Justin Sun believes the technology behind NFTs could change the world. He’s not talking about the few collections being sold for outrageous amounts of money. No, NFTs are more than a rich person’s JPEG.
Sun came from humble beginnings, yet he has gone on to amass a fortune. Growing up, his family lived in small towns in and around Guangdong during the 1990s. He recalls how he used to spend his summers in bookstores until closing time because his parents couldn’t afford air conditioning in their home.
The young Sun displayed rebellious tendencies as a child. He wanted to become a writer and refused to study for his exams. Instead, he worked tirelessly writing a novel. His diligence paid off, and he won an essay contest in his senior year of high school, which earned him admission to Peking University, one of the top 2 universities in all of China.
Justin Sun made substantial contributions in Tesla shares in 2012. This carefully considered decision tremendously rewarded Sun. Using that money, in 2017, he founded TRON, a cryptocurrency platform currently with more than 114,000,000 active users and over 3.9 billion transactions. Justin Sun’s personal profile has grown alongside his business success, with 3.3 million Twitter followers and over 230K followers on Instagram. More importantly, he values philanthropic causes and has made several generous donations to nonprofit causes, including the $4.6 million charity auction in 2019 that won him a meal with Warren Buffet. News reports claim that he gave Buffett a variety of cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, in an effort to educate him and give him an entry point from traditional investing to crypto.
As the founder of TRON, a blockchain network with thousands of different projects, decentralized applications (dApps), and NFTs, Sun is one of the most interesting people in the NFT space. The 32-year-old billionaire has collected more than $100 million in NFTs as well as traditional art, including works by Warhol, Picasso, and Giacometti.
“NFTs will be the key component of Web3 in the long-term,” Sun declares. “They are a game-changer and a major component for the next stage. NFTs can revolutionize the current trading model, particularly for digital art. TRON as a platform has many benefits, including helping the uninitiated to get into blockchain technology. Many traditional artists have tried to get into the crypto and NFT world but were unsuccessful. This is because they didn’t understand the true value of NFTs beyond proof of ownership, the idea, and the vision behind them. TRON is also faster, more affordable, and better for the environment than other platforms.”
Justin Sun continues, “while Web2 is owned by tech giants, Web3 is built around blockchain technology, allowing anyone to own it and communicate directly with every machine or individual in the world. I believe that it will revolutionize finance and art. This new identity is a great one for me as a collector. I find many similarities between investing in crypto and blockchain and collecting artwork.”