, but when they do need to use money, their path to liquidation is much shorter. Sun Yuchen’s wealth is highly concentrated in TRX—a super-concentrated position. His truly liquid assets are far lower than the book number.
Even funnier, Sun Yuchen later sued Bloomberg. His logic was: I show you my wallet so you can confirm I’m not lying and add up the totals—you’re not supposed to write out the details of my holdings. If you publicly reveal that my TRX holdings are more than 60% of the circulating supply, how am I supposed to run?
In the end, the lawsuit ended with him withdrawing it. There’s no evidence Bloomberg promised confidentiality, so the case couldn’t go forward.
Whether it’s $8.5 billion or $12 billion, both are astronomical figures for ordinary people. I also don’t believe Sun Yuchen specifically went to ask an AI whether it should give $50 million—but the confidence behind his remark—that even if it did, it wouldn’t affect existing assets—seems to hold. $50 million divided by $12 billion is 0.4%. Put that into the shoes of someone with just $10,000, and it’s like $40.
It’s just that most people genuinely don’t care about $40. Sun Yuchen does—so he keeps his money tightly controlled, and that’s how he’s made it to today. The irony of this whole episode is more interesting than the numbers themselves.
