Justin Sun Is in the Spotlight. Free or Four?
Tron TRX has been delisted by Binance.US amid rumors about the arrest of its founder. What's going on with Justin Sun?
Tron TRX has been delisted by Binance.US amid rumors about the arrest of its founder. What's going on with Justin Sun?
Justin Sun has been in the spotlight since March 22, when the SEC filed a lawsuit against him. The US Securities and Exchange Commission has accused the founder of Tron of unregistered offers and sales of TRX and BTT and manipulation of the TRX market.
On April 11, the news about the arrest of Justin Sun began to spread rapidly on the internet. As always, it started with a tweet from a user, this time FXhedgers, which was eventually deleted.
The founder of Tron denied the rumor by posting "4" on his Twitter, which is apparently becoming a crypto slang expression for "ignore fake news". It was originally introduced by Binance CEO CZ, who clarified in his tweet in January of this year that it was shorthand for "Ignore FUD, fake news, attacks, etc.โ
Nevertheless, the next day, Binance.US announced that it was excluding TRX from its list of assets, effective from April 18.
Presumably, this decision does relate to the SEC's lawsuit against Justin Sun. According to the announcement on the exchange's website, assets can be excluded from the listing due to changes in their risk profile, including, among others, their "regulatory standing in the United States."
The events of these two days had a negative impact on the price of TRX, pushing it to period lows. On March 11, rumors about the detention of Justin Sun caused the price of the token to drop to $0.065, and after the news about delisting on Binance on April 12, the token price dropped to $0.062.
This decision caused concern not only among TRX investors but also in the general crypto community, as many popular stablecoins operate on the TRON blockchain. Binance.US reassured users and informed them that the exchange will continue to work with the TRON blockchain, supporting TRC-20 USDT and USDC issued on the TRON network.
A few days after these events, on April 14, it became known that the US Court was summoning Justin Sun to court. The document dated April 12 stated that the founder of Tron must respond to this notification within 21 days or face an in-absentia ruling.
โIf you fail to respond, judgment by default will be entered against you for the relief demanded in the complaint,โ- the document says.
Almost concurrently with this news, another โ4โ and a laughing smiley face appeared on Sun's Twitter, which apparently hints that everything is fine with him, and the news is FUD.
Meanwhile, on-chain data analytics firm Lookonchain reported that Justin Sun has been liquidating some of his assets over the past few days. According to the data, he has transferred a total of 2000 ETH tokens worth approximately $4 million to Binance, and another 200 ETH to Huobi exchanges in a possible encashment transaction.
It is impossible to predict how events around Justin Sun will develop further, so we will continue our Observations and inform you as they develop!