It’s a truth universally acknowledged that a Tron announcement will never be quite what it seems, and “Sun’s Law” is playing out on Tuesday in spectacular fashion as Justin Sun faces a shellacking in Chinese media – and the TRX price burns.
What began as a simple bout of kidney stones for the wunderkind Tron founder has infected TRX investors around the globe. But, in classic TRX fashion, reports suggest that Justin Sun’s not actually battling kidney stones at all – and the BitmexRekt bot confirms that the uber-bulls are the ones suffering the pain.
Liquidated long on TRXU19: Sell 1,757,285 @ 2.21e-06 💯💯💯💯💯💯💯💯💯💯💯💯💯💯💯💯💯🔥 ~ Double kill
— REKT (@BitmexRekt) July 23, 2019
Justin Sun Stands Up Warren Buffett
It all started when the Tron Foundation abruptly scrubbed Justin Sun’s $4.57 million Thursday lunch-date with Warren Buffett, with Sun stating that he had kidney stones and would reschedule the meeting for a future date.
Unfortunate health concern or not, the move was very on-brand.
But since it came from Tron, even this announcement wasn’t quite what met the eye, only in this case, the truth might be more spectacular than investors believed – not less.
Shortly after Justin Sun made his alleged bout with nephrolithiasis public, rumors began circulating that Chinese authorities – not kidney stones – were forcing him to stand up the Oracle of Omaha – not that Buffett probably minded.
And then the media reports began rolling in.
Sun’s Law: Tron Announcements Are NEVER What You Think
The 21st Century Business Herald levied a bevy of accusations at Justin Sun. The outlet alleged that he was guilty of operating an illegal fundraising project when he launched the TRX initial coin offering (ICO) in 2017. It further claimed that Tron failed to prevent Chinese residents from accessing illegal gambling services that run on the TRX blockchain. Finally – as noted in CoinDesk, the first Western outlet to cite the Herald’s report – it accused Peiwo, Sun’s social media startup, of illegally aiding the pornography industry.
Sun quickly responded on Chinese social media site Weibo, denying the 21st Century Business Herald’s accusations wholesale.
But it wasn’t long before more reports began to pile on.
Local media outlet Caixin reported that authorities had barred Justin Sun from leaving China. Sina Finance added that the Tron founder had not previously been on the government’s exit-ban list, but his high-profile lunch-date with Buffett had attracted so much attention in the country that “he entered the regulator’s field of vision,” according to a rough translation.
So caixin did report that Sun has been exit banned https://t.co/AF9pJq18qD reached out to Sun’s spokesperson who has yet to reply. https://t.co/1XaOoZMEkq
— Jane Li (@Jane_Li911) July 23, 2019
Citing unnamed sources, The Block claims that Sun is holed up in San Francisco and chose to scrap the lunch to avoid raising his profile any further. In that case, he would not be able to leave China if and when he returns.
Neither Sun nor the Tron Foundation has responded to these latest allegations. It’s been radio silence on both Twitter accounts for more than seven hours, with Sun’s last tweet congratulating a TRX-based project for its listing on Binance Launchpad.
At this point, we’re left with far more questions than answers, but if the worst of the allegations turn out to be accurate, we could be witnessing the ultimate Tron bait-and-switch – the archetypical proof of Sun’s Law.
- Bait: Justin Sun pays $4.57 million to shill Tron to Warren Buffett.
- Switch: Justin Sun ends up in handcuffs.
Tron Price Implodes as Investors Rush to Exits
Judging by the charts, Tron investors aren’t sticking around to find out. The Tron price has crashed 21% over the past 24 hours, making it the crypto market’s worst performer by a considerable margin.
Even more telling: The second-worst performer is none other than BitTorrent, the cryptocurrency launched by the eponymous file-sharing service that Justin Sun purchased in 2018.
Somewhere in Nebraska, Warren Buffett is smiling.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in the article are solely those of the author and do not represent those of, nor should they be attributed to, CCN.
