Bankless - 213 - Justin Sun: On Tron, Vitalik, and Becoming Humble

Episode Date: March 11, 2024

✨ DEBRIEF | Ryan & David unpacking the episode: https://www.bankless.com/debrief-justin-sun  ------ Justin Sun, the Controversial Founder of TRON has finally entered the chat. This episode is packed with hot takes. Expect to learn why Justin is still in Crypto, why  he should’ve copied Ethereum 100% and not just 95%, why he views Vitalik as a goldmine and much more. ------ 🏹 USE PODCAST24 FOR 10% OFF https://bankless.cc/Citizen2024  ------ 🎧 Listen On Your Favorite Podcast Player:  https://bankless.cc/Podcast  ------ BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS: 🐙KRAKEN | MOST-TRUSTED CRYPTO EXCHANGE https://k.xyz/bankless-pod-q2    ⁠   🔗CELO | CEL2 COMING SOON https://bankless.cc/Celo    🗣️TOKU | CRYPTO EMPLOYMENT SOLUTION https://bankless.cc/toku    🛞MANTLE | MODULAR LAYER 2 NETWORK https://bankless.cc/Mantle    ⚖️ARBITRUM | SCALING ETHEREUM ⁠https://bankless.cc/Arbitrum  🦄 UNISWAP | SWAP SMARTER https://bankless.cc/uniswap  ------ TIMESTAMPS 00:00 Intro 7:17 Justin Sun Origin Story 13:01 Why Crypto? 19:51 The Next Cycle 25:32 Justin’s Role 29:00 The State of Tron 36:36 Tron Economics 47:28 Tron Plagiarism 53:22 Decentralizing Tron 57:03 Addressing Tron’s Censorship 1:03:33 Crypto Favorites 1:05:20 What’s Next 1:09:16 People to Watch 1:14:51 Closing & Disclaimers ------ RESOURCES Justin Sun https://x.com/justinsuntron  TRON https://tron.network/   TRON Stats https://thedefireport.substack.com/p/should-we-be-taking-tron-seriously   ------ Not financial or tax advice. This channel is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. This video is not tax advice. Talk to your accountant. Do your own research. Disclosure. From time-to-time I may add links in this newsletter to products I use. I may receive commission if you make a purchase through one of these links. Additionally, the Bankless writers hold crypto assets. See our investment disclosures here: https://www.bankless.com/disclosures  

After the 12 years in the crypto, and I think I become a crypto like native, I start to feel like this is my home, right? If I sell like all the crypto and the gold and the other places, there's nowhere I can go. Welcome to bankless, where we explore the frontier of internet money and internet finance. This is Ryan Sean Adams. I'm here with David Hoffman, and we're here to help you become more bankless. Guys, we have Justin Sun, the controversial founder of the Tron blockchain on the podcast today. Why in the world did we do this episode? Well, it's because Tron has some real traction out here. And this is the first time we've ever had Justin's son on the podcast.

I've got to say, David, it proved to be a pretty fascinating and sometimes hilarious conversation. I had fun. I had fun as well. If you are not familiar with Tron, it's an open source, proof of stake, layer one chain. It was launched during the peak of ICO mania. back in September 2017. If you were around at that time, you will remember it as a copy pasta of Ethereum. And historically, I'd say it's been really dialed up to the max on marketing,

aggressive marketing, I would say, bombastic claims, some might say. And hence a lot of the controversy surrounding it. But there's also some traction here, particularly in the peer-to-peer stable coin market, where in some sectors, in some geographies around the world, Tron is actually fulfilling the crypto mission of banking the unbanked. And there's a lot of on-chain activity that actually proves that. So a very interesting conversation as far as that goes as well. Some think covered, who is Justin's son? Why is he in crypto? What's he here to do? We also talk about why he built Tron and why he wishes he'd copied Ethereum 100% rather than just 95%.

What Justin thinks of Tron's previous marketing tactics and why he might not do it this way again. And why Tron sent bankless a cease and desist. That's a true story that actually happened. And finally, who he admires in crypto, including a really interesting conversation about Vitalik Buterin. The YTron sent bankless as he's and desist is actually how this podcast got started. You know, bankless, we're pretty good at making friends. And we, of course, were interfacing with Justin's lawyers, not Justin himself. And I can't remember at some podcast meeting that Ron and I were having a banklist. We just had the idea like, ha ha, what if we had Justin's son on the podcast?

And then I was like, well, let me go text the lawyers. Let's see what happens. And of course, the lawyers wanted to review the questions. we wouldn't want to make sure we wouldn't ask anything like too crazy. But as soon as we actually got to talk to Justin's son, both of us were like, you know, like, we're just going to go out of it and you'll see what happens. And Justin's son was like, yeah, we're just going to go out it and see what happens. So as soon as we got past the lawyers, things got a lot more personable, I would say. And I found Justin a lot more personal than I would have expected on this episode. I had a pretty fun time. Yeah, so did I. And certainly this is not an endorsement of Tron. And, you know, this is not a claim that Tron is the most decentralized blockchain on the planet. We definitely, got one side of Justin's son. Yeah. We saw the very like personable, happy side of Justin's son. I gotta say though, David, there's something to the fact that Tron has survived all of this time.

And what doesn't lie to me, so has he. It's the traction that Tron actually has in the stable coin market. And it's actually incredibly impressive. The amount of block space it's selling, the fees that it's throwing off. Traction that even Ethereum would be jealous of. Yeah. There's something here. And it is surprising.

So one other thing, David. I want to talk a little bit about the backstory of this episode. more detail on how it came to be and what were some of the provisions going into the episode. But we'll save that for the debrief conversation. If you're a bankless citizen, you already have access to that. That's on the premium podcast feed that you now have. If you are not a citizen, consider upgrading. There's a link in the show notes. And you can hear our thoughts after this episode with Justin's son. All right, let's get right to the episode. But before we do, we want to thank the sponsors that made this possible, including our number one recommended exchange for

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started for free and make token compensation simple at toku.com slash bankless. Bankless Nation, today we talk to Justin Sun, who is the founder of Tron, which is a $12 billion blockchain at the time of recording, securing over $50 billion worth of stable coins. And I'll just note, actually, David, I'm not sure if you know that. That's more than Ethereum in terms of tether. There's more tether on Tron than Ethereum at the time of recording. Justin, welcome to bankless. Thank you, Ryan, David.

Okay, so this is the first time we've had you on bankless, actually. And I don't know, David, we've been doing this podcast for about four years. So we've gone through some stuff in crypto, some crypto cycles. And you've been through many cycles in crypto as well. So I think we should really start this conversation by getting to know you. Get the bankless nation introduced to Justin's son. So maybe we could start there. Why did you get into crypto? Can you tell us the story? Yes, sure. So in around 2011, I graduated from Peking University in Beijing at that time. And then I applied for the graduate school in United States in UPenn. So I joined UPenn in around 2012. And then at 2012, I was getting started to know about Bitcoin. So at that time, Bitcoin is around $1.00. And then at 2012, I was getting started to know about Bitcoin. So at that time, Bitcoin is around $1. So at that time, trading on empty docks. But at that time, I started to know about Bitcoin. And around 2013, I joined Ripple Labs. So at that time, it's called OpenCoyne. So I was, I think the first Asian employee, probably in RIPOL Labs. And then later, company rebrand to Ripple Labs.

So before that, it's called OpenCoy. and then rebrand to RIPOL Labs. And then I was the first employee in China as well. I was sent by RIPO back to China to be the chief representative in greater China area. So I did lots of the work to devolve XRP repo community at that time. And then I move on, leave the RIPO, I think, around 2016. then created a new blockchain called Tron. Actually, one of the reasons why I always kind of like interested in stable coin payments,

it's kind of like back to 2013 when I first joined repo. Actually, right, everybody knows like one of the biggest vision for XRP and the repo protocol is to become a global like settlement layer for payment. The first version of repo actually has like gateway, right? So basically all different like FIA can create like gateway on repo and sending the stable coin. At that time we don't have like stable concept first, but sending like FIA between the blockchain protocol. So that's like how repo like brought idea in the first place. So that's why when I create a trunk, the first like user case come to my mind is payment.

Right. So everyone, everywhere just can use like a stable coin to make payment. Even right, when I create tron at that time like stable coin still is not like popular, very popular in the space. At that time like Tether, just like newly introduced to crypto traders. At that time, I think most of the people just like trading crypto with Bitcoin, sending to like Poloniacs, right? Just trading outer coins with Bitcoin. But I think after almost seven years from now, right after I create Trump, today like everybody, especially like new users come to crypto world, they always like get used to trade the crypto just by using Tether on Trump. which I believe is a very big dynamic shift, right, from like Bitcoin to Trump, which obviously I believe there has lots of advantage, right,

why we eventually have this kind of shift. But I won't elaborate on that, but still continue my crypto journey. And then I think after five years, right, after we introduce like Trump like five years from now. So I think we have devolved like, a lot of new application on top of Tron Network. But still, I believe, Tron and the blockchain world is fascinating. We will have more and more possibility. I think stable coin payments and the settlement is only one of them. This is really fascinating to hear your journeys begin with Ripple. Very early as well into your career, it sounds like after graduating university. It's funny,

I remember Vitalik Buterin saying in 2013, he actually tried to get an internship at Ripple. For some reason, he didn't. But I'm not sure if you took his job, Justin. But it would have been a funny historical coincidence if you guys worked there at the same time. But I'm curious, like a lot of people come to crypto for different reasons, right? And, you know, some people are here for the money. Some people are here for the tech. Some people are here for just the opportunity.

Some people are here to change the world. Why are you here? Yes. I think for me, I'm quite lucky when I first, like, graduate. from school, right? So the first thing come to my mind is cryptocurrency. Actually, I haven't had a chance to get into like AI industry, right, to get into like other like tech industry.

So the first industry I get in is crypto. So so that's why I also feel it's kind of like lucky, right, to find a long like career journey you can be with for a long time in such a early stage of my career. And Vitalik also mentioned this, right? I think in his recent blog, so he says, like, he actually, like, interview like, ripple several times when he leave Bitcoin magazine, right? I think at that time, Vitalik also wants to create something different from Bitcoin at that time.

So he wants to build, like, smart contract into the blockchain, right? And of course, like, Bitcoin won't allow him to do that. So that's why I think. At that time, I remember when Vitalik first talked with Ripple, he also mentioned the idea, tried to build smart contract into Ripple. Because Ripple also don't have smart contract. It's same. It's a very fast and instant payment network, but without a smart contract.

So at that time, Wittatic wants to introduce smart contract into blockchain, which I think is definitely a very interesting idea. So that's why when I first like create Trump, I also believe a blockchain with a smart contract is the future. But obviously right now, like everybody is doing that. But we are talking about like in 2013, it's still a very early idea. And also for myself, I feel like crypto is just my home, right? I'm kind of like some like person. It's like lots of people come to the United States, right?

So people are always asking you like why you come to United States for money, for freedom, or for other, for career and for any other reasons. But for me, I feel like since I'm like a very crypto native, I kind of like a boy in American. So that's why it makes me feel like I born in crypto. So that's why I'm very familiar with lots of the early story of crypto, but never even have a chance to be in other industry. And of course, I'm very satisfied with what we have achieved, I think, in the past, like, 10 years. So I think I will be here for, like, many decades. Yeah. Yeah, Justin, we're entering the 20-24 bull market.

It's either the fourth or fifth crypto cycle, depending on how you count them. And you've actually seen all of them. Yes. And the number of people that see all of these crypto cycles becomes extremely rare, the number of cycles that we go on. like it's hard to last in crypto for so long. Like even CZ of all people actually has to take a time out, a hiatus. SBF is gone. Doquan is gone. But then also some other very big names are still here. Brian Armstrong, Vitalik is still here. The longer you go on in crypto, the harder it remains actually still be a player in the game. And you are one of those players. How have you lasted

so long? What has your strategy been? Every single bull market opportunity is an opportunity to wash out. But nonetheless, you are still here. What would you say you credit to the reason as to how you've lasted so long in crypto? Yes. Actually, this year has been 12 years. I have been in this industry. So I think for the first cycle, sometimes this kind of the idea kind of across my mind, it's like I will sell all my crypto and I can take the money and leave the table. Right. It's like in a casino, right? So you think this is it. I have enough money. I have earned and I will go to other places. But after the 12 years in the crypto, and I think I become a crypto, like, native, I start to feel like this is my home, right? If I sell, like, all the crypto and go and the other

places, there's nowhere I can go. So that's why I, right? I mean, eventually, actually it's feel like this way. So that's why I think since 2017, actually, I think I always keep most of my crypto just in the position, which I hold them. I never like sell the majority of my crypto after that. Even some people might monitor my addresses and find out I do some kind of the trade.

But for me, I think like 70% of my positions like stay like all the way. One of the biggest reason is because I have nowhere to go. And then because I also turned 34 now, because I think in my 20s, I feel like I have energy to go into lots of other industry, right? I can do AI. I can do robots.

I can do other like high tech new industry. But for now, I think I can only be succeed in cryptocurrency. world. So that's also why I keep most of my wealth in crypto because I don't really know where I can go if I exit from crypto business. Yeah, it's funny. Like the idea of nowhere to go, that's sort of how, yeah, whenever I am thinking about selling some of my crypto, people forget about the other side of that, which is you have to buy something else. Exactly. And like, I think about like, what else am I going to buy, right? Do I want fiat? Like, am I more. Am I more bullish on like stocks like so this is why it becomes a conundrum in terms of like figuring out what to

sell and when to sell it's because you have to be bullish on some other category and i find myself always gravitating back to crypto i'm curious but we want to spend i think a lot of the rest of the time talking about tron justin but since you've been through so many cycles do you have any thoughts on this particular cycle on 2024 so like where do you think we're going is this going to be a repeat of you know, the 2021, 2022, where we sort of, you know, bubble up and then come crashing down. Does this just play out how it always has in sort of these four-year cycles? Or is this time different in some meaningful way? What's your take on this next cycle we're entering into? Yes, I definitely believe this cycle is different from the three, like four cycles we have been through.

One of the biggest difference, I believe, is mass adoption. So before that, even I think mass adoption has become like a narrative, right? Everybody believe in. But we never been so close to this narrative. Today, if you check like Binance website, you can see there is 170 million users register on Binance. And if you check on like Tron addresses today, I think Trang, similar with Ethereum, has around 200 million addresses. So basically, I think which means a very important signal plus like Bitcoin, ETF, right, we have today, which is also I have a theory. So I believe if a new technology can convince at least 100 million people to join the technology, it's going to eventually reach to 7 billion, 8 billion people on Earth. It's just like, it's more like a Facebook moment, right? So when like Facebook to hit the first 100 million users, you will start to realize social media are going to be everywhere.

Right. So it's not going to go in a way. So before that, like everybody, when I first joined like Bitcoin world in around 2012, everybody is talking about like Bitcoin is a social experiment, right? Can fail like any time. I remember like when I tried to tell my friend to buy Bitcoin. I always told them this is experiments. You must be ready for lose 100% of your money, right?

Because like any time Bitcoin can go wrong and you probably going to lose all your money, right? Bitcoin can go to zero. It has no value at all. So you need to be prepared for this kind of the social experiment. But I think after four cycle, after like 12 years, I really believe, like, after ETF, Bitcoin has like passed the gate, right? So to become the digital goal. I think this has become a reality, just like Facebook has got into the first, like, 100 million users.

And it still takes time to get 8 billion people on Earth. But it's become 100% certainty now. So that's like the biggest, I think, certainty. we have in with this cycle. And of course, I think for Tether, you know, and also for the mainstream blockchain like Ethereum, I believe it's going to become like Facebook, right, for everybody in the world.

Probably different regions will have different blockchain, right? It's just like in China, you have like we chat, right? In US, you have like Facebook, you know. But eventually social media has become the thing for everyone. everyone in the world to connect. So that's like something I really believe going to happen in this cycle with like 100% of their certainty and also for exchange as well. So before that, right, we have like different like dominant parties in exchange business, right?

We have empty dogs, Polonex, right? And then like finance, right, Coinbase, right, in different time. But now I think in the next like three years, crypto exchange will also be just like common as like the stock exchange we are using today. It's going to be with everyone's life. So that's the thing I believe is very different from the last cycle. Justin, I kind of want to ask about your personal vision for yourself, your own identity and also your vision for your impact on the world.

Like all of these builders that I think have lasted the test of time have some sort of thesis about how crypto works and what it's going to do for the world and how it's going to change the world. First, like, what do you consider yourself to be, like an entrepreneur, an investor, a world builder? And then also, like, how would you describe your role in the broader context of like the 21st century? At the scale that like Tron and the Justin Empire is, it has like a pretty big footprint in the world. What do you want that to do to the world? And how do you see your role evolving? Yes, I believe my perspective for my role become, I will say, more humble after this like 12 years journey. Because I think when I first like joined the crypto industry, I am always like thinking like what I want to do in this industry, right? And what I want the world to become, right?

So that's why clearly I have a design like how Trump protocol going to be and what's the value of Trump and what I want to accomplish. But after this like kind of the 12 years journey, since I have been with crypto like all the way, I start to feel like I'm going to be the world need me the most. Because I still want to be a serious, serial entrepreneur, right? So I will start other business, like other thing happens on all the blockchains. I think I want to be a part of it. But the first thing I will think about is like, is our team or myself is the best team to do those jobs? If not, right, probably we're going to move to something else. So I won't be like 12 years ago, right?

I just want to do this. and I will achieve this no matter who against it and no matter what, right? But right now I think my strategy become like where you need me the most, I will be devoted most of my time in those categories. And I still fascinating about crypto world because we see like new scenes like coming out like basically every week. So I believe this is also a very good signal to show. show the energy and the show to everybody,

crypto industry is still very young, right? So probably, I think, after 30 years of development, crypto is going to become like Web 2, right? Web 3 going to become like Web 2. There's nothing new. I'm probably going to move to like Web 4 or Web 5.0, but I think probably still take some time. Yeah, I think, Justin, it's an interesting comment.

I've kind of like watched your character, over time. And one thing I would say is, I personally, I think maybe the world would appreciate a humble era, Justin Sun, because I would say Tron did not start that way, right? I think a lot of people listening to this are coming in with the impression that Justin Sun is a marketer. Marketer may be extraordinary. And started with some of these kind of like very bombastic claims. And maybe we'll get to some of the critiques in a little bit. But let me segue the conversation into Tron itself. And part of the reason we are having this conversation with you is because when you zoom out and look at Tron itself, it actually has traction. And this may come as a surprise. It certainly has for me in the last

year or so, because I've got to admit, like myself personally, I've sort of dismissed Tron as kind of like, it's just like, I don't know what it is. I'm not really, like, it's like marketing. There's not a lot there. But the great thing about these open blockchain economies is you can actually see what's going on under the hood. And let me throw out a few stats for people that might not be aware of Tron entering 2024. From a usage perspective, it very much looks like Tron is a peer-to-peer, right, stable coin chain. That's a ton of the usage. And this, by the way, let me remind, well, I don't have to remind bankless listeners, but let me remind everybody in crypto that part of the original vision for this thing was to bank the unbanked, okay? Give people in development,

countries without a robust banking system, a way to use crypto to improve their lives. And when you look at the stats, it actually seems like Tron is doing some of that. Okay, so I mentioned there is more tether stable coins on Tron than Ethereum at the time of recording. There was just like a recent flippinging. There's nearly 20 million addresses hold between $1 and $100 in stable coins. So these are small transactors. These are not whales, shuttling money between...

In fact, most of the transactions on Tron at this point in time do not involve centralized exchanges. A lot of the gas consumed on Tron is Tether. That's about 92% of the gas. And we just had Paulo, who is the CEO of Tether on the podcast about a week ago. We talked to him about this. And he told us in many developing countries where their local currency and banking structure has failed them, they are actually using Tron because it's a low-cost transaction chain. It's cheaper than Ethereum. And so I'm wondering, Justin, how you see Tron in 2024 with kind of this traction. Yeah, what's it doing for the world?

What is Tron today? Yes, definitely. I think one of the reason we created Tron is just what we want to bank a bank. Because I think most of people in United States probably not aware of, right? Probably most of people, majority of the people in the world actually don't have bank accounts. right because I actually like live in those regions when I was I think like 18 years old in China actually it's very hard at a time to get a credit card so basically the banks don't want to serve lower value customer right because if they want to serve those users they need to go to

those areas to build a branch which they just don't want to do so a large majority of the Chinese people don't have bank account. So it's a reality. So that's why I think when we first create like truan ecosystem, I really believe blockchain can be and will be one of the most important financial infrastructure for developing countries. I'm not like very actually like bullish about like a crypto in terms of like a banking side in United States because like most of the US citizens has bank account and have them for decades, right? So everybody like using check for paying bills, like using credit card for paying bills. But for the vast majority of the population in China, in Vietnam, in Argentina, in Turkey,

probably the first time they own a crypto address is also a first time they open even financial services actually for their whole life. So that's why we have seen like Tether become one of the core infrastructure in Asia, I think back to 2017. I don't know if you remember in 2017, actually China is still the largest cryptocurrency trading area at that time. So Bitcoin is trading against like CNY at that time. But in 2017, there is basically a crypto ban happened in China. Right.

So all the Chinese-based crypto currency exchange at that time shift from CNY to USDT, which I think is one of the most important like signal at that time. I believe really first of all boosts tether traffic, of course. but also migrate a vast majority of the crypto users from Fiat world to blockchain. So after that, we have seen the stable coin usage and the crypto payment really took off on Trump blockchain and the Ethereum and the other blockchain as well. So that's why I believe this is going to be like one of the usage for the century. Because one of the reason I believe Facebook can flip, actually, right, flip the web to services like email or like what we have before is like yellow book, you know, and the other things is because Facebook is 10 times like better than the original services. I believe blockchain is definitely like 10 times better than most of the developing country's financial infrastructure.

So that's why I believe it's going to grow even stronger for the next, like, five, 10 years. So that's also one of the most important part. I feel like I'm really contributing something to the world here. Yeah, like I said, I've actually been very surprised in a pleasant way that Tron has had so much traction, particularly in the developing market. And another thing that surprised me, actually, Justin, is the economics of Tron. So bankless listeners will know the way David and I sort of, approach these asset classes is from a fundamentals perspective, at least a bankless brand of fundamentals.

And you can either be a monetary asset, or you could try to be a commodity, or you can try to be a capital asset. We think one of the things that blockchains are doing are selling blocks, basically, and creating profitable block space and using those cash flows to essentially power the economic and value accrual of the token itself. Okay? Now, I want to throw out some other stats, which kind of surprised me over the last year. So the Tron network right now is averaging about 3.2 million in daily fees. Okay. And it's had 1.4 million users over the last 180 days. And if you just look at this from a fee perspective, that puts Tron in the number three position. Some days, by the way, it's number two, behind only Ethereum and Bitcoin in the amount of daily

fees that its block space is throwing off. Okay? Just like put that in perspective. It's kind of surprising if you have not been looking at Tron. And one interesting fact about the way Tron is set up is actually 100% of Tron's transaction fees are burned. So bankless listeners know about EIP 1559, which burns a portion of transaction fees on Ethereum. On Tron, it's like a hundred, it's dialed up. It's like 100% or something, right? And so if you look at the revenue for 23 of the block space that Tron sold to the market, one billion dollars worth of Tron, block space was sold. Okay, so I had buyers for a billion dollars worth. And then if you look at issuance minus fee burn, which we often do, so Tron is issuing block rewards in order to pay the stakers

and the validators in the Tron network, it's actually turning a profit or did in 2023 of 300 million. Okay? And so, you know, like all that gets burnt and I guess sort of on paper back to Tron holders. It's kind of surprising when you look at it. And it actually puts, if you look at profitability in those terms, it's number two behind Ethereum. All right? So we're talking about blockchain usage and we see a lot of non-Etherium alternative layer ones, right? And if you look at it from that lens in terms of block space sold and profitability

of that block space, Tron's actually looking fairly compelling at a $12 billion valuation, at least compared to competitors. And again, I didn't expect to find this, you know, going into a Tron study, but here it is. That is the, you know, the block space. Do you have any comments on that, Justin? Maybe you're surprised that I'm surprised about this. But like, yeah, what's your take on all of this?

Yes, when I first like design like a Toronto network, right? So I think several like principles on why I design Trump block in this way. First of all, it's like 100% like fee burns. It's because I believe this is cleanest way to should be happened to the Trump blockchain. Because I believe, like, if we distribute the fee to the block validator or producers, it's going to have lots of the controversy, right? So, and lots of people are going to take the profit for producing block. And we see lots of this kind of the attack happened on ECR.

Right. So basically you pay higher, like minor fees and they can validate your transaction first, right? So that's something I want to. prevent happen in Trump blockchain. And also, of course, we want to avoid the centralization because, you know, I'm facing like people is talking about like trying is all about like Justin, right? So if the money goes to the blog producers is going to go to his pocket, something like that. So we want to really get rid of this kind of the sauce, right? So so that's why when we design the Fibirons, we go like,

100% to burn it completely. And the second, of course, I think for those years, Tron had been invented for almost seven years now. So I think for my philosophy is the simpler, the better, right? So basically, we only have the Tron TX voters. It's just similar to Ethereum today, right? You can stake your tron and vote for your super representative, which is the blog producer and that's it, right? And all the fee goes to burn, which I think is also a good way for us to eliminate all the doubts for centralization, right? So because before that,

lots of people is afraid of the centralized risk for Trump. As if today, I think I want to design like Tron to be a really like decentralized protocols. Personally speaking today, I didn't run like any Tron. validators at all. So it is completely out of my hands now. Last year, like, there is hackers hack my wallet and total like still around like $100 million worth of. Really? Crypto. Yes, from my wallet. And I lost around today is like 14 million, like 50 million of Trump on Trump blockchain. Right. And there is nothing I can do do those addresses. So basically for me, I mean, I'm trying to create a decentralized protocol here,

right? It's completely like out of my hands now and it's going to continue to evolve. Right. And also, of course, I have some opinion how it's going to evolve. But eventually, I think today is decided by the open source community and by crypto community. And actually, that's something in the future I want to design and want to do in the future is like just like tron right and the caren blockchain just create some like open source like transparent decentralized machine and it can run in forever right just by itself so that's also i believe is a very powerful idea it's just like bitcoin right so satochi don't have to be the applicants for Bitcoin, like ETF, it's all happened like in this kind of the philosophy.

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Mantle. If you want to get started working with the first Dow-led layer 2 ecosystem, check out Mantle at mantle.xy-Z and follow them on Twitter at ZeroX Mantle. I wanted to definitely get into the structure of the Tron blockchain as it stands today and as it'll stand in the future. But maybe we can start from the beginning. Justin, my first impression of the Tron blockchain, I think, is pretty representative of the typical Ethereum person's perception of the Tron blockchain. One of the first things I heard about it was claims of plagiarism from the Filecoin IPFS white paper.

That was my first, like, thing, like understanding of what Tron was. And this was back in like 2018. Tron isn't perfectly a copy of the EVM. It's got the Tron Virtual Machine, but it's highly priestly. approximate to the EVM. And I think for a lot of these reasons, the copy and pacing of the EVM and also the white paper, a lot of people in Ethereum have just never touched Tron. And so there's like kind of this tale of two perceptions of Tron. You have like banking the unbanked. You have some of the most prolific payment usage in developing countries, actually meaningfully uplifting parts of the global

population. And then inside of the crypto industry, you have people that just won't simply touch it because they think it's just too dubious, too toxic. And this transcends beyond Ethereum. This is, I think Bitcoiners would say this as well. How would you characterize the perception of Tron by the crypto industry? And how do you respond to some of the claims about plagiarism and the short-termer strategies around the Tron blockchain? Yes. I discussed this with compound founder, Robert. Actually, we come to a conclusion, like lots of people will be surprised. actually. So one of the mistake I think I make in around 2017 is I should copy Ethereum 100%

rather than 95%. So one of the biggest, one of the biggest problem here is, you know, when we copy Ethereum 95%, and then lots of people is accusing us for a couple. copy Ethereum and then accusing us for, you know, you can't do that. So that's why, you know, actually it's kind of like a change of my mind. We are thinking about like, okay, let's make like 5% like different from Ethereum, you know. And that's like what's what Trump is today, right? It has like a 5% difference and 95% is the same. But the problem is actually these 5% difference really make hard for Ethereum users to get into Trump blockchain.

So let's take some example, right, like Tron, Solana, EOS, ADA, you know, for example, these four blockchain. So basically, I think Tron is the most similar to Ethereum in those four, right? I use like Solana, I use like ADA and EOS, is completely different from EZer. It's not like even a same thing. So every like language structure wise, like everything is different from EZERA. Tron is more similar to EZerum compared to these four blockchain. But if Tron compared to Polygon BSC and BNBChang basically other EZRAM compatible, like layer one or layer two,

you will see actually, you know, BNB chain is more compatible to ETHERA. Because actually, right, you can use the same addresses in like MetaMask or any Ethereum compatible like Wadi or infrastructure, right? Like any Ethereum infrastructure,

you can just like change the network to ETHRM, you know, and you can use them. So I think this is the mistake I made. I should make this like 100% compatible to Ethereum no matter like what people say to this decision because this can like bring even more users to the trunk ecosystem but you know it's 2017 at that time like copying Ethereum is not like very popular

and everybody criticizes you for doing that right but I mean after in 20201 it's like everyone is doing it like B and C, like Polygon, like everyone, right? I won't even mention the rest of the name. And I believe Trump can at least a double-in user if we make it 100% compatible. But, you know, lots of things, like when you made them, you can't change, right?

That's the blockchain. So even we are still doing some works to be like 96%, right, 97%. But eventually it's impossible to make. make it like 100%. And that's like something I should have done, right, in 2017, but it's impossible now.

So making Tron 100% like Ethereum is always going to be like a technical challenge and like at some point you can't really get all the way there. But there's also like the non-technical aspects of a blockchain. You've called Tron the world's largest decentralized ecosystem in advertisements. I remember a consensus in 2018.

There was Dare to Defy. with Justin Sun's face, like, right next to it. Like, the world's largest decentralized ecosystem with Justin's son's face. And there's a little bit of, like, you know, it's hard to square these two things, right? Like, largest decentralized ecosystem, Justin's Sun's face. So, like, how do you actually inspire a more decentralized ecosystem in Tron? Like, who are the people actually running the Tron validators? And overall, what's your vision for Tron's, like, decentralization?

Yes. I wouldn't do this kind of advertising for now. I think that is like back to 2020, you know, when we first be in a consensus, like, conference. My team is like, said like, like, we can't find a spokesperson for Trump. I said, like, why not just like try myself in mind? So we don't even realize we will create like this kind of the things people might discuss. And for today, I think Trump validators is like very diversified, right?

We have like every exchange in the world running tronels like OKX, Binance, like HTX, all different exchanges in the world. All the like Japanese regulated exchange. And we have like lots of validator notes. It's just like ST, ETH, like Lido, this kind of the developers in Windy Stone. And also lots of the social community developers, like from Africa, from Turkey, like everywhere to run those notes. This year, actually, one of my job is to enable more and more bigger enterprise to run Toronto notes. I think in 2024, we are starting to get more and more like enterprise, a very big enterprise to running truan supernotes to become our blog. producer. So I think this is one of my job to let more people to running our tronauts.

And also, on another hand, I think for encouraging the developers, decentralized tron is also one of my personal mission here. Because, you know, back to like 2017, I believe like nobody like really cares, right, who is running like tronauts. But for today, like every tron transaction, probably like processing hundreds millions of dollars like every every block even so like people take really serious about like who is running those blocks so I think I want to like make sure like everybody comfortable of like how the ecosystem evolve and feel safe in those protocols so Justin I have kind of like maybe a personal request as someone who is a crypto native and in the ecosystem and I want to how this lands with you. So you were kind of laughing earlier about the, you know, 2018,

a picture of your face where we have the world's largest decentralized ecosystem. And it's like Justin Sun's face, right? And your comment was like, hey, I wouldn't do that again. And I would say that the flavor that many crypto natives have of Tron is just like hyper-aggressive marketing. Like skewing towards bombastic marketing. And when I like look at the traction that Tron has right now, which is like actual real traction in developing countries with peer-to-peer transactions, I'm kind of like, you don't need to do that, man. Like, you don't need to do that anymore. And also, like, it's, I don't know if, you know, maybe the 30s you and the more kind of like the humble era, Justin's son, would decide to do things differently. I'll tell you another

experience that just David and myself had with Bankless recently, one of our writers did at Bankless, a bull bear case for Tron. We write bold bear cases for like just about every, ecosystem. Okay? And wouldn't you know it? We got a telegram message from someone claiming to represent the Tron ecosystem from someone claiming to be your lawyer issuing a cease and desist saying take the post down. Okay. And this doesn't sit well for a crypto media company. That's just like we're not going to take the post. We're just talking. Not actually the whole post, just the bare side. Just the bare side of the bull and bear's. Okay. And so the context here is like we've seen aggressive marketing. The first time we actually write something about Tron. We get a cease and desist. That feels aggressive too. I'm just like,

you don't need to do that. Do you have any thoughts here? Any comments here? Yes, I can agree with you. I'm a crypto native funders, right? I know what crypto people think. So I definitely know. Trust me. But sometimes, you know, things get a little bit complicated for like when like lawyer involved, you know, sometimes I can't really like control like the legal team, like compliance team, like what they are doing, right? And also for one of the example here is like one of the reason I won't ever doing this kind of the just in sound, the largest like crypto ecosystem. As again, it's also not only because image like right, it's also because like legal like compliance. like reasons. I can't do this kind of things anymore. But of course, right, I'm 32 now and I don't

need these kinds of the advertise. This is probably like when you like a plaintiff, right, you are very into this kind of the idea. Yeah, but I definitely believe Trump will become more and more mature and humble in the future because that's also how we position ourselves in all the developing countries across the world. Justin, I want to hang on this whole cease and desist thing. Fortunately, bankless is successful enough to the point where we can hire and manage our own lawyers. So we had our lawyers guiding us against your lawyers. But if a smaller, more independent content creator, it was interested in writing a critical

piece about Tron, they might not be in that same kind of position. And so are we the only ones that have gotten a cease and desist? are is this a practice that you know has also been applied elsewhere? And can I get you to commit to not sending cease and desists to anyone about like smaller than bankless, for example? Or let's say if your legal team does it without your knowledge, can we surface it to you and just be like, hey, like not these guys. Trust me, I completely understand your points. Because I am like one of the donors for Holdenna against Craig Wright on the law. On the law And I was also one of the sponsor for, I remember when the Mershey brothers suing ZACH,

XBT, I'm also like one of the donors for that. And also I'm also one of the biggest donors for XMR when a lawsuit was going after him. So I definitely, I think in action, like really into this kind of the freedom of speech and also, of course, freedom of blockchain itself, right? So it's decentralized eventually. You know what, Justin, one idea I have for you. I know in the past that there've been some, like, skeptics in the Ethereum community, right? And I think that you've survived this long, you have traction on Tron. I almost see, like, the crypto-native community kind of warming up to what you're doing, at least. And like, this is kind of an opportunity for almost a redemption tour,

I would say, in some ways for Justin's son. And one thing that you, could do, as long as you're in kind of like the doning spirit, the Protocol Guild is an organization in need of funds. Okay? Protocol Guild does fantastic things. They support Geth. They support the Ethereum ecosystem. I'm sure that they would be very pleased to have a donation from Tron and Justin's son. And I'm not obligating you to that, of course. I'm just throwing it out as a suggestion. If you're talking about XRP and Craig Wright, that sort of thing, that would be a way to win Ethereum hearts and minds. You don't have to comment on that, but something to think about, I would say.

A question I have for you, you have been very active as a crypto native with many of your personal funds. And there are websites that track, what is Justin's son doing? What's he farming lately? Like, what is he invested in all of these types of things? What is your favorite activity to do in crypto right now? And what is your second favorite chain? So apart from Tron, what's your second favorite chain?

What chain do you love the most getting into kind of like defy crypto shenanigans on? I will say definitely Ethereum. So I'm actually one of the earliest supporter for Ethereum when it's doing ISO fundraising. So I trade my first Ethereum on Poloniacs at that time, you know, since like Polonix is like one of the major like exchange supporting Ethereum at that time. And I have been like one of the biggest miners for Ethereum. I think besides like one SVF go away, right now I'm the biggest like unchained like minor for Ethereum blockchain. Yeah, I think in the future, I'm planning to play on more and more blockchain even besides

like Trump because I think I can always like learn about like what community is doing and what crypto community is excited about, continue to learn. I think probably that's like one of my biggest advantage. And for your suggestion, I definitely will seriously consider that. Beautiful. There was a post that I saw you write, Justin, maybe like a week or two ago, talking about some of the next plans for Tron, the technical plans. And that involved a Bitcoin layered two. Maybe you could illuminate some of the plans that you have for Tron in 2024 and 2025 as it relates to Bitcoin. What's going on over there? Yes, sure, totally.

So first of all, I think for building a layer two for Bitcoin is like dream for everyone, right? Every developers since Vitalik is trying to do something on Bitcoin in terms of like smart contract, like back to 2013. So that's why I believe a Bitcoin like layer two solution compatible with like Trump blockchain is definitely going to be a very interesting thing because it can bridge like Bitcoin. from the Bitcoin original network to Tron Network. And also, of course, we can find a way to bridge the tether and stable coin on Tron Network to Bitcoin. So which I believe is very powerful. We're going to find a way to do it. Even I think probably right now we're still in the developing phase of the protocol.

At the beginning, probably going to be a little bit centralized because it's going to going to be have like trusted notes who hold custody for those funds but i think we're going to try our best to make sure it's permission is is decentralized layer to solutions so i think that's something we have been always like working on try to bridge like tron with like bitcoin together so if that's what's next for tron the chain itself i'm curious what's next for justin's son so what are you planning to do? Is Tron kind of your project for the next half decade or more? Are you going to get up to some other things? Like, where does your future lie? Yes, for me, I think, first of all, there's nowhere else for me to go, right? So I have to stick in the crypto industry. And also, of course, since I'm the founder of Tron,

I will be still spend a majority of my time to think about like how we can utilize the Tron blockchain to empower like everybody around the globe, including users, like developers, and how we can make stable coin transaction available for everyone, like globally. And also, of course, I will focus lots of ways to see how we can help crypto developers and the newcomers, right, into the blockchain space to grow. I kind of like like the speech,

like CZ left like left the Binance right he made those speech I think he has been enough to be like an entrepreneur to build his own business he wants to spend the rest of his time to really like help others to build their business like to build together for the next generation of entrepreneur I think for myself is kind of like the same mindset here so I think I will transition myself to helping like other developers to build on blockchain rather than like building everything on my own. So that's like my general will. Justin, you mentioned CZ. And I can tell by the way you talk about his kind of departing speech that maybe he is someone you admire. Who else? Who are some other figures in crypto that you like and admire? CZ definitely the one. I think I learned from him

since the beginning. And also, I think definitely Vitalik. I actually, you know, read like every blog post of Vitalik. And I really learned... What do you like about Vitalik? What do you like about him?

Vitalik is like a gold mine, you know? Like, every time, like, when I don't know, like, what's happening and what's going out in the crypto world. And I went to, like, Vitalik blog post and read those posts and I really like learn lots of things from Vitalik. And I always feels like Vitalik's idea is actually, you know, sometimes it's like five years, like even 10 years ahead of like crypto reality. So so that's why like don't invest

into the project like Vitalik says in his post. Some, um, most of the time because I think those ideas still needs like three or five years to evolve to become a really like a viable business. But if you you really want to know about like what happened in the crypto space and what's the next since we need to do for the next like five to 10 years, you need to read about like a Vitalik blog. Have you ever talked to Vitalik, Justin? What do you think Vitalik thinks of trying and what you have to. I actually knows about like Vitalik back

to 2015. So we met in Beijing. We actually take a picture together and discuss lots of about like how to build things in the crypto space. But of course, right after like when I create Trump,

Vitalik and I don't really like talk much. But last time actually we spoke is about the donation to Ukraine. So remember, like, at that time, you know, Ukraine is raising funds to help the people in there. Because at that time, you know, I also talked to Ukraine government to raise funds for Ukrainian people and the Vitalik, like, asking me, like, how to connect with those people because he wants to do the same thing. That's like last time when we spoke. I would actually love for

you guys, I don't know if this is possible, but like in my world, it would be really interesting for you and Vitalik to connect some time. And this obviously doesn't have to be public on a podcast. But I recall you bidding for a lunch with Warren Buffett at one point in time. This is one of the big kind of marketing initiatives back in the day. I wonder what a protocol guild donation might get you. And that could get you a lunch with Vitalik. But yeah, it would be really interesting for you two to connect.

I'm hopeful that happens sometime this cycle. Yes, I'm open to this idea, for sure. One person that you're on record for saying that you admire outside of the crypto industry, Justin, is Elon Musk. Yes. What do you think about Elon Musk today? How do you feel about him as a leader or role model? Does the take that you had a few years ago still stand? Yes, I think still stands.

One of the, because, you know, I graduate from like Hoopin University, right, which my mentor is Jack Ma. Actually, you know, Jack Ma is as crazy as Elon Musk. He wants to do lots of crazy things as well. But one of the biggest reason is the reality in China, right? Once you are in China become like entrepreneur, it's highly like regulated. There's lots of things even you want to achieve you cannot do. So that's why I think even Jake Ma sometimes envy Elon Musk because he is in United States. he can do whatever he wants and achieve lots of things.

So that's why I think for myself, I always sees like Elon Musk as the possibilities of entrepreneurs, right? He is doing like everything, every entrepreneur in match themselves can do. So that's why I also try to beat like the Bloor Origin and the Space X like a spaceship, right? Probably one day I can go to space. I think this is really become like one of the muse for myself, right, in my entrepreneurship. Well, Justin, this has been a fascinating conversation. I've learned a lot. And, you know, I'm glad we had this today. I guess as we maybe wrap up and close this conversation, I'm wondering if you give

kind of a last word to somebody that has not used Tron is maybe skeptical about it. Give your pitch for why Tron. Why does Tron make sense in 2024? Why is Tron good for the world. Yes. First of all, I believe Trump is going to be last forever, right? So we are a crypto, like, blockchain with 200 million users and with 15 billion market cap of the stable coin here. There is numerous of the people like making transaction on Tron Network around $15 billion. It's not like a very like simple like numbers. It's becomes supporting people's life. their all the business activities happen on blockchain. It's just like Taubo, like Alibaba, right?

All the transactions happen on Alibaba is not like some members. Chekma wants to brag about. It's like real people's life happening in the blockchain, right? If you haven't checked about Trump, please do. And hopefully for the next 10 years, we can bank the unbank for everyone in the world. Justin, thank you for joining us today. This has been a great conversation. Thank you. Bankless Nation, I will leave you with some action items, including I pulled a lot of stats from this episode. I'll link you to those links where I got those stats. Some fantastic reports about Tron.

Got to end with this, of course, risks and disclaimers. You know crypto is risky. You could lose what you put in. But we are headed west. This is the frontier. It's not for everyone. But we're glad you're with us on the bankless journey. Thanks a lot.