Justin Sun

Justin Sun sits right at the heart of the crypto solar system. He developed the Tron blockchain and its Tronix cryptocurrency, in addition to the US dollar-linked USDD stablecoin, a type of cryptocurrency tied in value to a fiat currency. He has said that Tron’s monthly transaction volume is in the hundreds of billions.

Through the company, he is also owner of Rainberry, formerly BitTorrent, which developed the eponymous decentralised file sharing technology, and which he bought for US$140 million. Under his leadership, it introduced the associated BTT cryptocurrency. He also owns the crypto exchanges Poloniex and HTZ.

Mentored by Alibaba’s Jack Ma at the latter’s Zhejiang Hupan Entrepreneurship Research Center, Sun started his crypto journey as an early investor in Bitcoin. Before founding Tron, he was chief representative and adviser to Ripple Labs.

Born in the Chinese Mainland and with bases in Hong Kong, Singapore, Dubai and the US, he is a citizen of the Caribbean nation of St Kitts and Nevis. Between 2021 to 2023, he took a sabbatical from his business activities to work as the Permanent Representative of Grenada to the World Trade Organization, with the specific aim of boosting crypto-friendly policies.

He certainly has an eye for a headline grabbing stunt. In 2019, he placed the winning bid of US$4.6 million to have a private lunch with investment legend and crypto sceptic Warren Buffet. In 2024, spent US$5.2 million on contemporary artist Maurizio Cattelan’s Comedian, consisting of a banana duct-taped to a wall, and then promptly ate the banana on stage. He bid US$28 million to travel on Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin NS-34 spacecraft in 2025. He even commissioned a theme song for Tron from Oscar-winning composer Hans Zimmer. Oh, and he’s a prime minister—of the libertarian microstate Liberland.