I recently delved into the story of a person and found it quite worth discussing. Some people in the crypto circle might know the name Sun Yuchen, others might not, but the business empire he has built in the blockchain space is honestly quite staggering in scale.

Eight years ago, when he returned to China to start his business, he said, "My standard for judging a person is how much money they make." Not only did he say this, but he also truly did it. Starting from 2014, when he founded a social app, he spent nearly a decade transforming himself into the head of a business empire spanning public chains, trading platforms, stablecoins, NFTs, and more. His latest move was acquiring SRM Entertainment, a U.S. publicly listed company, for $100 million, and through a reverse merger, he took Tron (TRON) public on NASDAQ. At 35 years old, Sun Yuchen is now officially a CEO of a listed company.

Talking about his start in the crypto world, it all begins with Tron. In 2017, he left his social app operations and gathered a few Peking University classmates to start the Tron public chain project. At that time, Ethereum was already well-known, and after launching the TRX token, Tron successfully raised about $400 million. But soon after, it faced the "9.4" ICO ban, and he even refunded the funds raised. The core team disbanded, and partners left one after another. He later admitted, "My six years of entrepreneurship, almost all of the first three years were wasted."

The turning point came in 2019. Tether decided to issue a TRC-20 version of USDT on the Tron network, and Sun Yuchen seized this opportunity to focus entirely on promoting USDT. Looking back now, this move laid the foundation for Tron’s current 99% market cap. According to the latest on-chain data, USDT transfers and gas consumption on Tron account for over 98% of the total on the public chain. Users typically pay between $0.3 and $8 in transaction fees for each USDT transfer. Daily on-chain revenue on Tron exceeds $2.1 million, with an annualized revenue of $770 million, and over 2.46 million transactions per day. Tron’s circulating market cap now reaches $30.13 billion, ranking among the top mainstream public chains worldwide.

Beyond the public chain, Sun Yuchen also spent $140 million in 2018 to acquire BitTorrent, which was considered "outdated." His idea was not just a sentimental purchase but to blockchain-ify the entire BitTorrent protocol. After acquiring it, he launched the BTT token, allowing users to pay with BTT for faster download speeds, while uploaders could earn rewards through seeding. Although it’s about 78% below its all-time high, BTT’s circulating market cap is currently $319.21 million, with a stable 24-hour trading volume over $10 million.

Trading platforms are another key part of Sun Yuchen’s business. He first spun off Poloniex from Circle, then officially acquired it in June 2022, rebranding it as "Tron Trading Platform" in Chinese. This filled a gap in the Tron ecosystem for a trading platform, marking Tron’s entry into a "public chain + trading platform" dual-driven phase. Poloniex’s daily trading volume is about $500 million. Later, he set his sights on another established exchange, acquiring a stake through a Hong Kong asset management company for $1 billion, becoming the actual decision-maker. This platform remains among the top 10 exchanges globally, with a daily trading volume of $2.4 billion, and its native token’s circulating market cap is now $1.75 billion.

In the stablecoin sector, Sun Yuchen controls USDD, TUSD, and WBTC. USDD is a decentralized stablecoin he personally led the launch of, with key collateral assets under his direct control, often stabilizing it with his own funds. TUSD appears not to be under his name publicly, but multiple pieces of evidence confirm his shadow ownership. Early 2025, he personally invested over $400 million to stabilize TUSD, further tying this stablecoin to himself. Its current market cap is $494.17 million. WBTC, an ERC-20 token issued on Ethereum, isn’t directly controlled by him, but some foreign media see it as a wrapped Bitcoin under his direct influence. The Tron DAO Reserve holds a large amount of Bitcoin, and to collateralize on-chain, some BTC are converted into WBTC to support USDD’s stability. WBTC’s circulating market cap now reaches $8.69 billion.

In addition, Sun Yuchen has decentralized live streaming platform DLive and NFT marketplace APENFT Marketplace. DLive was initially built on the Lino chain, but after being acquired by BitTorrent in late 2019, it migrated into the Tron ecosystem. The platform uses BTFS for decentralized storage, and BTT tokens are used for tipping streamers and content distribution incentives. APENFT Marketplace is his Tron-based NFT trading platform, used to digitize and fractionalize top artworks into NFTs. Sun Yuchen is a passionate art collector, owning works by Picasso, Andy Warhol, and others, and even paid $6.2 million for a "banana" artwork. The circulating market cap of the APENFT platform token is now $324.56 million.

From Tron to BitTorrent, from trading platforms to stablecoins and NFT markets, Sun Yuchen has spent less than ten years shaping his business empire in the crypto world into a complete ecosystem. Based on available data, the core assets he holds are valued at over $43 billion.

What’s even more interesting is his recent interactions with the U.S. political scene. He first encountered Bitcoin while studying at the University of Pennsylvania, when Bitcoin was around $10. He started small and gradually increased his holdings. In 2013, he joined Ripple Labs, and in 2014, he returned to China to start his business. But in the eyes of the Biden administration, he’s been seen as a "troublesome on-chain agitator." The FBI and Department of Justice have investigated him, and the SEC has formally sued him. To protect his freedom, he first took on the role of WTO ambassador for a Caribbean island country in 2021 to gain diplomatic immunity, and later was appointed as a speaker in another self-proclaimed libertarian micro-nation.

But everything changed with the 2024 U.S. presidential election. Sun Yuchen believed early on that Trump would have a positive impact on the crypto industry. The Trump family has publicly bet heavily on cryptocurrencies, and from late last year to this year, Sun Yuchen invested a total of $75 million, becoming the "biggest backer," and was appointed as a core advisor by the Trump family. He also bought the largest amount of Trump coins and attended a dinner hosted by Trump. It’s said Trump only stayed for half an hour, and the second half turned into a solo show for Sun Yuchen.

In an interview, he said, "I am a bridge between the crypto industry and the President, and perhaps also a bridge for future U.S.-China communication." Compared to entrepreneurs who pay huge fines for free movement in the U.S., the cost Sun Yuchen paid is indeed minimal. Now he can not only return to the U.S. but has also visited multiple companies across different regions, even posting several tweets expressing his "love" for Trump.

Honestly, looking at Sun Yuchen’s ten-year business trajectory, you can see what it means to "fully utilize rules, leverage resources, and win the game." From a crypto "Jia Yueting" to a CEO of a listed company, and even engaging with U.S. politics, this guy has truly mastered the art of business to the fullest.