SCOOP: Tether personally issued TRON's Sun at least $200M in USDT

TRON's Justin Sun acquired hundreds of millions of dollars worth of Tether, making him one of its most prolific buyers, Protos can reveal.

Justin Sun, the flagrant marketeer behind crypto TRON (TRX), has acquired at least $200 million in Tether (USDT) directly from the enigmatic stablecoin issuer — making him one of its most prolific individual buyers, Protos can reveal.

Crypto companies like Alameda Research and Cumberland Global bought far more USDT directly from Tether. However, we understand Tether easily issued Sun more USDT than any other person over a number of years.

Sun seems to have personally acquired the USDT, rather than via the TRON Foundation, or any other company connected to the TRON founder.

It appears Sun redeemed zero USDT during that time despite his record issuances, say sources familiar with the matter.

More Tether on TRON than anywhere else

Justin Sun (also known as Sun Yuchen) arrived relatively late to Tether, but quickly became one of its most adamant supporters.

Since forking EthereumJ to create TRON in 2017, Sun has consistently leveraged his Twitter following to advertise Tether-related stats — particularly how much USDT exists on his network.

While on brand for the Chinese entrepreneur (he’s historically spent tens of millions of dollars to promote himself and his centralized crypto projects), TRON and Tether maintain a particularly intimate relationship.

None of Sun’s cryptocurrencies come close to USDT’s market value.

In May 2020, Tether sister org Bitfinex became a validator (or “super representative”) for TRON.

This meant the Hong Kong-headquartered exchange was one of 27 entities trusted to approve crypto transactions on the network, a role which netted Bitfinex TRX in return.

Bitfinex no longer maintains its TRON validator position. Still, Tether today utilizes Sun’s blockchain to issue more USDT than any other — eclipsing Ethereum by nearly $2 billion.

Protos understands the volumes that Tether issued to Sun far exceed those sent to many other entities and individuals.

USDT’s billions exist almost entirely on TRON and Ethereum.

In fact, it appears Sun ranks near or at the top of the list of individuals to ever directly receive USDT.

These exclusive details shine further light on the opaque Tether clique, which until now has largely operated without transparency.

Protos reached out to Sun to learn more about how he utilized his USDT. We’ll update this piece should we hear back.

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