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Just when Bitcoin seemed to be breaking out of its long winter, a publicity stunt by one of the crypto industry\u2019s most prominent billionaires is raising questions as to whether this asset class should be in mainstream investors\u2019 portfolios.<\/p>\n
Justin Sun, the Trump family\u2019s earliest and biggest crypto backer, is suing a Chinese actress and her parents to recover what he describes as a bride price of 30 million yuan ($6.3 million). In a long essay posted on X, titled \u201cMy Girlfriend Jing Tian,\u201d he recounts their relationship and portrays Jing as high-maintenance and money-hungry.<\/p>\n
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Crypto billionaire Justin Sun has come under heavy fire for his latest stunt. Bloomberg<\/p>\n
This dispute has captivated Chinese society and the crypto world. The original August 27 X post alone has garnered 40 million views. In response, Jing wrote on Chinese social media Weibo, where she has more than 26 million followers, that she would never trade love for money and believes that justice would prevail.<\/p>\n
With an estimated net worth of $US8.3 billion, Sun is an expert in creating media buzz, sometimes as a way to boost the value of his business dealings. He is known for spending $US6.2 million at Sotheby\u2019s on a conceptual artwork composed of a fresh banana stuck to a wall \u2014 and eating it in front of reporters afterwards.<\/p>\n
The crypto billionaire is also litigious, suing World Liberty Financial, a crypto project co-founded by President Donald Trump, for extortion after their business associations turned sour. The company counter-sued for defamation. He also previously sued Bloomberg for reporting on his wealth, but ultimately voluntarily dismissed his case.<\/p>\n
But is this publicity stunt smart? Flamboyance doesn\u2019t bode well when the Chinese government embraces common prosperity and is keen to rein in capital flight.<\/p>\n
In the well-crafted essay \u2014 the 36-year-old won a national writing competition in 2007 that secured him a spot at the prestigious Peking University \u2014 Sun spent pages flaunting his wealth. He\u2019s especially fond of his Airbus A330, estimated to be worth $US200 million, boasting that the Maldives airport is too small for the private plane and the islanders at Tenerife off West Africa had never seen anything like it.<\/p>\n
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Chinese actress Tian Jing has appeared in films such as 2017\u2019s Kong: Skull Island.AP<\/p>\n
The public backlash in China was almost immediate, with prominent influencers calling Sun vengeful and a social outcast (crypto trading is illegal in China). Over the weekend, Binance founder Changpeng Zhao, who was instrumental in Sun\u2019s early success, suggested he tone down the rhetoric.<\/p>\n
After all, we don\u2019t need to look far to see how Beijing feels about flashy displays of wealth. In 2022, regulators asked the entire brokerage industry to implement pay cuts after the wife of a junior trader at China International Capital Corp. drew public ire by revealing her husband\u2019s monthly salary on social media. Finance executives\u2019 compensation only started to bottom out last year.<\/p>\n
China more recently has been cracking down on capital flight, banning unauthorised offshore issuance of yuan-pegged stablecoins. These cryptocurrencies allow people to move money internationally without sharing identifying information, even bypassing stringent economic sanctions.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not hard to see how Sun may irritate Beijing. The bulk of his wealth stems from Tron, a blockchain system that has morphed into a global payments network that moves much more than PayPal. Nearly 40 per cent of Tether\u2019s USDT, the world\u2019s most-used dollar-pegged stablecoin, is transacted on Tron, which counted Asian crime syndicates among its early adopters, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, crypto exchange HTX, where Sun is a self-described advisor, hosts plenty of suspicious activities. It has been accused by the UK and the European Union of helping Russia move money. HTX has pushed back, saying Huobi Global SA \u2014 the first defendant in a legal claim the UK has made \u2014 is distinct from the online exchange, which is committed to full compliance worldwide.<\/p>\n
At last week\u2019s Bitcoin Asia conference in Hong Kong, Binance\u2019s Zhao tried to strike a bullish tone, predicting that Bitcoin will soon overtake gold. But there are plenty of sceptics.<\/p>\n
Both assets are floated as potential beneficiaries of the so-called debasement trade \u2014 whereby investors seek refuge from the dollar for fear that it\u2019s being devalued \u2014 but legally they\u2019re miles apart.<\/p>\n
Central banks are buying gold to diversify their reserves, while the crypto industry still operates in a tight regulatory environment and as such, it can ill afford negative coverage now.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, Sun\u2019s sordid essay will deepen the public\u2019s crypto scepticism and fatigue.<\/p>\n
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