Justin Sun: The Patient of Blockchain

Justin Sun, founder of TRON, is often described as an "escape artist" who makes passionate promises and then quickly evades. His net worth may reach tens of billions of dollars, yet he is accused of being one of the most hated figures among blockchain investors due to his greedy harvesting. His behavior is erratic, his temper volatile, and he craves exposure while lacking trust, treating everyone around him as a tool for profit.

Escape

In the summer of 2023, we tried to find Justin Sun in Singapore.

People familiar with him said he lives on Sentosa Island in southern Singapore—a three-story villa with a pool. Sun spends SGD 90,000 (about RMB 480,000) per month on rent for the luxury mansion.

Through the two-story floor-to-ceiling windows of the villa, one can see a suspended pool, half extending to the edge of the mansion and half to the underground garage.

The basement is an art collection gallery. A former assistant revealed that his personal collection is already worth over RMB 1.2 billion, including Picasso's 1932 masterpiece "Reclining Nude with Necklace" worth RMB 20 million, Andy Warhol's "Three Self-Portraits" purchased for $2 million at Christie's London, and a sculpture by Swiss sculptor Giacometti worth RMB 560 million.

The Singapore sun is glaring. During the day, the streets here are quiet, with occasional suited figures hurrying through the heat. The climate is indeed not as good as California, where he had lived for a long time, but he left there before rumors of an FBI investigation surfaced.

Before our visit, Sun had repeatedly expressed willingness to talk, saying "we'll finalize a time for you to come to Singapore this week" and "hope I won't be a poor host," but kept delaying the meeting, repeatedly breaking his own deadlines.

We decided to fly directly to Singapore. Standing on the street, we messaged him on WeChat: "How about playing host and buying us a coffee?"

"Sure, sure, sure!" Sun replied almost immediately, "I'm here all week, whatever time works for you!"

"How about tomorrow afternoon?" After sending that message, we never heard back. Just like Oriana Fallaci searching for Marilyn Monroe on the streets of New York over 60 years ago, we ultimately did not meet Justin Sun.

He once again staged a classic "escape performance": first making bold promises, winning over the other party with enthusiasm, then fleeing from an environment less favorable to him—just as he disappeared from the Peking University student union president election, backed out of the Buffett lunch he had won, cashed out and fled from TRON tokens and Huobi, and left China and the US after negative regulatory signals.

Undoubtedly, Justin Sun is the most controversial "entrepreneur" in contemporary China. He founded the blockchain platform TRON and took over Huobi, but because of his relentless harvesting, he has become one of the most hated figures among blockchain investors.

Over the past decade, from a "niche money printer" to a "mass harvesting tool," Chinese people's impression of "digital currency" has plummeted—and Sun has played a significant role. Today, "blockchain" has long been removed from the hot vocabulary of the internet circle. Those who once embraced it have "crossed the dangerous shoals of digital currency, walked out of the garden of the metaverse, and are now rushing toward the bright future of AIGC large models." But history will remember all this. When our descendants look back a hundred years from now at the rise of blockchain in China, Justin Sun's name will surely be mentioned.

The madness of an era is condensed into the madness of one person. To understand Justin Sun is to understand the Chinese history of blockchain.

Now, when we mention Justin Sun's name, some describe him as "a villain who stops at nothing," others as "a complete jerk," and some even say they are waiting for the day he gets [violent act] on the street.

Among the many Justin Suns, which one is the real him?

"We recently talked to many of your old acquaintances, and they all said you're a jerk. So, are you?"

In a phone call before his escape, we asked him this. Sun hesitated for a moment, then replied:

"I think many of those who criticize me are people who didn't make money from me," he said.

This is a typical Justin Sun answer. On people's phones and computers, he excels at playing a brilliant person in various crazy ways, but in the real world, he habitually evades serious questions.

We tried to add some "analytical" footnotes to his actions, such as his upbringing, the industry he is in, and the psychological state influenced by these experiences. Just as the famous psychologist Post pointed out in an article in "Psychopathology," prominent figures in various fields are often more susceptible to mental illness.

Although Sun emphasized on the phone that his state and emotions are busy and positive, his past behavior is hard to describe as that of a "normal, healthy" adult as people understand it.

He has excessively pursued some things and excessively endured others. After repeated tearing and stretching of his body and mind, some abnormal traits began to emerge, eroding trust, freedom, and everything except money, leaving loneliness.

In the blockchain industry, Justin Sun is a true big shot. People familiar with him say his net worth may well be tens of billions of dollars. But because of his existence, some bad trends are spreading—greed, selfishness, fear, and fame-seeking.

A Strange "Patient"

When you realize this person has some "not quite normal" aspects, it is often observed from a series of inappropriate things.

Outsiders see Justin Sun as humble, polite, and sincere. "Even in winter, Sun wears a suit and slicked-back hair, looking decent and proper," many recall. "This makes reporters in heavy down jackets feel inadequate." "He doesn't seem like someone from the internet circle, but rather from the financial circle."

In the office, Sun seems like a different person, constantly showing irritability. "F*** your mother, you f***ing..." are his catchphrases. A former TRON employee said Sun often curses, "You f***ers only know how to ask for budgets all day, you motherf***ers don't earn a cent and only know how to spend money."

Even in Singapore, a city that values work-life balance where leaving work means not replying to work emails, Sun often assigns tasks late at night and demands immediate responses.

But when others are busy, he often slacks off. Even in meetings, Sun repeatedly refreshes social media and video apps, almost obsessively searching for topics related to himself—checking all topics related to him, reading comments, and often personally jumping in to curse people.

Shortly before accepting our invitation, this "jerk" in everyone's mouth went to the Hong Kong Web3 conference. Upon learning that Sun was going to speak, a blockchain industry group lively initiated a "bounty" crowdfunding: "Find someone to go on stage and give him two big slaps." The news quickly reached Sun's ears. In a WeChat screenshot circulating in the circle, he "warned" the security team, "If I get slapped, I'll hold you responsible."

To be safe, he set his security budget for the day at 80,000 USDT (a cryptocurrency), equivalent to nearly RMB 600,000.

In hindsight, this episode may have just been an expensive marketing stunt. Sun's friend, Huobi co-founder and Node Capital founder Du Jun, told us that Sun never gives up any means of self-promotion.

Click on any post about Justin Sun, and you will see a large number of criticisms, mockery, and even curses in the comments. His reputation forms a comical contrast with his self-image.

His PR team requires the media: "Whenever mentioning His Excellency Justin Sun himself, his four titles must be present, none can be missing." They are: "His Excellency Mr. Justin Sun, Permanent Representative of Grenada to the World Trade Organization, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary, Member of the Huobi Global Advisory Board, Founder of TRON."

This inevitably reminds one of Daenerys Targaryen from "Game of Thrones," whose name takes three minutes to recite every time she appears: daughter of the Mad King Aerys II Targaryen, last heir of the ancient Targaryen dynasty, rightful heir to the Iron Throne, Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea, Breaker of Chains, Queen of Meereen, Mother of Dragons...

But as we said—although this Excellency insists on respect from the outside world, the outside world insists on humiliating him.

At the end of the last century, artist Andy Warhol predicted, "In the future, everyone will be famous for 15 minutes." Now, this has come true. But Sun shows that celebrities do not always become what you imagine.

"After becoming wealthy, many people start enjoying life," said a practitioner from a blockchain exchange. The "big shots" who became famous in the industry are extremely low-key, even spending heavily to hire private detectives to hide their whereabouts.

But Sun still craves exposure. In early 2023, a new book "Blockchain and the Digital New World" was published, seriously introducing the impact of blockchain on the digital age.

The author is credited as Justin Sun, but multiple former Huobi employees confirmed that graduate students were hired as ghostwriters, with a "ghostwriting fee" of about RMB 200,000. Because many publishers were unwilling to take it, the PR team ultimately self-published.

Whether elegant, irritable and crude, or diligent, these labels do not quite match the public's perception of Justin Sun. In many people's minds, he should be scheming and cold.

If we believe that Sun's behavior with those close to him is closer to his true self, then a reasonable inference is that his public image is the result of years of deliberately playing a persona.

Like a person "confused" by fever, he has insisted for years on making statements that are unreasonable and inconsistent with his cognitive level, including but not limited to: when Luo Yonghao was restricted from high consumption, he offered him a million-yuan annual salary; when Xpeng users were defending their rights, Sun posted on Weibo that he would personally subsidize 1 million to help users hire lawyers; after the Liu Qiangdong Minnesota incident, he whimsically claimed he wanted to invest 100 million to make a movie, and even had a name ready: "Minnesota Chronicles."

This Excellency seems to have indescribable hidden aspects, making it hard to see the consequences of getting close to him. Just as genius and madness are only a line apart, "pathological" or "healthy" often lies in an instant.

No one is always sick, but Sun's madness makes him always look like a patient.

Only "Patients" Can Get Rich in Blockchain

Sun's ex-girlfriend recalled that when a group of people ate coconut chicken, Sun would scoop more than half the chicken into his own bowl the second it was cooked, leaving no chance for himself to miss out. "Later, people who ate with him found that he did business the same way."

Many people came to know Justin Sun precisely through a "disease" and a lunch.

In 2019, Sun won the bid for the Buffett lunch. The subsequent story has been reported by countless media—before departure, Sun announced that due to a sudden kidney stone, he was canceling the meeting with Buffett. After that, Sun publicly postponed the lunch multiple times.

Each cancellation and postponement caused a double surge in public opinion and TRON's price, and the mystifying tactic achieved complete victory.

Sun eventually met Buffett at a burger joint in a remote American village—sources told us they had burgers instead of the classic steakhouse of the Buffett lunch. Sun gave Buffett an Android phone with the TRON app installed. After the meeting, Sun excitedly told his assistant that the conversation was pleasant and that Buffett was already a cryptocurrency holder.

Whether Buffett felt an instant connection with Sun we cannot know, but what is certain is that after that meeting, Buffett repeatedly criticized cryptocurrency and completely ended the "Buffett lunch" event the following year.

What an embarrassing fact.

As Buffett boarded his private jet to leave, one wonders if he silently recited his famous quote, feeling fear at Sun's greed. But this escape artist's ability to win against Buffett with an empty-city stratagem has its reasons. "Not everyone can constantly display pathological madness like him," his former assistant told us.

Since his youth, Sun has repeatedly shown his "weakness," but he always managed to cleverly get what he wanted from it.

Born in 1990, Sun soon embarked on an alternative life after entering Peking University. He was radical in thought and always publicly criticized the school's management system.

Because of his many supporters, he ran for president of the Peking University student union as an independent candidate. Again, he first created a frenzy of hype, then disappeared on election day. The only difference was that the reason for his disappearance was not illness; he claimed he was "detained" by the school's Youth League Committee for over ten hours.

The "victim" image followed, but this earned him more followers. Subsequently, with the rise of Weibo, he learned from "public intellectuals" and "big Vs" to comment on social current affairs, frequently calling for "saving the nation."

Fearing expulsion from Peking University, Sun applied for graduation a year early and then entered the University of Pennsylvania. In the US, he continued his domestic style, founding a magazine and writing sharp political commentary. But before long, his articles were accused of serious plagiarism, and many people began to see through him.

Amid controversy, Sun "fell ill" again, and rumors of suicide spread. The matter ended with the magazine being shut down.

Disheartened, Sun joined the Penn Investment Association, hoping to meet wealthy Americans. There he tried leveraged stock trading and cryptocurrency trading, entered the blockchain industry, and experienced the joy of making money.

A story of twists and turns emerged. In 2013, he returned to China, and with support from IDG Capital, founded Raybo Technology, the predecessor of TRON.

The rise of young Sun was somewhat marked by the era—the internet extended the youth of that generation. "Because of the attributes of young people, unconventional voices are more easily heard," said someone who had contact with Sun during his Peking University days. It was not until a few years later that some began to reflect: is using radical means to gain fame a model worth learning?

But Sun clearly had no time for reflection. His radical tactics were quickly brought into a new world. There, he put away his "weak" side and began to show a "pathological" smile.

In the blockchain industry, Sun is an "early bird." But whether you join this industry early or late, you cannot escape the fear brought by two "viruses"—one called "shrewdness" and the other "snobbery."

On the brutal killing fields of cryptocurrency, there is hardly a sharper scythe than Justin Sun.

In the early days, there was a technical expert named Xu Baolong on Sun's TRON team. Every time before Sun announced good news, he would have Xu's team quickly buy in, and when the price soared, they would quickly sell short to profit.

In 2017, shortly after the founding of "TRON," a ban came. On September 4 of that year, seven departments including the Cyberspace Administration and the China Securities Regulatory Commission issued the "Announcement on Preventing the Risks of Token Issuance Financing" (hereinafter referred to as the "94 Announcement"), completely halting cryptocurrency issuance and requiring the liquidation of already issued cryptocurrencies.

However, Sun "happened" to complete the issuance and sale of TRON tokens the day before.

Abandoned by policy, Sun at least still had users. But soon, users also came to their senses.

In November 2017, TRON was listed on overseas exchanges, issuing TRX tokens. Initially, the market price of one TRX was only 1 cent. But from late November, as Bitcoin prices continued to rise and the market recovered, by December, TRX's price was pushed up to RMB 2.

Then someone discovered that over 50% of TRX was stored in the same wallet, and the proportion of "retail investors" in circulation was only 9%. Others found that Sun's wallet transaction records showed he sent 200 million TRX to exchanges like Binance every day to exchange for Ethereum, a behavior that lasted 19 days. Later, someone calculated that based on the token price at the time, Sun cashed out about RMB 12 billion (some say he only cashed out RMB 2 billion).

The massive sell-off quickly triggered a stampede of runs, and TRON's price once plummeted 20% instantly. Again "coincidentally," Sun ran before the crash.

He always manages to be the fastest runner, just as when he eats coconut chicken.

Ten months after TRON's founding, Sun claimed his net worth had reached 10 billion. But what followed was the departure of many people's wealth, leaving only self-mockery: "When Brother Sun smiles, life and death are unpredictable."

The origin of this saying dates back a few years. Once Sun did a live stream to endorse a certain coin. A netizen commented in the live chat, "Brother Sun, don't smile, I'm scared." Sun dismissed it, "Do I care about your measly pennies?"

A few months later, investors who bought that coin were all trapped at high levels, "the situation was so tragic it could only be described as losing everything."

Even after taking over Huobi's business, Sun did not give up on retail investors' "measly pennies." Multiple industry insiders accused Sun of repeatedly using Huobi to "needle"—also known as "targeted blasting"—manipulating coin prices through server delays, downtime, and altering K-line charts to mislead investors, causing users to be maliciously liquidated.

"The money from 'needling' isn't even worth his hourly rate, but he still wants to earn it," said a crypto investor who had contact with Sun.

As fear spread, users began to flee the Huobi exchange, and this originally solid barrier gradually collapsed.

Everything is like a reincarnation of Sun's path to early fame. He once again achieved a success that seemed to require little cost and price but was hard for most people to achieve. In early interviews, he repeatedly mentioned that the family education he received from childhood was that no matter what he did, he "must win."

The road to victory is full of thorns, and the hardest part is breaking through one's "inner self." Not everyone can achieve such "disregard."

Sun's choices, in another industry, would have the same outcome.

Besides blockchain, he once had a "Peiwo App." It was a stranger social app he acquired shortly after returning to China, focusing on anonymous chat where women could charge for calls, with a simple and crude profit model.

"Peiwo" made Sun a lot of money, but the policy risk of soft porn services was huge. A few years later, Sun shut down "Peiwo" and told those around him that this heavy-operation business "wasn't worth the cost-performance."

But this was Sun's closest venture to "normal," even though "lust," like cryptocurrency speculation, is valued because it is addictive.

An unverified detail: an old acquaintance of Sun said that in the early days, someone told Sun's fortune, "saying he is not suited for practical work but for abstract work." After making a name in the blockchain industry, he used this as a "inevitable success" argument when telling others. Sun's Douyin has 420,000 followers, and the TRON he founded has over 100 million accounts (as of 2022). Perhaps the meeting of a master of abstraction and cryptocurrency is truly a coincidence of history.

Disease Outbreak: The Death of Trust

In the winter of 2017, in a courtyard house on Beijing's East Second Ring Road, at a private KTV called "If I," the warm lighting was ambiguous. Amid clinking glasses, the rising star of the crypto circle Justin Sun and the then-famous crypto figure Xu Zijing chatted enthusiastically.

Xu Zijing, nicknamed "Martian," was a dazzling star in the blockchain industry at the time. His coin HSR was also one of the hottest coins.

According to people who were very close to Sun, all night Sun talked about ideals and the future of HSR and TRON. "Xu Zijing thought Sun was a formidable young man and seemed to like him very much." In the end, "the two decided to swap coins," the source said. "Afterwards, Sun's account was that Martian exchanged 140,000 HCASH (HSR) for 333 million TRON tokens, and the two completed the exchange on the spot."

The pleasant gathering lasted until 2 a.m., when Sun said he had to return to the company. As Xu Zijing saw him off at the courtyard gate, he still praised Sun's dedication and diligence to those around him.

Then—according to the scene described by the source—Sun walked out, turned the corner, leaned against the wall, and at the entrance of the hutong, sold all the HSR he had just received from Xu Zijing.

According to insiders at the time who told 36Kr, Sun made nearly RMB 30 million from selling HSR. This directly caused HSR's price to plummet. By the time Xu Zijing sobered up the next day, HSR had triggered a stampede-like decline, "and the coin was beyond saving."

This incident was not publicly reported; the above scene comes from descriptions by multiple people familiar with Sun. When 36Kr asked Martian Xu Zijing whether the events were as described, he chose silence.

At first glance, this story seems illogical. Why would Martian trust Sun so much? To outsiders, it's like exchanging US dollars for Zimbabwean dollars, or Alibaba shares for a startup's.

But insiders were not surprised. Around 2017, mutual coin swaps and endorsements were very popular in the crypto circle. "Martian had too many coins, and Sun had a bunch of titles and was very persuasive." Perhaps more crucially, "the people who had swapped coins with Martian before all had moral bottom lines, which made him overestimate human nature."

"If this were a disaster movie, Brother Sun would definitely be the one who survives to the end by any means necessary." People familiar with Sun commented, implying that he is selfish enough and greedy enough.

These two traits did help Sun pave the way to wealth. But in the long run, they are like two defects that eventually seep into the blood, helping the subject erode an important emotional relationship—trust.

"He has no friends or allies in the world. Once cooperation diverges, he will definitely screw the other party, and he will secretly rejoice and feel intellectual superiority." Ma Jiajia, Sun's only publicly known girlfriend, told us.

Worse, people saw a new sample—in the known ending of the story, the selfish and greedy person was not punished.

Liu Ming, Sun's senior at Peking University and an early TRON employee, is also one of his arch-enemies. The first white paper of TRON was written by Liu Ming.

In a phone call with us, Liu Ming claimed that besides the white paper, there was also the opening report of Sun's graduation thesis (on blockchain) at Hupan University. "I wrote them all, but Sun later took all the credit and said they were his own works."

In his view, he was one of the founders of TRON—when the company was preparing to launch the ICO, the team had only five people, and no one except Liu Ming understood blockchain and ICO. He recalled that during a roadshow in Changsha, a colleague in Beijing called to ask, "What is ERC20?" ERC20 is the standard for issuing tokens on the smart contract platform Ethereum, and the colleague had no idea about the concept, which shocked Liu Ming.

But this "veteran" soon nearly went to jail. When the "94 Announcement" was issued, Sun was in South Korea, and he stated in a live stream that the proceeds from issuing coins in China would not be refunded. This meant that employees still in China faced huge legal risks. "We were all going to prison, and he didn't care about our situation or feelings at all."

Ultimately, under pressure from partners such as Binance founder Changpeng Zhao and He Yi, Sun refunded the Bitcoin obtained from the ICO. But because the private placement portion had already been cashed out, industry insiders speculated that Sun used the money from selling Martian's HSR to fill the gap.

But the former partners eventually parted ways. According to Liu Ming, when the TRON project succeeded and became very valuable, Liu Ming wanted to formalize the previously verbally agreed share. "I didn't want much, about 5% would be fine." But Sun refused, and the two parted unhappily.

And Changpeng Zhao, the industry "big brother" who had some personal friendship with Sun, also could not escape the latter's selfish side.

In May 2023, Binance launched a mining project where users could mine using BNB and TUSD (a stablecoin).

On the same day, Sun transferred a huge amount of TUSD into the mining project in ten transactions, which resulted in a large portion of the mining rewards being taken by Sun—effectively crowding out and expelling other medium and small players. Subsequently, Changpeng Zhao mocked Sun on social media, and the latter responded from afar, "Got it wrong, added a few extra zeros."

"This kind of thing is embarrassing even for insiders. When it comes to making money, Brother Sun doesn't care who the other party is, and his bottom line is very low," said a former TRON executive.

Controversy thus formed, and some who originally could understand Sun began to turn against him. They expressed confusion to 36Kr: Sun is already so rich, why does he still show greed? Conversely, being greedy enough may explain Sun's path to "success"—in early years, he repeatedly told media that the amount of money earned was his only measure of success.

"Justin Sun is like a drug addict, highly addicted to making money, because he cannot get any happiness from anywhere else." Ma Jiajia told us.

When former friends turned against him, money could at least buy employees and interest communities—they are one of the few guarantees for this "patient" beyond wealth, but now Sun is about to lose them too.

A TRON employee accidentally discovered that he had digital currency worth over RMB 1 million on Binance. Then everyone found out that "Sun used the identity information of multiple TRON employees to open accounts on the Binance trading platform, deposited the TRON tokens he controlled into the accounts, and sold them to cash out." Angered, the employee eventually resigned.

What destroys labor relations may be just a little money. In October 2022, after Sun became a member of the Huobi Global Advisory Committee and gradually took over Huobi, he began "disguised layoffs." According to information in the Huobi employee rights protection group, the methods included "not reimbursing employees' advance travel expenses, adding items to deduct wages, and not paying compensation after layoffs."

In contrast, in 2019, when Huobi founder Li Lin officially gave up the business and shifted Huobi overseas, he personally took out tens of millions to give every employee an extra month's salary.

Under such circumstances, trust is crumbling and has become an empty term not to be examined too closely. Some employees worry, "If something goes wrong at Huobi, Li Lin will cover it. But Sun will only pull the rug out when Huobi is in trouble, so everyone is thinking about how to grab a sum and run, a mutual betrayal."

Terminally Ill: Only a Lonely Planet Remains

Ultimately, love and blood relations become the last safety net, maintaining the fragile relationship between this "patient" and free survival. They almost pulled him back to a normal world.

Sun's father works at Huobi, specifically in charge of catching corruption, and is internally called "Master" or "Head of Huobi's Discipline Inspection Team." Huobi employees once said, "Sun trusts no one and always thinks someone is embezzling." For a period, all the money he earned was managed by his father.

Ma Jiajia said Sun's father is conservative and old-fashioned, and seriously considered "handing over all the money" in exchange for "his son's freedom to return to China, but everyone saw the result."

She and Sun were in a real relationship for a while. But Sun's extremely weak sense of contract not only led to the breakdown of relationships with colleagues but also failure in intimate relationships. Ma Jiajia believes, "Being with him is a stain on my life."

Having come this far, the former lover is left with only huge resentment. "He is dancing on the heads of people all over the world. I used to think he would spend his whole life reaching the point of being anti-human and anti-social, but I didn't expect him to get there in one step."

Sun's mansion rarely welcomes a real mistress. Even his close assistant—someone who has followed him for years—believes his inner boundaries are extremely clear. "Sometimes I ask him, 'Brother Sun, how many girlfriends do you have now? Any plans to get married?' He always changes the subject."

He may have thought about having a child, but he does not value the role of "mother." A former Huobi employee said Sun seriously studied artificial insemination and surrogacy.

He does not need trusting relationships, nor is he good at romantic ones; he is not obsessed with fame, and he has made enough money. While crypto big shots generally enjoy the ultimate luxury of the world, he seems like someone who is powerless to struggle and no longer cares.

In Singapore, the rich live in luxury, with yacht parties, but he rarely participates. "Look at the occasional photos of him with others that circulate—they are all very business-like gatherings, everyone with fake smiles, raising glasses for posed shots," said a blockchain practitioner.

You also won't see Sun at the Texas Hold'em and Guandan games often held in the circle. Du Jun remembered that after the Hong Kong Web3 conference in April 2023, he and Sun attended an after-party together. Many familiar people in the circle were enthusiastically playing cards and invited them to join, but Sun held his glass and only watched from a distance for a while.

Apart from making money, he seems to have no special hobbies. According to his assistant, Sun works from morning to night, with a two-point line between home and office. He also has no appetite for food, eating only meals cooked by his home chef every day. Those meals are packed into lunch boxes and brought to his office, looking no different from the most ordinary takeout boxes. And to maintain his figure, he often makes do with a little vegetable salad for a meal.

This contradicts the imagination of many blockchain investors, who think Sun should be extravagantly luxurious. "Even if Brother Sun used a toilet made of pure gold, I wouldn't be surprised."

The scenes and views described in the documentary "The Lives of the Rich" are more in line with the public's perception of the life Sun "should have"—custom yachts, mansions, top luxury cars studded with diamonds, these "toys" that super-rich people can easily obtain with a snap of their fingers, Sun seems to have none. And in current culture, "people prefer to talk about new money rather than old money, so visible wealth is important for new rich."

Only when you go out with him will you have some understanding of the reasons for the above scenes—bodyguards surround him and never leave. Some even suspect that when going to crowded places, he wears a bulletproof vest under his coat.

Although the rich spend huge sums on security every year, not everyone has the same fear as Sun.

An entrepreneur who is close friends with several crypto big shots said he heard in March 2023 that the "bounty" on Sun in mainland China had reached RMB 50 million.

"The people around him keep coming and going, and everyone is thinking about how to make a profit from him." Perhaps the only ones who truly care about him are those he has "harvested," who are eagerly waiting for him to return to China.

"Honestly, I don't want a life like Justin Sun's," said the entrepreneur.

"The Lives of the Rich" argues that people with extremely high net worth have serious trust issues, which makes their lives extremely complicated. Moreover, most rich people face one last fear: who will remember them, and how they will be remembered. "When we look at them from afar, we hope to have such a life ourselves, but the ultimate luxury of security and fearlessness cannot be bought with any amount of money."

We talked to a senior of Sun's from Peking University who had also joined the student union. But when mentioning this junior with whom he had some interaction, he thought it was a person not worth discussing. "At least we don't actively talk about him at class reunions. A person who cannot bring value to the world, whose premise of success is not creativity. A person who is against the world cannot be a leader."

We tried to contact people who had helped and invested in Sun. The reply was, "We can talk about the post-90s entrepreneurs of the past, but regarding Justin Sun, we have no position (to discuss him)."

He seems to be alone on a lonely planet. No one is willing to spend energy caring about his inner secrets—whether he would regret it if he could never return to mainland China, and where the planet he is on will eventually wander.

So, it is easy to wonder, why is Justin Sun like this, and what does he still want?

Many media attribute his excessive pursuit of success to his parents' constant quarrels in his youth, an overly strong mother, a family education that demanded first place in everything, and an insecure family of origin. But whether this is the correct answer no longer matters. As an adult, what drives him is only drifting with the tide in the world of fame and fortune.

As for the latter question, we asked him on the phone. Unsurprisingly, he expressed his determination to contribute to the blockchain industry with a long speech. His PR team also strongly persuaded us that instead of writing about Sun as a person, we should write about TRON's business and how Sun uses technology to "make the industry good." "Our Brother Sun is a clean person, why focus on his personal matters?"

Ultimately, the answers to all questions may only exist in his heart.

It's just a pity. When he graduated from Penn and returned to China in 2013, receiving IDG Capital funding to enter blockchain, Sun was one of the most dazzling representatives of post-90s entrepreneurs.

At that time, the tide of the PC era was receding from the shores of China's internet. People still clearly remember that it was an era when Internet+, traditional ground promotion, 2G networks, Bitcoin, and mobile internet trends advanced together.

The post-90s generation began to bear expectations, and some of them became the light of this era just ten years later. Sun should have been one of those lights. But the surging opportunities allowed many young people to bear the word "change," while in the hearts of others, the weight of "choice" was added.

Fame and fortune ultimately erased this young man's edge and bred various substances contrary to warmth, innovation, justice, and tolerance, which penetrated deep into the skin and blood along the meridians, and may eventually spread throughout the body.