Tron Founder Justin Sun Net Worth, Career, and Personal Life

Justin Sun Biography

Educational Background of Justin Sun

Justin Sun was born in Xining, Qinghai, China but he is a citizen of Grenada, which is a Caribbean island. He moved to the US and completed his BA degree in Peking University, specializing in history. Justin Sun also continued his studies and received a degree of MA in East Asian Studies from the University of Pennsylvania.

Justin Sun first heard about cryptocurrencies and started investing in Bitcoin when he was studying at the University of Pennsylvania. His other educational pursuits include his time at Jack Ma’s Zhejiang Hupan Entrepreneurship Research Center. With his exceptional performance in studies, Justin Sun became the cover figure of a Chinese newsweekly Yazhou Zhoukan in 2011.

Justin Sun’s Early Career

Justin Sun started his career as a chief representative and adviser at the popular crypto firm, Ripple Labs, in 2013. Later, he founded Peiwo, a Chinese voice-based social networking application. Peiwo connects users based on audio content such as podcasts and live streams. It lets users express their interests and attributes through their voice and connects like-minded individuals.

Peiwo was a huge success, so much so that Justin Sun was named CNTV’s most noteworthy entrepreneur in 2015. Being a young and successful entrepreneur, he was even included in Forbes 30 Under 30 list from 2015 to 2017. Furthermore, he received the Davos Global Shaper Award from the World Economic Forum in 2014.

Justin Sun: TRON Founder

Justin Sun entered the crypto industry with his Tron blockchain and its decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) in 2017. Tron is an open-source blockchain protocol with smart contract functionality and works based on Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus mechanism.

The Tron Foundation raised around $70 million worth of funds during the Initial Coin Offering (ICO) of the native Tronix (TRX) token. Even though the TRX token started based on the ERC-20 token standard, it was moved to its own blockchain protocol in 2018.

In the subsequent months, Justin Sun acquired BitTorrent through Tron and launched its native BTT token. Tron is one of the top 10 cryptocurrencies in the industry with its unique capabilities such as high TPS of 2000, among others. Sun also launched a native USDD stablecoin, which failed to maintain its US dollar peg multiple times and did not reach a considerable market share.

Justin Sun’s other crypto ventures include the acquisition of Poloniex and participation in a $65 million worth of funding round in Animoca, crypto and blockchain video game maker. He also acquired a $1 billion stake in Huobi crypto exchange and served as an advisor to the platform and even announced his plans to empower the native digital assets such as HT tokens.

When Justin Sun was appointed as an ambassador and permanent representative of Grenada to the WTO in 2021, he resigned as the CEO of Tron and established Tron DAO. However, he stepped down from his position when the US SEC sued Justin Sun stating he sold unregistered securities during the token sales of TRX and BTT tokens in March 2023.

Justin Sun Net Worth

The net worth of Justin Sun is around $1.13 billion as of February 2024, according to the blockchain intelligence platform, Arkham Intelligence. This net worth only considers Justin Sun’s funds in his public crypto wallets. If we consider his other investments and non-crypto assets, Justin Sun’s net worth will be more than $1.13 billion.

Personal Life of Justin Sun

Justin Sun is not yet married and is not known to be in any relationships. The details of his family members are also unknown. Sun was popular for his winning $4.6 billion bid to have a private lunch with Warren Buffet in 2019.

However, he canceled it for unknown reasons and finally made it happen in 2020. Another interesting fact about Justin Sun is his $28 million bid to be the first passenger to fly in New Shepard’s vehicle in 2021. Because of some scheduling conflicts, Justin Sun was not able to fly on the vehicle.