*Originally posted, Dec 5 2019 in Crypto Coin Trader on Facebook, moved here for linking in another post *
TRX founder, Bittorrent CEO, hookup app owner and CEO, a leading investor in Poloniex's new ownership structure, former chief Ripple Exec for Asia, Justin Sun continues to try to do everything under the sun.
We seem to be forgetting though, that the point of crypto is decentralization and returning power to people, not just giving power to Justin Sun and letting him make his own fortune with your money.
From initial ICO economics, to twitter brags and ego affronts, Justin Sun is playing a dangerous game.
Endorsing and promoting securities, delisting coins at a whim from his damaged ego, Justin Sun has made it clear that he feels laws, rules, policies and procedures don't apply to him.
I know this will get a lot of hate from you TRX fanboys, but the reality is that when he was with Ripple, he saw opportunity to do something similar. Huge corporate holdings of a coin, lock up some of them, and manipulate the market.
Over and over I get asked my thoughts on Tron. I don't care about Tron, because Tron is really Justin Sun. And Justin Sun? He's young, impulsive, manipulative, scheming, and overextended both financially and in the number of responsibilities he's taken on.
Even if you consider him to be the best CEO on the planet, (and I definitely do not) these companies are no longer getting Justin Sun, they're getting a tiny piece of Justin Sun.
Take this recent tweet from him:
"I'm not buying anything. Just invest some and help out my friends. Actually I have a huge bag of $BNB, $HT, $OKB etc and bet on all exchanges that support $TRX & $BTT."
This quickly led to speculation that Huobi and OKex would be the the next SR's, because at the time, only Binance was an SR on Tron. SR's are arguably elected by the community, but are they?
Binance bought 12B TRX and voted themselves into the number one Super Representative spot.
When you look at Binance owning 12B TRX and Justin Sun discussing huge bags of BNB, you have to wonder about what backroom deal occurred to make that happen. Was it a straight trade? Did Sun give CZ a discount to make news happen? We won't know until we start seeing litigation.
Justin Sun is in a position that Ripple execs would envy, with Chinese government support after his promotion of China's particular brand of "socialism" earlier this year.
With Chinese government support, we're not going to see into his dealings anytime soon, but I expect that if we did, we'd see that he's little more than a figurehead, a current golden boy image for Chinese capital.
There are many indications, including that the ICO ban seemed to wait for TRX's raise to conclude, that he's heading up more than he can reasonably be actually leading, his presence on US based social media without issue, among others.
This is already long as is, but with these power plays consolidating crypto institutions under one flag, we need to take time to consider what that flag is. That flag may look like Justin Sun, but in reality, as an industry we're ceding power to China.
I'd encourage you to consider what you support and buy and use as we see this play out. Blockchain is a tool that can change the world because it eliminates the need for a trusted third party, provides censorship resistance, and restores freedom to transact.
But blockchain alone is also a tool that provides an immutable record of actions and identity that sounds like a dream for authoritarian regimes. We have the power NOW to decide which of these types of blockchains, industry companies, and long term outlooks we will support.