Justin Sun is in a giving mood. The Tron CEO and what many would consider a blockchain superstar is dropping a huge present for his fans and followers. Sun is reportedly planning to launch a $20 million airdrop and the former Ripple Labs employee also intends to give away a free Tesla automobile.
Sun, who has one million followers on Twitter, says this new plan is a part of Tron’s “global appreciation campaign,” and he will randomly select 1 lucky winner for a Tesla by March 27th, 2019.
The success of Tron and its various projects, like BitTorrent, Tron Bet which recently made $40 million and Tron Arcade the upcoming gaming platform, which will give investment to blockchain gaming startups, has proven Sun’s business nouse and it has made him a star in his own right. But how did the man with the boyish looks reach this point?
Born in Xining, China in 1990, Sun began life as any normal boy would and with good grades from high school he joined Peking University. Whilst there he garnered a strong reputation as a smart student. He graduated with a first degree from the Department of History at Peking University and chose to pursue a graduate degree at the University of Pennsylvania. In the same year, he was awarded the Nobel Prize winner Li Zhengdao’s “Junzheng Fund” and went to the National Tsinghua University in Taiwan for exchange. He was awarded the title of “Jun Zheng Scholar”.
It would seem that Sun was always destined for greatness, and he puts it down to always taking risks. On his university stint, he said:
“In the first half of my life, I basically played against the wind, and I slowly felt that I was “good at” playing against the wind.”
During his time at University in Pennsylvania, Sun also began investing in companies. He started out with Tesla and also Bitcoin and this would lead him to the position he is in today as his good returns somewhat shaping his future endeavors.
At the end of 2013, Sun Yuchen gave up the opportunity to study for a Ph.D. and officially joined RippleLabs as a Ripple protocol developer. After an investment from IDG Capital and returned to China to establish China’s first decentralized clearing system product development company, Ruibo Tianxia Technology Co., Ltd. At the same time, RippleLabs appointed Sun Yuchen as the chief representative of the Greater China representative office, responsible for all business in Greater China.
After quite a long time in the crypto buisness, in 2017, Sun set up Tron. After making a total of 500 million wave coins (TRX) in the currency security platform, which was snapped up within 53 seconds. Unfortunately though, tthe China Internet Finance Association issued the “Prevention of various types of ICO-related risks” prompt, mentioning the alleged fraud, illegal securities, illegal fundraising, which forced Tron to travel towards Europe for their business venture.
Not perturbed by the initial set back, Tron managed to get itself listed on many overseas exchanges and at one time, TRX’s trading volume climbed to the top of the currency security platform. Tron has continued to expand its scope and reach, with them taking over BitTorrent in July 2018 for $140 million and this alongside the other ventures actually saw Tron’s main network account address reaching 301,604, surpassing EOS. In 2018, Tron saw a huge rise going up to 7th and has seen it become the go to platform for dApps.
Sun though is not a one trick pony. He is also the founder of PEIWO, an extremely popular mobile social networking and voice streaming app which saw him feature in Forbes for their 30 under 30 segment.
At still just 28 years old, the sky seems to be the limit for Sun. He has already had an incredibly successful career that has seen a rapid progression and seems to be going from strength to strength, yet it has not been without controversy.
Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin has clashed with Justin Sun over Twitter. In April 2018, Sun posted a diagram arguing that TRON is a superior protocol to Ethereum. Buterin responded over Twitter by accusing Sun of misrepresenting the capabilities of his platform, as well as referencing allegations of plagiarism made against Sun and TRON earlier that year for their whitepaper. These plagiarism issues have put a dent in Tron’s reputation.
Although Tron is controversial, it is a key player in the space and looks to be growing more and more, its recent partnership with Tether highlighting this trend. Sun also has an optimistic outlook for the future of crypto, expecting a bull run to come in 2020 per reports.
Whatever your opinions on the Tron founder, it is clear that he is doing well and for this, he should be praised. Despite the bear market, Tron has not wilted and perhaps with a bull run the company could top the charts and be the main players in the space. Looking back on his remarkable career, it wouldn’t put it past Sun.