A Justin Sun is surrounded by marketing news, immersed in traffic, and has a dazzling halo of wealth, so that his face is blurred. He is the "Brother Sun" that netizens tease in group chats.
Produced by/New Business Review
In March this year, 5,689 bitcoins were deposited into an offline device and locked deep inside the El Salvador National Treasury. The president excitedly said, "This is our first bitcoin piggy bank."
Three years ago, this small Central American country passed a proposal to become the first country in the world to recognize Bitcoin as legal tender. Despite the global pessimism, Justin Sun was one of the few people who tweeted in support, and was liked and retweeted by the president.
Compared to those gossips, Justin Sun tweet was rarely mentioned. It was not until the bull market came again three years later that people realized that El Salvador had won and Justin Sun was still on the field.
The latest case is that TRON and Huobi HTX, which he led, reached a brand strategic cooperation with Singapore national team goalkeeper Hassan Sunny. Sunny will serve as the chief security officer and brand spokesperson for TRON and Huobi HTX.
Misleading and neglecting run through the fragments of stories about Justin Sun In fact, in the eyes of the public, there are two Justin Sun.
A Justin Sun is surrounded by marketing news, immersed in traffic, and has a dazzling halo of wealth, so that his face is blurred. He is the "Brother Sun" that netizens tease in group chats.
Under the shadow of Justin Sun’s halo, another Justin Sun who is closer to the real person is often overlooked: he is a serial entrepreneur, a professional trader, a believer in long-termism, and a calm hunter in financial games.
The story of the crypto is less than ten years old, but it has been full of twists and turns. Almost all stories have both positive and negative sides. However, whether it is deification or demonization, it is not the best perspective to observe Justin Sun The most scarce perspective at the moment is "normal".
When we remove all filters, return to blockchain finance itself, and look at Justin Sun again, we will find that he has gone through the shock cycle.
Become one of the few survivors left on the field.
1. Go through 3 "cursed moments"
In March 2024, as the Bitcoin market recovers, the virtual asset market enters a new cycle.
TRON, founded by Justin Justin Sun in 2017, achieved a record high of $2.31 million in network revenue on March 5. By the end of May this year, its number of accounts exceeded 233 million, the number of transactions exceeded 7.73 billion, and the market value of stablecoins on the chain exceeded $59.8 billion, all breaking historical records. The number of daily active users ranked first in the public chain market.
The sound of drums is getting more and more urgent. According to statistics from Coingecko, a cryptocurrency market data platform, in February this year, the total market value of the cryptocurrency market returned to $2 trillion after two years. The head of Goldman Sachs Digital Assets Asia Pacific said that customers have rekindled their strong interest in the crypto market, and indicators such as the number of new customers, trading activity, and overall trading volume are on the rise.
"Over the past 60 days, $8 billion worth of net new demand has poured into nine new Bitcoin ETFs," said Matt Barensweig, managing director of digital asset trust company BitGo Go Network. "We are seeing historic, record-breaking activity levels. This trend suggests that Pandora's box in the cryptocurrency market has been opened, and more funds will flow in in the future."
Everything is in line with Justin Sun’s judgment of the market, and this bull market is hard-won, and it has to go through three "cursed moments" before it arrives.
Since its inception, Satoshi Nakamoto has established rules for Bitcoin: the reward for Bitcoin will be halved every time 210,000 blocks are generated, until the block reward is 0 in 2140, when all Bitcoins have been issued, and the final total issuance amount will be constant at 21 million.
This cycle is converted into time, that is, every four years, the mining reward of Bitcoin miners will be halved, and the growth rate of the total amount of Bitcoin will drop sharply. According to the theory of supply and demand, when the supply decreases, the price will rise and enter a new round of market cycle.
This node will come again in mid-April 2024.
Looking back, after the three "cursed moments" in 2012, 2016, and 2020, Bitcoin will experience a round of rising prices, and then fluctuate downward until the next "cursed moment" comes.
Therefore, people regard April 2024 as the starting point of a new round of bull market. Everyone wants to compete for the ticket to enter the market, and the price of Bitcoin rises and reaches the 70,000 yuan mark in March 2024, and repeatedly sets new historical highs.
Some commentators predict that the price of Bitcoin will reach $100,000 per coin by the end of the year, according to a report from multi-asset broker Tickmill Group.
The craze has returned. In an interview, Justin Sun said that large-scale adoption in the industry is approaching realization. The approval of the Bitcoin spot ETF and the increase in the number of global user registrations are important signals of this trend.
He predicts that cryptocurrencies will become part of the global financial infrastructure, similar to the popularity of social media.
Justin Sun's judgment spread quickly on social media. People trusted his judgment, especially based on his identity as a "retainer".
Those who survive the cryptocurrency bear market and remain in the market are the minority who can get through the cycle and see the trend clearly.
2. What did Justin Sun do right?
Justin Sun became a survivor, which exceeded many people's judgment.
For those who stay away from crypto investment, what they have learned in recent years is more about the pool villa he rented in Singapore, the NFT avatar he bought at a huge expense, the personal bodyguards and bulletproof vests, and the private jet of Xu Jiayin that he bought at a huge expense.
He was like a motorcycle stunt rider, with the audience watching from a distance as he sped alone, completing a series of complex and exaggerated performances.
The most widely circulated thing about him is his smile. In the jokes, he is "Sun Ge". There is a saying in the world that "When Sun Ge smiles, life or death is unpredictable". Behind the joke is the controversy of cutting leeks.
These controversies were widely circulated along with marketing news and became part of Justin Sun public image.
That is another trader, Justin Sun, who is not only a marketer, but also a market maker. Compared with the news of events he has led before, what is more worth observing is his layout methods in the bear market.
In fact, since the lunch with Buffett, Justin Sun has been much quieter, and most of his updates on X revolve around cryptocurrencies.
The cyclical fluctuations of cryptocurrencies are not only due to supply and demand, but also due to the intensity of policy supervision. The size of the window left by the policy determines the space for cryptocurrencies to flourish.
At the end of 2023, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the U.S. Department of Justice successively issued sky-high fines to the cryptocurrency exchange Binance, with a cumulative amount of US$4.3 billion. Today, the regulatory pressure faced by Binance seems to have come to an end, but it can be seen that the crypto asset market still faces severe compliance challenges.
Justin Sun's precise layout is reflected here. During the bear market, Justin Sun turned his main focus to compliance construction. In 2021, TRON and asset management company VanEck successfully launched TRX ETN on the German Stock Exchange and landed in the mainstream financial markets of 16 European countries. In 2022, TRON became the national public chain of Dominica, and TRON tokens have the status of legal tender in the country.
It is worth noting that CZ, founder of the cryptocurrency exchange Binance, also forwarded the news: Tron and Dominic have started a journey full of possibilities.
In terms of architecture, both TRON and Huobi HTX are promoting decentralization, especially TRON, which already has completely decentralized governance and is currently the largest decentralized organization (DAO).
While ensuring the stable operation of the platform in Europe and the United States, TRON is penetrating into the lower-tier markets around the world, focusing on emerging economies such as Southeast Asia, South America, and Africa.
Although the economic level is not developed, what Justin Sun sees is that the value of the local currency of these countries fluctuates greatly and bank branches are scarce. The Tron network can provide local people with payment services such as transfers and transactions.
In Justin Sun view, this is the value of TRON. He once said in an interview that most people in the world do not have bank accounts because banks do not want to serve them. "For people in most countries such as Vietnam, Argentina, and Turkey, the first time they have a crypto address is also the first time they use financial services in their lives."
The sinking world has contributed considerable transaction volume to cryptocurrencies. In the past 30 days, the average number of transactions per day on TRON has exceeded 6.32 million, an increase of 11.5% from the previous month. TRON's transfer speed and cost are much lower than those of BTC and ETH networks (the transfer cost is only about 15% of the former two), making it the most important transfer protocol.
Compared with traditional finance or other transaction chains, TRON has lower costs and is cheaper and more affordable. People can sell virtual assets when they are bearish on Bitcoin, but they cannot easily abandon the TRON ecosystem.
Inclusive value rather than investment value is the anchor that Justin Sun has set in the bear market.
While sinking the anchor, Justin Sun is also reducing his own weight. He optimizes the structure of the platform, saves resources, reduces costs and increases efficiency. Data shows that in the first three quarters of 2023 (the fourth quarter results have not yet been completed), the entire group is in a profitable state, and the total profit continues to grow.
Justin Sun's three-pronged approach of compliance construction, sinking market layout, and cost reduction and efficiency improvement allowed him to safely survive the downward cycle of the virtual market and stand at the starting point of a new round of bull market.
In a recent interview, he was confident about the new cycle. “It will take time for 8 billion people to accept cryptocurrency, but it has become 100% certain. This is what I think is the biggest certainty, and this is what I think is very different from the last cycle.”
3. The Farthest Journey
On March 22, 2023, US time, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced a lawsuit against Justin Sun and his three wholly-owned companies.
Justin Sun believes that the US SEC’s digital asset regulatory framework is still in its infancy and needs further development. “Given the important role that the cryptocurrency industry can play, we are eager to work with governments and regulators around the world who are committed to establishing transparent regulatory and cooperative norms.”
Changes in the crypto are always rapid, but from a long-term development perspective, the most scarce thing in blockchain finance is long-termism.
An emerging technology and its track require a long period of construction. However, Justin Sun, who has always been out of touch with the news, is a long-termist, which may be the reason why he can survive the cycle.
This is also inconsistent with the perception of him by people outside the circle. Justin Sun in the hot news is flamboyant, smart, and impatient, while the other trader Justin Sun is calm, steady, and good at patience and waiting.
In 2017, when his TRON was born, sharing economy projects were flourishing, driverless cars were fined for crossing the line, the banner of new retail was waved, and Internet finance was flocking to the market.
Seven years later, the hype has faded. Sharing is rarely mentioned anymore. New retail has turned away. Internet finance has left a mess. The only tracks often mentioned in the news are AI and live streaming e-commerce. In the end, even entrepreneurs have become a distant word.
Seven years have passed, long-termism is no longer popular, and value investing has become a bygone dream. However, Justin Sun is still insisting on doing what he did seven years ago, and thus has survived the cycle.
This is actually another core of Justin SunBecause of persistence, he is not afraid of ups and downs, because of persistence, he can stay on the field, and because of persistence, he can become stronger and stronger.
In Justin Sun's iconic sly smile, there is actually the confidence of an idealist. Compared with those entrepreneurs chasing the wind, he believes more in the trend he has identified and believes that blockchain will lead to the future.
Currently, there are 300 million crypto-people in the world, 40% of whom are located in Asia, and the total number of TRON accounts has exceeded 200 million, which means that more than half of crypto users have joined the TRON ecosystem.
In 2007, the essay topic that Justin Sun won in the New Concept Essay Competition was "The Journey Starting From Here is the Longest", which was about ideals and ambitions.
The butterfly flapped its wings, and his journey began. This essay won him the first prize in the competition, allowing him to participate in the interview for Peking University's independent enrollment. After graduation, he went to the United States for graduate studies, came into contact with Bitcoin, and became one of the earliest holders of cryptocurrency.
In addition to writing essays, Justin Sun also chose the longest road. After passing through the "bear", there will be a longer and unknown journey waiting for him.
