Justin Sun is a famous Chinese cryptocurrency business player and businessman. Also, he is the founder and CEO of TRON, BitTorrent, and Peiwo. However, how much is this cryptoprenuer worth?
The young entrepreneur created Peiwo, a voice streaming app that has garnered well over 10 million users so far. Sun also reportedly took part in an auction organized by the Glide Foundation. The auction supports homeless people in San Francisco. He emerged victorious after winning with a bid of $4.57 million, and his prize was a lunch rendezvous with Warren Buffet.
The TRON CEO acknowledges his role in promoting cryptocurrencies to a broader audience. The TRON platform intends to bring content creators closer to their users, reducing the need for costly intermediaries. Such as for streaming platforms, app stores, and so on.
All kinds of these services are criticized for their strict policies and high commissions. It makes the existence of an ecosystem like TRON vital.
Justin Sun’s net worth is one of the highest in the cryptocurrency sector. This is because he is a very influential figure in the crypto world. Because he is so famous, and his most recent projects such as TRON are working well, people are very curious to find out how rich he is, and what his net worth is.
As you read on, you will realize that Justin Sun has led a very interesting life, working on different projects. Justin Sun’s high net worth has been contributed to by all his failures and successes.
The TRON CEO’s name appears in the leading headlines quite often. The TRON founder’s activities inspire rumors and speculations about Sun’s tense relations with the Chinese government.
Throughout the years, Sun has been attacked by colleagues who question his project’s originality and value. However, we can’t deny that Justin is a wealthy and successful businessman. In fact, we believe that Justin Sun net worth is somewhere between $235 and $410 million.
The native coin of the TRON ecosystem is one of the top 20 cryptocurrencies by market cap. One of the best BTC/TRX rates can be found there. For in depth details regarding how Justin Sun became the person he is and how we calculated his wealth, you can read the following article.
Early Life
Justin was born in July 1990 in Xining, the capital of Qinghai province, the biggest city on the Tibetan Plateau. When Sun was 5, his family relocated to Huizhou. Some reports insist that Sun is from a small town because such a biography “fact” fits the American Dream better. Notably, Huizhou and Xining are not that small and have millions in their communities.
Sūn Yǔchén is Justin Sun’s birth name. From his earliest days, Justin aspired to be famous. This desire to get recognized started from his tough early years. This was when his parents parted ways and spent a lot of time arguing in front of Sun.
He was in elementary school when he started being negatively affected by the dysfunction in his family. The desire for attention was fueling him while he was studying and communicating with others. Long before his TRON career, Justin Sun’s creed which defined his attitude was “must-win.” Sun attended his middle school in Huizhou, which wasn’t a notable educational institution.
While writing the exams, Sun rebelled against the test system. He gave all the Chinese test responses in English and wrote the English test answers in Chinese. As for the History exam, Justin used his teacher’s name instead of the historical personalities he didn’t like.
Career Genesis
While at school, Justin Sun changed studies several times. He was fond of many subjects but he didn’t feel he could become number one in any spheres. As a teenager, Sun spent most of his time in the library inspired by Chinese writers such as Li Ao, Wang Xiaobo, and most of all, the young scandalous Han Han. Actually, in 2007 he published several novels in Sprout magazine, the publication that kickstarted Han Han’s writing career, but Sun’s work didn’t find any success.
Although the writing path didn’t play out for Justin, fortune came from the other place: he successfully enrolled at Peking University. After 2009, Sun grew to be a vocal critic of Peking University. He became an active political dissident and even organized a series of political discussions with the liberal intellectuals in a cafe near the university. Institution officials started targeting him as a result of these activities and also proceeded to shut down some of his internet accounts.
In the early 2010s, Justin was writing for the Internet weekly “Beidou.” Many of his articles gained attention on Renren.com. Sun followed thousands of strangers on Renren to attract more readers, hoping they would read his texts.
Moreover, he deliberately targeted his ideological competitors to give them an alternative point of view. In 2011, after he published articles with a harsh critique of Peking University regarding the unnecessary control over students’ lives, Justin Sun appeared on the cover of Asia Weekly. Sun graduated from the History Department with outstanding marks.
According to Sun, he achieved some of these marks thanks to his efforts to make friends with his teachers.
Sun decided to get a Master’s degree at The University of Pennsylvania. While studying in Pennsylvania, Sun was caught plagiarizing another journalist’s article, which led to a massive outcry among the Renren users. Had his university mates known that he was going to turn out so successful, they would have ignored this incident at once. He also dabbled in many different careers, finally finding a niche in crypto. Justin Sun’s net worth is a testament to his commitment to becoming successful.
From then on, Sun began to change drastically. Literature became a thing of the past for him. He even got to mock several of his youth idols, including Han Han.
More importantly, Justin got acquainted with Ayn Rand’s ideas and decided that there is no other worthy occupation for him than business. Once, he stated that he chooses the people based on the amount of money they make. At about the same time, Sun learned that respected professors earn half as much as an entry-level Goldman Sachs employee and firmly decided to start a new life.
However, Justin Sun failed to create a business out of nothing. He had no money nor experience. He bought some Tesla shares and finally got into bitcoin. Many say that Sun invested a year-worth of his college fees in Bitcoin in 2011, which helped him to earn his first big windfall (tens of millions in yuans worth, as Sun himself once said).
As he felt that the US business is not a friendly space for Chinese people, Sun returned to China to dominate his own country’s business sector. Thanks to Bitcoin, he got the idea that he would dedicate his time to — digital currencies.
When Justin returned from America, he became a chief representative of Ripple Labs Greater China. In his hometown, the business environment was much better for Sun. He founded his project, Ruibo Technology, a multi-million user-base streaming app Peiwo, and became a prominent figure in IDG, a group of fast growing young Chinese entrepreneurs.
Justin played a huge role in IDG Capital’s PR campaign and in the concept of the post-90s generation as the disruptive power in the technology business sector. In 2016 he started a podcast, “The Revolutionary Road to Financial Freedom,” that made Sun famous to a broader audience.
Moving from America to China turned out to be a good decision for Sun as he got the fame he deserved in his home country. Results of that decision are to date helping him, as his net worth continues to grow.
TRON Years
In July 2017, Sun launched the Tron Foundation, a company working on a blockchain-based ecosystem to create an infrastructure for decentralizing the Internet. The platform’s native coin is Tronix or TRON. The company was registered in Singapore as the Chinese laws are pretty hostile towards cryptocurrencies. TRON was close to Binance from the very beginning.
For instance, Binance hosted the TRON ICO. During the campaign, the company raised $70 million. When presented with the money, China’s government banned ICOs within the country, which gave TRON an edge against Chinese blockchain platforms that were yet to start an ICO. In the next few weeks, TRON partnered with Singaporean bike-sharing giant, oBike, and a vast video streaming platform Baofeng.
The following year, Sun acquired BitTorrent for $126 million and became its CEO. As a result of Sun becoming the company leader, BitTorrent embraced blockchain technology and issued BitTorrent tokens in February 2019. Binance once again supported the event.
Apart from organic fame, Sun instantly gained an unwelcome reputation in the cryptocurrency field. Critics accused him of plagiarizing on several occasions. In fact, the TRON white paper notably resembles the Ethereum white paper and contains extracts from both Filecoin and BitSwap’s white papers. Justin Sun denied the accusations, but it doesn’t seem that he convinced anyone besides his fanbase.
After the BitTorrent takeover, the firm got a new logo, and this logo seems plagiarized. At least, it is similar to the symbol of IPFS, the company behind BitSwap. Concerned parties have also allegedly spotted the elements of white papers of MakerDAO and Single Collateral Dai in the documents associated with another TRON project — a DeFi product called Djed. You might recall how plagiarism accusations ruined Justin Sun’s writing career. However, now that he is a charismatic and wealthy entrepreneur, he is skillfully getting away with it.
Justin On Steem
Another big scandal ignited in March 2020, when it turned out that Binance, Huobi, and Poloniex were using their users’ funds to vote for Justin Sun’s witness on Steem. Many voices claim that Sun was bribing people to take over Steem, but there is no proof. Steem is a decentralized platform that leans on the Delegated Proof of Stake protocol.
However, since Sun got to the top of the Steem ministry, many things have improved on the platform. Sun cut and banned the ex-witnesses from advertising new content. This fact fuels the idea that Justin Sun has a lot to conceal. Some users even started working on a Sun-free Steem hard-fork, leading to their banishment. In general, it appears that Justin Sun is supporting the formula “reduce costs, maximize profit.” Sadly, in some sense, the story of Justin Sun reminds one of Citizen Kane.
Once, he admitted that he was doing too much self-advertising when he postponed his participation in the annual charity lunch with Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffet just three days before the date. Justin Sun offered the highest bid to win this lunch — $4.5 million.
No one in the 20 years of these lunches with Buffet offered such a large sum for an opportunity to speak to one of the wealthiest people alive. When Sun had to postpone the lunch, there were rumors that Chinese authorities didn’t like Sun’s bravado over his record-breaking bid and his spending so much money abroad. The real reasons are still unknown. Sun had to apologize for his over-promotion of the event publicly.
Interestingly, he didn’t share the takeaways from his conversation with Buffet when they finally met several months later. Warren Buffet is a prominent critic of cryptocurrencies, and it doesn’t seem that Sun managed to change the billionaire’s opinion.
30 Under 30 Asia List
However, Sun caught the attention of a fellow influential Chinese business magnate and philanthropist. Sun got the attention of the 20th wealthiest person globally; Alibaba founder Jack Ma. Ma gave Sun a rare chance to study at the prestigious Hupan University in 2016. The total number of students was 30 and Sun was the youngest among them.
Jack Ma dedicated this project to the decentralization of the Internet. Sun graduated in 2018. The years in this university helped Sun get beneficial connections both in Chinese and foreign business and learn much from the best professionals. In 2017, Forbes added Sun to its 30 Under 30 Asia list of victorious people as Peiwo’s CEO. Also, Justin Sun’s net worth contributed to his addition to the list.
Justin Sun Net Worth 2021 & Salary
Аѕ оf now, Justin Sun’s net worth stans at $200 mіllіоn. Justin Sun net worth has appreciated so much since the year he bought bitcoin from his year’s worth of college fees. The TRON CEO has bесоmе а mіllіоnаіrе wіthіn а fеw уеаrѕ. Не еvеn асquіrеd thе fіlе-ѕhаrіng соmраnу ВіtТоrrеnt, Іnс. fоr $120 mіllіоn. Along with that, he also ѕtаrtеd a fоundаtіоn tіtlеd ТRОN. Тhе fоundаtіоn іѕ related to blockchain ѕеrvісе
Conclusion
Јuѕtіn Ѕun іѕ а Сhіnеѕе tесhnоlоgу еntrерrеnеur, сrурtосurrеnсу іnvеѕtоr, аnd thе fоundеr аnd СЕО оf thе ТRОN Fоundаtіоn. At the same time, he ѕеrvеd аѕ thе fоrmеr Сhіеf Rерrеѕеntаtіvе оf ‘Rіррlе (ХRР)’ іn Сhіnа. Ѕun асquіrеd thе рееr-tо-рееr соmраnу ‘ВіtТоrrеnt’ іn 2018, whеrе hе nоw wоrkѕ аѕ СЕО. Јuѕtіn’ѕ buѕіnеѕѕ vеnturеѕ іnсludе thе lіvе-ѕtrеаmіng аudіо Арр ‘Реіwо. His many adventures into the crypto space has made him a popular personality and all of this has added to Justin Sun’s Net Worth in 2021.