He Registered Fake Accounts, Ate a $6.2 Million Banana, and Built a Crypto Empire on Distrust

Justin Sun: sockpuppets, bananas, and “purely fictional”

He registered dozens of accounts.

Some posed as large companies. Some posed as his own secretary. Clients got emails from the “Sun Yuchen team.” The person answering sat at the same desk. His name was Sun Yuchen. This story comes from his early startup days. Whether it is true does not matter much. It works as a key to his later moves.

Whitepaper and going overseas

In 2017, TRON released a whitepaper and raised money. Then came the copying claims. The whitepaper was said to have taken material from Filecoin, IPFS, and other projects. The controversy did not stop the raise. In September, Chinese regulators halted ICOs. Many projects stalled. Sun moved the entity and operations offshore. The project survived.

No tragedy. No repentance. Only moves: release, raise, face copying claims, watch regulators arrive, go overseas. He did not need to explain. He needed the project to keep running.

USDT and the business underneath

If Sun only issued tokens, hyped, and chased trends, he would not be where he is.

He saw stablecoins. More precisely, he saw demand for USDT transfers: low cost, high throughput, large scale. Tether put USDT on TRON. On-chain data rose. Users came. Volume came. TRON gained a business base.