The Wolf Of All Streets - Tron: Cheaper, Faster, and Leading Crypto Adoption | A Quiet Revolution with Justin Sun

Starting point is 00:00:00 Crypto space is a space like miracle always happens, right? Blockchain can beat the traditional finance industry. It's year upon year. Hopefully, next time when we take the podcast, there is going to be like 1 billion people joining the space. Many would argue that crypto still needs a killer app for mainstream adoption. But the fact is, stablecoins, and specifically stablecoins on Tron, have already been that killer app

Starting point is 00:00:28 for millions of people around the world. Justin Sun and I talked about this phenomenon, why there's been so much adoption, why it's not talked about that much in the United States, and what's coming for Tron, and specifically USDT on Tron. You're not going to believe it. Got to listen to this episode.

Starting point is 00:01:05 First, I want your thoughts on what's happening with the crypto market. It's Tuesday, March 26th, as we're recording this. Bitcoin over $70,000. We haven't even had the having yet. I think a lot of people are shocked that we've been making new all-time highs and seeing this much action. So what do you make after being in the market for so long? What do you make of what's happening now? Yes, I think current crypto market is still, I think, in the early stage of bull markets. So even though we have been quite excited since Bitcoin has passed the all-time high,

Starting point is 00:01:33 but I think in the track record we have seen in the past, crypto, Bitcoin price usually go up to like all-time high in the time of halfling. Right. So so basically, I think this is just like a repeat of the crypto cycle again. So even though some people might feel like 70,000 is kind of high for Bitcoin. But for me, I believe, I think we're still in the early stage of full markets. After the halfling and after we see Federal Reserve start to do cutting the interest,

Starting point is 00:02:16 we will see more and more like buying power in the crypto space. Yeah, and a ton of that buying power obviously has been from the Bitcoin spot ETFs. I think that's why we're a bit ahead of this cycle. A, I guess, did it surprise you that they got approved? And B, have you been impressed with how much inflow there's been? Yes.

Starting point is 00:02:39 So first of all, I believe in the short term, probably lots of people overestimated how much money is going to flow into the ETF. But I think in the long term, we probably still underestimated how much buying power in the space because I heard lots of friends told me it's like after the Bitcoin ETF get approval, the money outflow from Grayscale actually also is a very big amount compared to the money inflow. But we have seen, I think in the last few months, there is tons of the money outflow

Starting point is 00:03:18 through ETF into Bitcoin. So that's why I believe in the long term, Bitcoin ETF definitely going to become one of the largest ETFs in the history. So we have seen even gold ETF is around like $20 billion something. But Bitcoin has already accomplished this goal, right? Only in a few months. So that's why I believe Bitcoin is going to be the largest ETF ever in all history. And we're going to still continue to see more and more institutional investors get interested in the Bitcoin ETF.

Starting point is 00:04:07 Crypto investors in the United States face some major challenges. One of them is that there's almost no way to get exposure to the asset class inside of your traditional investment vehicles. The other thing is the taxes. They are absolutely atrocious. What if I told you there was a way to solve both of these problems? Well, there is, and it's with a self-directed IRA from iTrust Capital. Guys, not only can you open a new self-directed IRA and fund it with the limits each year,

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Starting point is 00:05:02 You have to try this now. I agree. So many investors still don't even have access to it. And we're already seeing this massive upside. I heard actually that Morgan Stanley is likely going to be unlocking for everybody in a week. So we slowly get these unlocks and more people getting access. And I think it gives us kind of continued buying pressure. It makes me wonder maybe in this cycle that we talked about before, there will be more of a focus on Bitcoin. As you know, we've seen Ordinals and BRC20 tokens and all of this sort of Cambrian explosion of DeFi and building on Bitcoin. And you guys are working on a Bitcoin layer two solution in response to that. So I'm assuming

Starting point is 00:05:41 you're building a layer two on Bitcoin because you believe that Bitcoin could be one of the major focuses even more so than previous cycles. Yes, I definitely agree with this opinion. I believe we need some works to unleash the potential of Bitcoin because today, right, so lots of people still taking Bitcoin, it's more like the storage of value, right? So people buying Bitcoin, it's not because of there is lots of ecosystem developed on the Bitcoin, but they just use Bitcoin as one of the way to storage their value.

Starting point is 00:06:22 So that's why for my opinion, I believe there's definitely a huge potential of Bitcoin Layer 2 here. I believe the Bitcoin Layer 2, the whole point of Bitcoin Layer 2 is just like help to help the Bitcoin ecosystem get smarter, right? So basically we can empower the smart contract and all the protocol level of the development into the Bitcoin ecosystem. So basically, lots of the people can stake their BTC to earn other tokens and also by stake BTC to earn yield. Actually interest is similar to what happened on Tron blockchain, Ethereum blockchain. So that's why I believe this cycle we will see more and more Bitcoin layer 2 solution comes out and really unleash the potential of the Bitcoin itself.

Starting point is 00:07:26 So that's why we are also building a bridge between Bitcoin and the Tron network. So basically, you can basically put your Bitcoin and get Bitcoin on the Tron network and the versa versa, right? So basically, you can also get Tron, USDT in the future into the Bitcoin network. So that's why I believe this has been a huge potential here, not only for Bitcoin itself, but also for all the Bitcoin Layer 2 solution developers. Yeah, I was curious if it's competitive with Tron or if it sort of, you know, works in complement with it. You sort of touched on it, but building another layer two that competes with your own blockchain, is that because you see this disruption coming and you want to get ahead of it or because you think that there's plenty of room for both of them to continue to grow? You obviously talked about USDT being bridged from Tron to Bitcoin. I don't think most people know that most of the AUM of USDT is on Tron. Over $50 billion of the USDT, most of it is on Tron,

Starting point is 00:08:33 not Ethereum. Yes. Sure. First of all, I think we are building infrastructure based on where the money goes. So basically, we don't believe in the future eventually going to be only one blockchain serving all the values in the blockchain industry so we believe there is a like multi-layer like different people choose different assets for various reasons so so that's why i believe since Bitcoin today has been like $1 trillion, it definitely needs some kind of the solution for Bitcoin to like staking on different network and to earn yield based on those kind of the needs, right? For people to use Bitcoin as a layer 2 solution uh and also on the other hand

Starting point is 00:09:27 uh i believe 12 also have is niche market right which is like stablecoin payments uh recently we have seen like grab uh google like aws and all the uh big enterprise start to adopt stablecoin on Tron network to facilitate their payment. So Grab for those of you who don't know, Grab is like Uber in Asia. It has Uber Eats, you can use it to purchase e-commerce and it accepts USDT on Tron for deposit. I think it happened last week. So that's why I think more and more people are going to have their different reasons for who their value into blockchain. Bitcoin probably for storage of value into Tron blockchain probably is for payment, right, for other solutions.

Starting point is 00:10:30 So that's why I believe like different people will have different opinions on the blockchain. As an infrastructure developers, we will build the infrastructure for whatever people's needs. I use Grab every time I'm in Singapore, and it's obviously huge and highly effective. And I had no idea sitting here in the United States that they had made that integration. Why do you think that that news, which is so huge, hasn't made it to the mainstream media? Yes. First of all, I believe eventually, I believe we will see USDT and Tron also get in Uber and Uber Eats eventually, I believe.

Starting point is 00:11:12 So Grab is just like taking the first step, right? I believe eventually lots of the e-commerce, even Amazon will start to integrate Tron. You know, every e-commerce infrastructure, eventually, I believe, they will start to integrate into Tron network because there is a huge demand for it. Lots of people in Asia, for example, using USDT on Tron, like basically every single day, right?

Starting point is 00:11:43 So we're handling around like 20 billion US dollar of transaction right now. So that's why more and more people are going to see it taking off. And I believe probably in the few months, we're going to see like TikTok, Lazada, like all the major players in Southeast Asia will integrate into Tron network. Because I think that's like something they have to do, right? Because there is the traffic, there's the demand of the customer. And I believe eventually it's going to expand to US as well. Why do you think that so many people choose Tron for their USDT transactions?

Starting point is 00:12:27 Yes, I think for several reasons. First off, it's a cheaper solution compared to Ethereum. And also, I think the estimated arriving time is also important. For users on ethereum probably taking 1 to 15 minutes to secure the transaction but for try is all like basically one second right so so this kind of the predictable of the transaction is also very important for the um for the people to make transactions. And also, of course, the dominance rate on the emerging market of Tron USDT is very high. I think for today, for all the major countries like Brazil, Argentina, Turkey, Africa, Southeast America, the dominance of TRX is over 70-80%. So that's why I think the dominance rate is very high. So most people actually don't even know about TRX. It's cheaper and faster and their friends tell them,

Starting point is 00:13:42 that's download this wallet and I'm going to send you some money, right? Exactly. Yes, exactly. So I think in the emerging markets, USDT on Tron is equivalent to USDT itself. So people are starting to get to know the network effects and they use Tron like all the time, even without any knowledge of it. Well, isn't that the point?

Starting point is 00:14:11 Like I think the biggest problem with crypto has been that it's so complicated and everybody, we talk about blockchains and ZK rollups and all those complicated things. Really they just want to like download a wallet and send money, right? And you've created that for them. And for that reason, if someone says, I want to send you money, how do you do it? I download this wallet, I'll send you some money. Right. Makes perfect sense.

Starting point is 00:14:32 So what else then is ahead? You talked about, obviously, the integration of Tron into all these things. That's really on the stablecoin side. What else is on the roadmap for Tron as we enter this next cycle? Yes. First of all, I believe recently DeFi has been very popular still in our space because we have seen more and more people started building DeFi applications. On the legacy, we have been built in 2020 and 2021. For example, RWA, real world assets, and stable yield. We have seen STUSDT on Chuang has been super popular, grow to around $1.5 billion now. And also we have seen decentralized like future trading has been like taking off in all different kind of the blockchain.

Starting point is 00:15:32 And also, of course, like Chuang is one of them. And also, of course, we have seen more and more users start to build their application on top of USDT L12. So basically you're starting to integrate into e-commerce, you're starting to integrate into DeFi application, you started building multiple yield. It's like basically yield upon yield in different applications on top of Tron. And for us, I think this year is to continue to grow the stablecoin market cap. And also, we're going to continue to build futures trading, token trading, memecoin ecosystem,

Starting point is 00:16:20 and also this kind of the multiple yield level of the DeFi ecosystem on top of Tron Network. Let's talk about the meme coin ecosystem that you just talked about. Obviously, we've had meme coin cycles in the past, but they largely happened on centralized exchanges, right? People wanted to buy Doge, they went to Robinhood, one of those things. Now, it's happening in a very decentralized manner. Everyone has access, and it's been absolutely insane.

Starting point is 00:16:45 But we've seen that when meme coins blow up on a network, it actually brings meaningful user adoption and TVL to that network. So you said you're building a meme coin ecosystem on Tron. What do you think of meme coins in general and why are you building that? Yes, sure. So first of all, meme coin has been like super popular topic these days. And I believe the meme coin has several sectors is extremely important for building meme coin. The first one, of course, is culture, right?

Starting point is 00:17:19 So we want to have this kind of the crypto culture and the community, even I will call it like cults, right? To have this kind of the meme coin ecosystem develop in the first place. A second thing, of course, I believe is this kind of the story building on the meme coin is also very important. We have seen in the last cycle, Peep and Shiba has been very successful. I think because of Shib and Peep building on a very big culture-based experience, right? So we have seen all the meme pictures and meme engagement of those meme coins. So that's why I believe this is also very important for the meme community to build

Starting point is 00:18:15 itself. So third, I believe this is what we should do on Tron Network. Because we have seen Tron has like 50 billion dollars of the stable coin market cap but we didn't see much of the traffic of meme coin taking off on front network um so so i think one of the reason is because the users in asia is not like a very risk-taking appetite compared to the Western users. But definitely, I think meme coin right now is one of the most important parts of the Tron ecosystem will focus development on. That all makes perfect sense.

Starting point is 00:19:01 In general, what are you most excited about coming forward? We obviously talked about meme coins and DeFi and all of these integrations, but are there new things? We have all these narratives, you talked about RWA, dPin. Are there new things that you think we'll see really start to build in blockchain this cycle that maybe we weren't seeing before? Yes, I think I have several opinions. That's also what we are trying to build right now. First of all, I believe one of the biggest reasons blockchain can beat the traditional finance industry is yield upon yield, right?

Starting point is 00:19:36 Because capital is always tracing higher yield and the low risk place for them to storage of value so that's why i think we are right now building like a bitcoin layer 2 solution on stx platform we are also offering like risk-taking services so to help people um trading their tokens but on the same time they can earn yield happen in the space and also on schwann we have built uh s-t-u-s-d-t and building uh different uh lending platform basically provide this kind of the yield upon yield this kind of the experience for the capital. So which I believe will attract lots of the capital into HTX and the Tron network. That's I think is very important. If we really want to build a ecosystem

Starting point is 00:20:38 that really can attract lots of the value into the ecosystem. I believe the keyword for 2024 and 2025, if we really want to grow the ecosystem, is yield. So we need to provide a consistent and high yield for the capital to persuade people to put more and more of their capital into blockchain. It's interesting because yield became

Starting point is 00:21:04 a four-letter word last cycle because of all of the CeFi, Celsius, Voyager, and all of those explosions, and of course, Luna. But now I'm seeing a lot more attention to risk management and projects saying these are the risks if you'd like to earn this yield. But you're saying basically that there is a way to earn safe and steady yield without all of the Ponzi-nomics that we've sort of seen in the past. Yes. I believe the real yield actually in our industry depends on that network effect and the mass adoption, right? So basically,

Starting point is 00:21:40 the yield is not like coming out of blue, out of nowhere. It needs to be coming from the real use case and the consistent improvement of user experience. For example, like Chuang Network today, our protocol revenue today is around $500 million per year. I think the only reason is based on the usage of the ecosystem Right more and more people start to use the Tron Network and start to integrate into the real world mass adoption So create consistent demands for the blockchain So that's why I believe on the real consistent yield-based

Starting point is 00:22:27 defi ecosystem should also based on the real demands in the industry for example recently we have seen the yield on trial network usdt recently has going over like 12%, even sometimes like 15%. It's not only because of like people deposit money, like earning on the platform, it's also because like people really need USDT to like paying all the debts and also to using the USDT to trading on crypto. So that's why lots of yield, I think consistent yield needs to be based on the real world use case.

Starting point is 00:23:13 Yeah, I mean, we have BlackRock who's come in with a Bitcoin spot ETF. I think they changed everything. Now they just announced a yield product effectively on the Ethereum blockchain. Doesn't that tell you that at least Wall Street believes this can be done? Exactly. Exactly. So I know we're running out of time. Last time I talked to you, you had this crazy situation where people thought you had disappeared

Starting point is 00:23:36 in China and you had to take pictures in front of the bridge in San Francisco to prove. Have you had any more crazy stories like that? Because you seem to always have the wildest stories around you yes so first of all i believe crypto space is uh it's uh it's a space like miracle always happens right so um but for me uh i have been in the industry for 11 years um so i believe whatever it takes it always goes to mass adoption of the cryptocurrency and we want to get more and more people into the industry. I think last time for the Warren Buffett launch, at that time crypto is only tens of millions of people get into our space. But I think today, I think Chuang already, we have around 200 million users,

Starting point is 00:24:29 like Binance has the same number. So I believe today, I think already around a few hundred millions of people get into our space. Hopefully, next time when we take the podcast, there is going to be like 1 billion people joining the space. Awesome. Justin, thank you so much for your time.

Starting point is 00:24:50 I can't believe I think it's been two years since we spoke, but hopefully we'll do it more often and congratulations on the success. I look forward to seeing what happens with Tron and how much more USDT you guys can get moving. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. thank you so much

The Wolf Of All Streets - Tron: Cheaper, Faster, and Leading Crypto Adoption | A Quiet Revolution with Justin Sun

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