Recently, I’ve been pondering a question: what does it really mean to be a true businessman? Sun Yuchen provided an answer eight years ago—"My standard for judging a person is how much money they make." This guy isn’t just talking; he has been practicing this philosophy since 2014.

Yesterday, I saw news that he used $100 million to take Tron (TRX) public through a backdoor listing, which made me realize that this post-90s entrepreneur has transformed himself from a crypto figure into the helm of a NASDAQ-listed company. Achieving this at 35, with holdings in seven or eight companies and projects, is indeed impressive.

His blockchain empire is actually quite clear. Tron is the starting point. In 2017, he abandoned his previous social app, teamed up with a few Peking University classmates, and with backing from capital, launched the Tron public chain. At that time, they raised about $400 million through an ICO, but soon faced setbacks due to the "9.4" policy crackdown. During that period, the team disbanded, partners left, and he himself admitted, "The first three years of entrepreneurship were almost a complete waste."

The turning point came in April 2019. Tether decided to issue the TRC-20 version of USDT on Tron, a move that almost determined Tron’s current market cap. Now, the on-chain transfer volume and Gas consumption on Tron account for over 98% of the total public chain activity, with daily on-chain revenue exceeding $2.1 million and annualized revenue reaching $770 million. Tron’s total market cap now hits $29.8 billion, ranking among the top mainstream public chains globally.

Besides Tron, he also spent $140 million to acquire BitTorrent, an old file-sharing tool. Many post-80s and post-90s probably used it; at its peak, about 40% of global internet traffic was transmitted through it. His idea was to blockchain-ify the entire BitTorrent protocol, launching the BTT token, allowing users to pay with BTT for faster downloads. Currently, BTT’s circulating market cap is about $300 million, with a steady 24-hour trading volume in the tens of millions.

In terms of exchanges, he owns Poloniex and HTX. He officially acquired Poloniex in June 2022, with a daily trading volume of about $500 million. In October of the same year, he bought a $1 billion stake in Huobi, becoming the actual helm of the platform. Huobi still ranks among the top 10 global exchanges, with daily trading volume reaching $2.4 billion.

The stablecoin ecosystem is even more interesting. USDD is a decentralized stablecoin he personally led the launch of, with a current market cap of about $1.55 billion. TUSD appears not to be his asset on the surface, but the flow of funds essentially confirms his shadow control, with a market cap of around $494 million. WBTC, wrapped Bitcoin, has a market cap of $8.16 billion. Tron DAO reserves hold a large amount of Bitcoin, some of which has been converted into WBTC to support the stable operation of USDD.

DLive is his live streaming platform. After being acquired by BitTorrent at the end of 2019, the entire team migrated to the Tron ecosystem. Using BTT tokens for tipping and content distribution incentives, it once attracted top overseas influencers like PewDiePie.

In the NFT space, he established the APENFT Foundation in 2021, aiming to connect traditional art with the NFT world. The APENFT Marketplace is a Tron-based NFT trading platform, which quickly attracted many creators due to its low on-chain transaction fees and his own popularity. The platform’s NFT tokens now have a market cap of about $326 million.

Over the past decade, Sun Yuchen has refined his crypto business empire into a complete system—public chains, trading platforms, stablecoins, NFTs, cross-chain assets—with core assets valued at over $43 billion.

But what’s most interesting is his relationship with the U.S. He first encountered Bitcoin while studying at Penn, when it was worth just $10 each. Later, he joined Ripple’s China team and returned to China to start his business in 2014. However, the Biden administration has consistently regarded him as a "troublemaker on the chain." In 2020, the FBI and Department of Justice launched investigations against him, and in 2023, the SEC sued him for manipulating TRX and BTT prices. To protect his freedom, he obtained diplomatic immunity by registering with Grenada and Liberia.

But he sees clearly that the 2024 U.S. presidential election is a turning point for him. He has long believed that Trump would have a positive impact on cryptocurrencies. The Trump family has been openly betting on the crypto industry, and Sun Yuchen has spent a total of $75 million since late last year, becoming the "biggest supporter," and was appointed as a core advisor to the project. His Trump coin holdings are the largest, with 1.43 million coins. It’s said that Trump only attended the dinner for half an hour, with the second half almost a solo show by Sun Yuchen.

In interviews, he describes himself as "a bridge between the crypto industry and the President." Compared to CZ, who paid a hefty fine for the freedom to enter the U.S., Sun Yuchen’s costs are indeed minimal. Now he has returned to the U.S., visited multiple companies, and seems quite confident about this turnaround.