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A

After the twelve years in the crypto and I think I become a crypto native, I start to feel like this is my home. If I sell all the crypto and go any other places, there is nowhere I can go.

B

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 are 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 gotta say, David, it proved to be a pretty fascinating and sometimes hilarious conversation.

C

Yeah, I had fun.

B

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 copypasta 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 things that we covered. Who is Justin sun? 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, we end with who he admires in crypto, including a really interesting conversation about Vitalik Buterin the Ytron sent bankless assistant.

C

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 some podcast meeting that Ryan and I were having. A bank list. We just had the idea, like, haha, what if we had Justin sun 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 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 gonna go at it and see what happens. And Justin's son was like, yeah, we're just gonna go at 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 personable than I would have expected on this episode. I had a pretty fun time.

B

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.

C

We definitely got one side of Justin's son. Yeah, we see. We saw the very, like, personable, happy side of Justin's son there.

B

I gotta say, though, Dave, there's something to the fact that Tron has survived all of this time. And what doesn't lie to me is the attraction that Tron actually has in the stable coin market. And it's actually incredibly impressive.

A

The.

B

The amount of block space it's selling, the fees that it's throwing off.

C

Like, it's traction that even Ethereum would be jealous of.

B

Yeah, there. 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 sun. All right, let's get right to the episode. But before we do, we want to thank the sponsors that made this possible. Bankless nation, today we talked 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.

A

Thank you, Ryan and David.

B

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 sun. So maybe we could start there. Why did you get into crypto? Can you tell us the story?

A

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 up around 2012. And then at 2012, I started getting started to know about bitcoin. So at that time, bitcoin is around $1 trading on empty docs. But at that time I started to know about bitcoin. And around 2013 I joined Repo Labs. So at that time it's called open coin. I was, I think, the first, like asian employee probably in Ripple Labs, and then later company rebrand to Ripple Labs. So before that it's called Opencoin and then rebrand to Ripple Labs. And then I was the first employee in China as well. I was sent by Ripple back to China to be the chief representative in greater China area. So I did lots of the work to develop XRP ripple community at that time. And then I move on, leave the Ripple, I think around 2016, then created a new blockchain called TrON. Actually one of the reason why I always kind of interested in stablecoin payments. It's kind of like back to 2013 when I first joined Ripple. Actually, everybody knows one of the biggest vision for XRP and Ripple protocol is to become a global settlement layer for payment. The first version of Ripple actually has like Gateway, right? So basically all different, like Fiat can create like Gateway on Ripple and sending the stable coin at that time. We don't have like stable concept first, so. But sending like fiat between the blockchain protocol. So that's how Ripple brought the idea in the first place. So that's why when I create a trunk, the first user case come to my mind is payment. So everyone everywhere just can use a stable coin to make payment. Even when I create TRoN at that time, stablecoin still is not 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 Poloniex, just trading outer coins with bitcoin. But I think after almost seven years from now, right after I create Tron today, everybody, especially new users, come to crypto world. They always get used to trade crypto just by using Tether on TrON, which I believe is a very big dynamic shift from bitcoin to which obviously I believe there has lots of advantage. Why we eventually have this kind of shift, but I won't elaborate on that, but still continue my crypto journey. Then I think after five years, after we introduced TrON, five years from now, I think we have develop 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 stablecoin payments and the settlement is only one of them.

B

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. A lot of people come to crypto for different reasons. And 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?

A

I think for me, I'm quite lucky. When I first graduated from school, the first thing come to my mind is cryptocurrency. Actually, I haven't had a chance to get into AI industry, to get into other tech industry. So the first industry I get in is crypto. So that's why I also feel it's kind of lucky to find a long career journey you can be with for a long time in such a early stage of my career. And with Harlequin also mentioned this, 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 try 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 we had it wants to introduce smart contract into blockchain, which I think is definitely a very interesting idea. So that's why when I first create tron, I also believe a blockchain with a smart contract is the future. But obviously right now everybody is doing that. But we are talking about in 2013, it's still a very early idea. And also for myself, I feel like crypto is just my home. I'm kind of like some person. Lots of people come to United States. So people always asking you 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 industries. So. And of course, I'm very satisfied with what we have achieved, I think in the past, like ten years. So I think I will be here for many decades.

C

Yeah.

A

Yeah.

C

Well, Justin, we're entering the 2024 bull market. It's either the fourth or fifth crypto cycle, depending on how you account them. And you've actually seen all of them. And the number of people that see all of these crypto cycles becomes extremely rare. The number of cycles that we go on, it's, it's hard to last in crypto for so long. Like, even cz, of all people, actually has to take a timeout, a hiatus. SPF is gone, do Kwan 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 to 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. Uh, but nonetheless, you, you, you are still here. What, what would you say you credit to the reason as to how you've lasted so long in crypto?

A

Yes. Um, actually, um, this year has been, um, has been twelve years I have been in this industry. Um, so I think for the, for the first cycle, um, I think sometimes, um, this kind of idea kind of across my mind is 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 twelve years in the crypto, and I think I become a crypto, like, native, I start to feel like this is my home. If I sell all the crypto and go any other places, there's nowhere I can go. So that's why, I mean, eventually it feels 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 70% of my positions stay all the way. One of the biggest reason is because I have nowhere to go. And then because I also turn to 34 now, because I think in my twenties, I feel like I have energy to go into lots of other industry. I can do AI, I can do robots, I can do other high tech, new industry, but for now, I think I can only be succeed in crypto 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.

B

Yeah, it's funny, 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. I think about what else am I going to buy, right? Do I want fiat? Am I more bullish on stocks? This is why it becomes a conundrum in terms of 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. Um, 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, 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?

A

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 Binance website, you can see there is 170 million users registered on binance. And if you check on TrON addresses today, I think TrOn, similar with Ethereum, has around 200 million addresses. So basically I think, which means a very important signal. Plus, like bitcoin, ETF 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 hours, right? 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, can fail. Like any time. I remember 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. Because anytime bitcoin can go wrong and you probably gonna 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 experiments. But I think after four cycle, after like twelve 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 100 million users and it still take time to get 8 billion people on Earth, but it's become 100% certainty now. So that's the biggest, I think, certainty we have with this cycle. And of course, I think for tether and also for the mainstream blockchain, like Ethereum, I believe it's gonna become like Facebook for everybody in the world. Probably different region will have different blockchain. It's just like in China, you have WeChat, in us you have Facebook, you know, but eventually social media has become the thing for everyone in the world to connect. So that's like something I really believe gonna happen in this cycle with like 100% of the certainty and also for exchange as well. So before that, right, we have like different dominant parties in exchange business. We have Amity, Gox, Poloniex and then binance coinbase in different time. But now I think in the next three years, crypto exchange will also be just common as the stock exchange we are using today is going to be with everyone's life. So that's the thing I believe is very different from the last cycle.

C

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. 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. Like 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 Dresden sun 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?

A

Yes, I believe my perspective for my role become, I will say more humble after this twelve years journey, because I think when I first joined the crypto industry, I'm always thinking what want to do in this industry and what I want the world to become. So that's why clearly I have a design like how Tron protocol gonna be and what's the value of Tron and what I want to accomplish. But after this kind of the twelve years journey since I have been with crypto, like all the way I started you to feel like I'm gonna be the role, like the world need me the most. So basically because I still want to be a serious serial entrepreneur. So I will start other business, like other things 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 job. If not, probably we're going to move to something else. So I won't be like twelve years ago, I just want to do this and I will achieve this no matter who, who are against it and no matter what. But right now I think my strategy become like where 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 new things coming out basically every week. So I believe this is also a very good signal to show the energy and show to everybody. Crypto industry is still very young. So probably, I think after 30 years of development, crypto going to become like web two. Right? Web three going to become like web two. There's nothing new. I probably gonna move to web four, web 5.0, but I think probably still takes some time.

B

Yeah, I think, Justin, it's an interesting comment. I've kind of like, watched your character arc 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, maybe extraordinaire, and started with some of these like, kind of like very bombastic claims. And maybe we'll get to some of the critiques in a, in a little bit. But let me, 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. Stablecoin 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 developing 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 flipping. Um, there's near nearly 20 million addresses hold between $1 and a $100 in stable coins. So these are small transactors. These are not whales. Shuttling money between exchanges. 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 tether, 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. What's it doing for the world? What is Tron today?

A

Yes, definitely. I think one of the reason we created Tron is just why want to bank the unbanked? Because I think most of people in United States probably not aware of. Probably most of people, majority of the people in the world actually don't have bank account because I actually live in those regions when I was, I think, 18 years old. In China, actually, it's very hard at that time to get a credit card. So basically, the banks don't want to serve lower value customers, 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 accounts. So it's a reality. So that's why I think when we first create Tron ecosystem, I really believe blockchain can be and will be one of the most important financial infrastructure for developing countries. I'm not very, actually bullish about crypto in terms of the banking side in United States, because most of the us citizens have bank account and have them for decades. So everybody using check for paying bills, using credit card for paying bills. But for the vast majority of the population in China, in Vietnam, in the Argentina, in Turkey, probably the first time they own a crypto addresses. It's also a first time they open even financial services, actually, for their whole life. So that's why we have seen 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 CNY at that time. But in 2017, there is basically a crypto ban happened in China. All the chinese based cryptocurrency exchange at that time shift from CNY to USDT which I think is one of the most important signal at that time. I believe, really, first of all, boost tether traffic, of course, but also migrate vast majority of the crypto users from fiat world to blockchain. So after that, we have seen the stablecoin usage and the crypto payment really took off on TRoN, blockchain and Ethereum and other blockchain as well. So that's why I believe this is going to be, like one of the usage for the century. Because while the reason I believe Facebook can flip, actually, right, flip the web queue services like email or like, what we have before is like yellow book and the other, since it's because Facebook is ten times better than the original services, I believe blockchain is definitely, like, ten times better than most of the developing countries financial infrastructure. So that's why I believe it's gonna grow even stronger for the next, like, 510 years. So that's also one of the most important part. I feel like I'm really contributing something to the world here.

B

Yeah. Like I said, I've actually been very, very surprised, in a pleasant way, that TrOn has had so much traction, particularly in the developing market. Another thing that surprised me, actually, Justin, is the economics of TrON. So bankless listers 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. 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 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. It's kind of surprising if, if you have not been looking at Tron. And, um, one interesting fact about the way TrON is set up is actually 100% of TrON's transaction fees are burned. So bank listers know about, um, EIP 15, five nine, 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, um, the revenue for 2023 of the block space that TrOn sold to the market, $1 billion 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 it 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 and those terms, it's number two behind Ethereum. All right, so we're talking about blockchain usage and we see a lot of non ethereum alternative layer ones, right? And if you look at it from, 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, uh, you know, going into a Tron study, but, but here it is. Uh, that, that is the, you know, the block space. Do you, do you have any, do you have any comments on that? Uh, Justin, I'm, um. Maybe you're surprised that I'm surprised about this, but like, yeah. What's your take on all of this?

A

Yes. When I first, like, uh, um, designed like a tron network. Right. So I think several, like, principles on why I design Tron block in this way. First of all, it's like 100%, like fee burns. It's because I believe this is the cleanest way to should be happen to the Tron blockchain. Because I believe, like, if we distribute the feed to the block validator or producers is going to have lots of the controversy, right? So. And lots of people gonna take the profit for producing block. So. And we see lots of this kind of the attack happen on Ethereum. 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 happened in Tron blockchain. And also, of course, we want to avoid the centralization because I'm facing people is talking about Tron is all about Justin so if the money goes to the block producers, it's gonna go all to his pocket. Something like that. So we want to really get rid of this kind of sauce, right? So that's why when we design the fibrins, 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 you can stake your Tron and vote for your super representative, which is the block producer, and that's it. And all the fee goes to burn, which I think is also a good way for us to eliminate all the dots for centralization, because before that, lots of people is afraid of the centralized risk for Trump. As if today, I think I want to design TrOn to be a really decentralized protocol. Personally speaking, today, I didn't run any TrON validators at all. Is this completely out of my hands now? Last year, there is hackers hack my wallethead total, like, still around, like $100 million worth of really crypto. Yes. From my wallet. And I lost around today is like 40 million, like 50 million of TroN on Tron blockchain. Right. And there is nothing I can do to those, those addresses. So basically, for me, I mean, I'm trying to create a decentralized protocol here. It's completely out of my hands now, and it's going to continue to evolve. Also, of course, I have some opinion on how it's going to evolve, but eventually, I think today is decided by the open source community and by crypto community. 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 Ethereum blockchain just creates, like, open source, like, transparent, decentralized machine, and this 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, no, Satoshi, don't have to be the applicants for bitcoin. Like ETF. It's all happened in this kind of the philosophy. So that's why I think for me in the future, if I want to do something new, I really want to still create some decentralized open source and completely running by itself. And it can continue to. I've had rob.

C

Yeah, I wanted to definitely get into the structure of the tron blockchain as it, as it stands today. And as it'll stand in the future, maybe. 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 thing understanding of what Tron was, and this was back in 2018. The Tron isn't perfectly a copy of the EVM. It's got the Tron virtual machine, but it's highly proximate to the EVM. And I think for a lot of these reasons, the copy and pasting of the EVM and also the white paper, a lot of people in Ethereum have just never touched TrON. And so there's 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. I think bitcoiners would say this as well. How would you characterize the perception of TrON by the crypto industry? And how would you respond to some of the claims about plagiarism and the short term strategies around the Tron blockchain?

A

Yes, I discuss 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%. One of the biggest problem here is, you know, when we copy Ethereum 95%, and then lots of people is accusing us for 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 change our mind. We are thinking about like, okay, let's make like 5%, like, different from ethereum, you know? And that's like, what trunks it is today, right? It has like 5% of the difference and 95% is the same. But the problem is actually these 5% difference really make hard for Ethereum users to get into tron blockchain. So let's take some example, like Tron Solana, EOS Ada, for example, these four blockchain. So basically, I think Tron is the most similar to Ethereum in those four. I use solana, I use Ada. And Eoshdhe is completely different from ethereum. It's not like even same thing. So every language, structure wise, everything is different from Ethereum. TrOn is more similar to Ethereum compared to these four blockchain. But if TrON compared to polygon, BSE and BnB chan, basically other ethereum compatible, like layer one or layer two, you will see, actually BnB chain is more compatible to Ethereum because actually you can use the same addresses in metamask or any ethereum compatible Wally or infrastructure, any ethereum infrastructure, you can just change the network to Ethereum and you can use them. So I think this is the mistake I made. I should make this 100% compatible to Ethereum no matter what people say to this decision, because this can bring even more users to the tron ecosystem. But you know, it's 2017 at that time. Like, copying Ethereum is not like very popular, and everybody criticize you for doing that, right? But I mean, after, in 2021, it's like everyone is doing it, right? Like DLC, like Polygon, like everyone, right? I won't even mention the rest of the name. And I believe Tron can at least double users 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 it like 100%. And that's like something I should have thought, right, in 2017, but it's impossible now.

C

So making Tron 100% like Ethereum is always going to be like a technical challenge. And at some point, you can't really get all the way there. But there's also the non technical aspects of a blockchain. You've called Tron the world's largest decentralized ecosystem. In advertisements. I remember at 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 Sun's face, there's a little bit of like, you know, it's hard to square these two things, right? Like largest decentralized ecosystem just in 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?

A

I wouldn't do this kind of advertising for now. I think that is like back to 2020 when we first be in a consensus conference, my team is, we can't find a spokesperson for Trump. I said, why not just try myself? We don't even have realize we will create these kind of things people might discuss. And for today, I think TrON validators is very diversified. We have every exchange in the world running tunnels like OKX, Binance, HTX, all different exchanges in the world, all the japanese regulated exchange. And we have like lots of validator notes. It's just like St ETH, like Lido, these kind of the developers in Minty Stone, and also lots of the social community developers like from Africa, from Turkey, like everywhere, to run those nodes. This year, actually, for one of my job is to enable more and more bigger enterprise to run trunks. I think in 2024, we are starting to get more and more enterprise, very big enterprise to running TrOn supernotes to become our blog producer. So I think this is one of my job to let more people be running tron nodes. And also on another hand, I think for encouraging the developers and decentralized Tron is also one of my personal mission here. Because back to 2017, I believe, like, nobody really cares who is running, like Tron notes. 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 blogs. So I think I want to, like, make sure, like, everybody comfortable of like, how the ecosystem evolved and feel safe in those protocols.

B

So, Justin, I have kind of like maybe a personal request as someone who is crypto native in the ecosystem, and I want to see how this lands with you. So you were kind of laughing earlier about the 2018 picture of your face where you have the world's largest decentralized ecosystem, and it's like, Justin sun space, right? And your comment was like, hey, I wouldn't do that again. And I would say that the, the flavor that many crypto natives have of Tron is just like hyper aggressive marketing, like, 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, maybe the thirties you and the more kind of like the humble era Justin sun would decide to do things differently. I'll tell you another experience that just David and myself had with bankless is we wrote recently, one of our writers did at bankless, a bull bear case for Tron. We write bull 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.

C

Not actually the whole post, just the bear side. Yeah, just the bear side of the bullying.

B

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. Like, I'm just like, you don't need to do that. Do you have any thoughts here? Any, any comments here?

A

Yes, I can agree with you. I'm a crypto native founders. Right. I know, like, what crypto people thinks. So I definitely know. Trust me. But sometimes, you know, things get a little bit complicated for, like, when, like, lawyer involved, you know, know, I don't. 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 reasons I won't ever doing this kind of the Justin sound, the largest, like, crypto ecosystem. As, again, it's also not only because image like reason, 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 this kind of the advertise. This is probably like when you like pundits, 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.

C

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 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 or is this a practice that, you know, has also been applied elsewhere? And what would you, can I get you to commit to not sending cease and desist to anyone about like smaller than bankless, for example.

B

Or let's say if your legal team does it without your knowledge, can we surface it to you and just be.

C

Like, hey, like, come on, not these guys.

A

Trust me. I completely understand your point because I am the, like one of the donors for Holden up against the, against Craig Lee, Craig Wright on the, on the lawsuit. And I was also one of the sponsor for Remember when the Mercy Brothers XPT. I'm also like one of the donors for that. And also I'm also the one of the biggest donors for XMR when 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.

B

You know what, Justin? What? One idea I have for you. I know in the past that there have been some like skeptics in the Ethereum community, right. And I think that you are like 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. One thing that you could do as long as you're in kind of like the donating 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 sun. 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, you know, 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 sun doing? What's he farming lately? Like, what is he invested in? All of these types of things. What is your favorite I activity to do in crypto right now? And what, what is your second favorite chain? So apart from Tron, what, what chain do you, do you love the most? Getting into kind of like defi, crypto shenanigans on Ethereum?

A

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 Poloniex at that time, since Poloniex is like one of the major blockchain, sorry, exchange supporting Ethereum at that time. And I have been one of the biggest miners for Ethereum. I think besides when SVF go away, right now I'm the biggest unchained miner for Ethereum. Blockchain. Yeah, I think in the future I'm planning to play on more and more blockchain even besides Tron, because I think I can always learn about what community is doing and what crypto community is excited about, continue to learn. I think probably that's one of my biggest advantage. And for your suggestion, I definitely will seriously consider that beautiful.

C

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 layer 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?

A

Yes, shorter, totally. So first of all, I think for building a layer two for bitcoin is like dream for everyone. 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 be, I believe a bitcoin like layer two solution compatible with like Tron blockchain is definitely going to be a very interesting thing because it can bridge bitcoin from the bitcoin original network to TrOn network. And also of course we can find a way to bridge the tether and stablecoin on Tron network to bitcoin, which I believe is very powerful. We going to find a way to do it even I think probably right now we are still in the developing phase of the protocol at the beginning, probably going to be a little bit centralized because it's going to have trusted nodes to hold custody for those funds. But I think we're going to try our best to make sure it's permissionless, it's decentralized layer two solution. So I think that's something we have been always working on, try to bridge Tron with bitcoin together.

B

So if that's what's next for TroN, the chain itself, I'm curious, what's next for Justin sun? 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. Where does your future lie?

A

Yes, for me, I think first of all, there's nowhere else for me to go. I have to stick in the crypto industry. And also, of course, since I'm the founder of Tron, I will still spend majority of my time to think about how we can utilize the Tron blockchain to empower everybody around the globe, including users, developers, and how we can make stable coin transaction available for everyone globally. And also, of course, I will focus lots of way to see how we can help crypto developers and the newcomers into the blockchain space to grow. I kind of like the speech, like CZ left the finance, right, he made all speech. I think he has been enough to be like an entrepreneur, to build his own business. He want to spend the rest of his time to really help others to build their business, to build together for the next generation of entrepreneur. I think for myself, I think it's kind of like the same mindset here. So I think I will transition myself to helping other developers to build on blockchain rather than building everything on my own. So that's my general will.

B

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. And, um, who else, who are some other figures in crypto that, that you'd like and admire?

A

Um, CD, definitely the one I think I learned from him since the beginning. Uh, and also I think definitely, uh, Vitalik. I actually, you know, read like every post, blog post of Vitalik.

B

What do you like about Vitalik? What do you like about him?

A

Vitalik is like a goldmine. You know, like every time, like when, I don't know, like what's happening and what's going on in the crypto world. And I went to like Vitalik blog posts and, and read those posts and I really like, learned to 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 ten 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, most of the time, because I think those ideas still needs like three or five years to evolve to become a really viable business. But if you really want to know about what happened in the crypto space and what's the next things we need to do for the next five to ten years, you need to read about Vitalik.

B

Have you ever talked to Vitalik, Justin? Have you ever like, yeah. What do you think Vitalik thinks of Tron and what you're up to?

A

I actually know about Vitalik back to 2015. So we met in Beijing. We actually take a picture together and discuss lots about how to build things in the crypto space. But of course, after, like, when I create trial. Right. 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. To help the people in there, like Withali, because at that time, you know, I also talk to Ukraine government to raise funds for Ukraine people. And the Vitalik asking me how to connect with those people because he wants to do the same thing. That's like last time when we spoke.

B

I would actually love for you guys. I don't know if this is possible, but in my world, it would be really interesting for you and Vitalik to connect sometime. And this obviously doesn't have to be public on a podcast, but I recall you bidding for a lunch with Warren Buffet 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, whether that could get you electric talent. But, yeah, it would be really interesting for you two to connect, and I'm hopeful that happens sometime this cycle.

A

Yes, I'm open to this idea for sure.

C

One person that you're on record for saying that you admire outside of the crypto industry, Justin, is Elon Musk. What do you think about Elon Musk today? How do you feel about him as a leader or a role model? Does the take that you had a few years ago still stand?

A

Yes, I think still stands one of the. Because I graduated from Hupa University, which my mentor is Jack Madden. So I think one of the. Actually, 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. Once you are in China, become an entrepreneur is highly regulated. There is 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 see Elon Musk as the possibilities of entrepreneurs. Right. He's doing, like, everything every entrepreneur image themselves can do, right? So that's why I also try to beat, like, the blue origin and the SpaceX 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.

B

Well, Justin, this has been a fascinating conversation. I've learned a lot. And, you know, I'm, I'm glad we had this today. I guess as we maybe wrap out, wrap up and close this conversation, I'm wondering if you'd give kind of a last word to somebody that has not used TrOn is maybe skeptical about it. Yeah. Give your pitch for. For why Tron? Why does TrOn make sense in 2024? Why is Tron good for the world?

A

First of all, I believe Tron going to be last forever. We are a crypto blockchain with 200 million users and with 15 billion market cap of the stablecoin here, there is numerous of the people making transaction on TrON network around $15 billion. It's not like a very simple numbers. It becomes supporting people's lives. All the business activities happen on blockchain. It's just like Taobao, like Alibaba. All the transactions happen on Alibaba is not like some numbers checkmark wants to brag about. It's like real people's lives happen in the blockchain. If you haven't checked about Tron, please do. And hopefully for the next ten years, we can bank the unbanked for everyone in the world.

B

Well, Justin, thank you for joining us today. It's been a great conversation.

A

Thank you, bankless nation.

B

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 nation. Thanks a lot.

C

Again, the bankless journey.

B

But we're glad you're with us on the bankless journey. Thanks a lot. Let's just keep that in. David.