Justin Sun is a well-known entrepreneur in the technology and blockchain space. He is the Founder of TRON, one of the world's largest decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) ecosystems, and Advisor to Huobi Global, one of the world's largest cryptocurrency exchanges. Sun is also the Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Grenada to the World Trade Organization (WTO), where he is actively involved in discussions and advocates for the use of digital technologies, including blockchain, to help bridge the developmental gap across economies and reinvigorate global trade. ^[1]

Education

Sun holds a Master's Degree in Political Economy from the University of Pennsylvania and a Bachelor's Degree in History from Peking University. He also participated in an exchange program at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, where he studied liberal arts and sciences. ^[1][2]

Early Life

Sun was born in 1990 in Xining, China. Sun's family is originally from Shandong, China, but he was born in Qinghai and grew up in Guangdong. He developed an early interest in the internet and struggled academically until he decided to focus on improving his grades and gained admission to Peking University. After graduating, he moved to the United States to pursue a Master's Degree at the University of Pennsylvania. It was during this time that he first learned about Bitcoin and began investing in it. Sun later founded Peiwo, a mobile social application, before founding TRON in 2017. ^[3][4][5]

Career

Sun founded Peiwo in 2013, a mobile social application that connects users through audio content such as podcasts and live streams. In 2014, Sun received the Davos Global Shaper Award from the World Economic Forum and in 2015 Justin Sun gets listed on Forbes' China 30 Under 30, a list created annually that highlights the leading and upcoming entrepreneurs that are under the age of 30. In 2017, Jusitn becomes the founder of TRON where his career in the world of crypto quickly accelerates as TRON becomes one of the main projects in the space.^[4][6][7]

Currently, Sun serves as the Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Grenada to the World Trade Organization (WTO) which he joined in December 2021. In this role, he actively participates in deliberations and advocates for the use of digital technologies, including blockchain, to bridge the developmental gap across economies and reinvigorate global trade. Since October 2022, he has also been a member of the Global Advisory Board for Huobi Global, a world-leading company in the digital economy industry that was founded in 2013 with a mission to make breakthroughs in core blockchain technologies and integrate blockchain technology with other industries. ^[1][5][6]

TRON

In 2017, Justin Sun became the founder and is currently the CEO of TRON, a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) ecosystem built on blockchain technology. TRON's goal is to accelerate the decentralization of the internet through the use of blockchain technology and decentralized applications (dApps). In June 2018, TRON becomes independent of the Ethereum network as a stand-alone blockchain and in the following month acquires BitTorrent, a pioneer in decentralized services and blockchain file storage with nearly 100 million monthly active users ^[8][9][10]

Personal Life

In addition to his professional pursuits, Sun is an avid art collector and is also into gaming. Sun is also a philanthropist and space enthusiast. He placed the winning bid of $28 million for the first seat on Blue Origin's New Shepard spacecraft and invited five guests to join him on a private flight, which will take place in the fourth quarter of 2022. Sun is also interested in inspiring more people to participate in space exploration. ^[1][11][12]

Controversies

In 2017, Justin Sun launched an initial coin offering (ICO) for Tron despite being warned that the Chinese government was planning to ban ICOs. The Chinese government had banned ICOs as a whole, just days before the ICO, due to the high number of fraudulent and criminal activities, such as financial scams and pyramid schemes. Justin was then spotted within a week after the ICO, in Incheon airport in South Korea, waiting for a flight to San Francisco, as people speculated his escape route from Beijing to Seoul. ^[15]

In January 2018, TRON received heavy backlash as people accused their whitepaper of plagiarism -comparing it to other projects' documents such as Ethereum, IPFS, Filecoin and other documents in the space. However, Justin Sun quickly responded, stating that the problem was due to in accuracies in translating from Chinese to English. Justin was then under the crypto communities' radar and has been accused for many different crimes as people speculate his "shady" behaviors and actions. ^[13][14]