Justin Sun, founder of blockchain platform Tron, poses for a photograph in Hong Kong, May 8, 2020.
Calvin Sit | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Crypto billionaire Justin Sun is buying another $100 million worth of $TRUMP, doubling his total known stake of digital coins tied to President Donald Trump.
Sun, who founded the TRON blockchain and is working to resolve a civil fraud case with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, announced the purchase of the $TRUMP token in an X post on Wednesday. Sun said the Trump-linked digital coins will soon be tradeable on the TRON network.
“$TRUMP on TRON is the currency of #MAGA,” Sun wrote.
It’s a splashy endorsement at a moment of reckoning for political meme tokens.
The $TRUMP token, 80% of which is controlled by the Trump Organization and affiliated entities, has become the centerpiece of the family’s expanding crypto empire. The “End Crypto Corruption Act,” introduced by Senate Democrats earlier this year, is intended to prohibit elected officials and senior executive branch personnel from issuing or endorsing digital assets.
The $TRUMP coin has whipsawed since its January launch, peaking at a $15 billion market cap on its first day of trading before sliding sharply to about $2 billion as of July. The complementary $MELANIA token, meanwhile, has plunged more than 90% from its offering price in January to less than $141 million.
But that kind of price volatility has been good for business.
The $TRUMP token’s code automatically routes a fee from every transaction to wallets tied to its creators. Between January and April alone, those wallets pulled in more than $324 million in trading revenue, according to Chainalysis. The blockchain analytics firm has since ceased tracking this metric, citing other commitments to clients.
Sun has rapidly emerged as one of the Trump crypto ecosystem’s biggest whales.
In January, Sun boosted his holdings of World Liberty Financial’s WLFI token — where 75% of profits flow to the Trump family — to $75 million. A court filing in February revealed that Sun and the SEC were in talks to resolve the agency’s civil fraud case against him.
Sun soon added the $TRUMP token to his portfolio, winning a contest for top holders and further cementing his influence in the MAGA-crypto universe.
Now, Sun is entering U.S. public markets through a reverse merger with SRM Entertainment, a toy supplier backed by Trump-linked investment bank Dominari Securities.
Dominari is a boutique investment bank whose parent company has recently drawn attention for its ties to the Trump family. Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump joined Dominari Holdings’ advisory board earlier this year, shortly before the firm’s share price surged.
Sun’s latest bet highlights just how deeply Trump-aligned tokens have embedded themselves in the speculative center of the crypto market — and how aggressively high-profile players such as Sun are capitalizing on the moment.
