be Justin Sun - born in China - studies at Peking University - later attends the University of Pennsylvania - discovers Bitcoin around 2012 - becomes obsessed with crypto - works briefly at Ripple in 2014 - begins building his own projects 2017 - launches TRON - raises about $70M during the ICO boom - promises a faster, cheaper Ethereum alternative 2018 - TRON migrates from an ERC-20 token to its own blockchain - launches with Delegated Proof-of-Stake - buys BitTorrent in a surprise acquisition - TRON quickly becomes one of the largest USDT networks 2019 - wins a charity auction to have lunch with Warren Buffett - pays $4.57M - promises to convince Buffett that crypto is the future 2020 - acquires Steemit Inc. - tries to take control of the Steem blockchain - developers fork the chain - the new blockchain becomes Hive 2022 - launches USDD - an algorithmic stablecoin backed partly by TRX and reserves 2023 - hackers hit platforms linked to Sun - Poloniex loses over $100M - HTX and Heco Chain lose about $115M - Sun promises users will be reimbursed March 2023 - the SEC sues Justin Sun - accuses him of selling unregistered securities - alleges wash trading of TRX - claims 600,000 fake trades inflated volume - also charges several celebrities including - Lindsay Lohan - Jake Paul - Soulja Boy for promoting TRX and BTT without disclosure 2024–2025 - the case drags on - Sun continues promoting TRON - TRON becomes one of the largest USDT settlement chains March 2026 - SEC case reaches settlement - Rainberry (BitTorrent developer) pays $10M - charges against Justin Sun personally are dismissed Today - TRON still processes billions in stablecoin transfers Sun promotes new narratives - AI agents - Web 4.0 the founder who turned hype into a $25B blockchain