8 hours ago
The past clip Justin Sun acceptable ft successful the U.S. helium was Grenada's WTO ambassador and was navigating the rocky waters of erstwhile President Biden's crypto crackdown.
Times person changed. Now, he's eating astatine an lawsuit hosted by President Donald Trump for the largest holders of his TRUMP memecoin and celebrating a regulatory breakthrough, as issuers oculus a imaginable Tron ETF, signaling a striking reversal successful crypto's American fortunes.
Speaking exclusively with CoinDesk aft the Presidential dinner, which was met by protestors, the Tron laminitis dismissed allegations that the token is simply a conveyance for bribery. He called skeptics short-sighted, arguing Trump's clasp of crypto could spark a caller epoch of integer plus innovation successful America.
"All the haters request to truly wage attention," Sun told CoinDesk, describing Trump's enactment for crypto arsenic 1 of the President's champion decisions."There are affirmative things happening successful the industry."
Sun's narration with Trump's affiliated crypto ventures stretches backmost to conscionable aft past year's election, erstwhile helium bought up to $75 cardinal worthy of World Liberty Financial tokens crossed aggregate tranches.
Shortly aft Trump took office, his Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) paused a civilian fraud lawsuit against Sun, alongside crypto speech Binance; the SEC besides withdrew from oregon dropped a twelve different cases, though it conscionable filed a caller civilian fraud suit against Unicoin earlier this week. And earlier connected Thursday, the Wall Street Journal reported that the Department of Justice, which pursues transgression cases, had been investigating the Tron laminitis since 2021.
Read more: Where All the SEC Cases Are
He described the meal arsenic a wide motion the U.S. is regaining its presumption arsenic the crypto's planetary hub, marking a crisp reversal from the Biden administration's warfare connected the industry, which had antecedently prompted crypto firms to see offshore moves.
"At the Trump dinner, immoderate supporters told maine they were reasoning of leaving the U.S. due to the fact that of the Biden administration, moving to places similar Hong Kong oregon Singapore," Sun said. "Even Consensus started holding events extracurricular of the United States."
"But present they've changed their minds. It brings everybody backmost into the U.S.," helium continued.
Criticism of Trump's determination to motorboat a memecoin has travel accelerated and furious from mainstream media, including attempts to nexus holders of the token to achromatic nationalism.
Sun dismissed this disapproval by emphasizing that critics person each close to explicit their views nether the First Amendment.
'Memecoins person merit'
While protesters met the memecoin faithful who attended the TRUMP dinner, skepticism astir meme coins isn't constricted to outsiders.
At a fireside chat during Consensus 2025, Barstool Sports laminitis Dave Portnoy described meme coins arsenic fundamentally "gambling," questioning their longevity.
"I get wherefore radical similar it," Portnoy said. "It’s a signifier of gambling, it’s a Ponzi scheme. I don’t mean that successful a antagonistic way."
Sun disagrees. Rather than viewing meme coins arsenic gambling oregon Ponzi schemes, helium positions them arsenic morganatic segments of integer plus markets.
Sun pointed to tokens similar DOGE and SHIB arsenic examples of occurrence stories that person helped onboard users into crypto. He emphasized that Tron's extremity is to enactment "every azygous portion successful crypto to turn and go mainstream."
"I wholly deliberation memecoins person merit," Sun told CoinDesk. "It’s conscionable similar doing business. Some succeed, immoderate spell to zero. That’s entrepreneurship."
UPDATE (May 23, 06:15 UTC): Adds details connected Sun's erstwhile investigations and further background.
English (US) 