Not long ago, cryptocurrency billionaire Sun Yuchen became embroiled in a legal dispute with World Liberty Financial, a cryptocurrency company owned by the Trump family, following a major disagreement. This has drawn attention from capital markets worldwide.
The Trump family's primary cryptocurrency project is World Liberty Financial, a decentralized financial and banking enterprise that recently received conditional approval from the federal government to operate as a bank. The Trump family's new crypto bank has just secured backing from Abu Dhabi's Sheikh. It is reported that this UAE "spy sheikh" holds a 49% stake in the entity behind the newly established World Liberty Bank.
Who is this Sun Yuchen, and how did he establish such a connection with the Trump family?
Sun was born in Xining City, Qinghai Province, China. In 2007, he enrolled in the Chinese Department at Peking University and later transferred to the History Department. He later earned a master's degree in East Asian Studies from the University of Pennsylvania.
In 2014, he founded Ripple and served as its CEO, becoming one of the early advocates of blockchain technology in China.
In July 2017, TRON emerged. Despite subsequent controversies over plagiarism in its whitepaper and persistent market skepticism, the price of TRX surged hundredsfold, enabling the project to accumulate initial capital. Through astute capital operations, Justin Sun swiftly propelled TRON into the first tier of public blockchains. His expansion strategy was equally clear: acquiring infrastructure, securing stablecoin channels, and dominating transaction endpoints.
In 2018, he acquired the decentralized transmission protocol giant BitTorrent for $140 million, completing the technical foundation and integrating decentralized storage with traffic entry points, attracting hundreds of millions of users worldwide.
In 2019, through a deep collaboration with Tether, the most crucial step in its commercial journey was achieved by introducing TRC20-USDT to the TRON blockchain. Due to its second-level transfer speed and low fees, TRON quickly replaced Ethereum as the preferred channel for global small and medium-sized funds and cross-border settlements.
In June 2019, Sun bought Buffett's 20th anniversary charity lunch for a sky high price of 4.568 million US dollars. He said he wanted to change Buffett's view on cryptocurrency through this dinner party and invited a group of cryptocurrency industry professionals to attend. This event instantly ignited global public opinion. But then, he announced the cancellation of the meeting on the grounds of "sudden kidney stones", which sparked criticism from the entire internet that he had "hyped it up too much".Although the lunch was eventually replaced with a burger dinner in early 2020, Buffett still stated that "cryptocurrency has no value". The Wall Street Journal later assessed that this seemingly absurd "kidney stone drama" brought over $250 million in brand public relations value to Wave Field.
Since 2022, Sun Yuchen's expansion efforts have intensified. Through BitX Capital, he acquired the established cryptocurrency exchange Huobi (later renamed HTX) for approximately $1 billion, completing the golden loop of "public chain, exchange, stablecoin.".
In November 2024, Justin Sun purchased Maurizio Cattelan's artwork "Comedian," a banana taped to a wall, for $6.2 million at a Sotheby's auction. The piece was actually a gift to his girlfriend, Sally Jing. She then asked, "What if the banana rots later?" That same month, he ate the banana during a public event in Hong Kong, declaring afterward, "This tastes way better than other bananas—it's really good." Now there's no need to worry about the banana going bad!
He is currently embroiled in a legal dispute with this girlfriend, reportedly because she reneged on the agreement to continue acting as a surrogate unless he paid an additional $50 million. Consequently, he publicly disclosed details via prominent Chinese media outlets regarding the alleged fraud committed by his girlfriend and her parents. The article contained numerous details suggesting she may have had illicit affairs with various powerful and wealthy figures in China. Further inside information may be revealed to the public in due course.
Is Sun, with a net worth of 8.5 billion US dollars, engaging in another sophisticated hype? We'll wait and see..
Justin Sun was initially one of the earliest major supporters of the Trump family's ventures, having invested tens of millions of dollars in the World Liberty Financial (WLFI) token.In April 2026, Sun filed a fraud and extortion lawsuit against the company, accusing its leaders of profiting through deception using the Trump brand.This dispute marks a sharp reversal in their previous relationship.
Recently, there have been frequent incidents in the cryptocurrency industry. Half a month ago, a Chinese cryptocurrency tycoon fell from a building in Paraguay and died, with a net worth of 2 billion US dollars.
Is all of this just a coincidence?
The Bitcoin industry is murky now—so, are you still investing in and buying Bitcoin mining machines?
Perhaps this world is inherently a law of the jungle, no matter when, where, in any country or industry.
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