TRX’s Justin Sun on Mars, Tropico, Game of Thrones, and That Banana

Justin Sun wishes he could travel more. But there’s too much to do.

“There are too many exciting things happening in crypto every week,” he said in a December interview with CoinDesk at home in Hong Kong. “I don’t really take vacation time. It’s hard to get away for a week.”

If Sun did take an extended vacation, it’d probably be to Mars, he said. But only for a two-way trip.

“I think the only thing [that] may change my mind on crypto is Mars exploration,” he said.

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TRON’s founder says crypto trading would be tough on the red planet as its distance from Earth means a significant lag time.”I’m not going to die on Mars.”

But, it wouldn’t be as bad as trading on Coinbase in 2013. Those were the early days when order books were thin and before matching engines were invented.

“In 2013, if you wanted to sell Bitcoin on Coinbase, they made you wait a week to find out if it sold,” he said. “You had to set a price range, and they would notify you later about the sale and final price.”

“It was like being on Mars.”

Everything crypto

You can see why Sun doesn’t have time for travel.

The TRON founder is relentless. Since founding the blockchain in 2017, Sun has established himself as one of the most influential people in Asian crypto. His X account has 3.7 million followers. TRON has 125 million active users. More than $50 billion in USDT is traded on the network daily.

Around Sun, there’s a universe of affiliated and advised companies, like HTX (exchange), BitGo (custody) and Rainberry (formerly BitTorrent Inc., which has a crypto connection even though it’s a P2P file-sharing service).

Still, when CoinDesk set up an interview with Sun, the idea was to see if the face of DeFi in Asia would talk about something other than crypto.

Surely there’s more to the man than digital assets, right?

We gave up ten minutes in.

For Sun, everything in life touches crypto, and crypto touches everything in life.

Even art.

Sun, an avid collector, owns works by Picasso and Warhol. He recently purchased, and ate, a $6.2 million banana that was part of an artwork called “Comedian,” which poked fun at the concept of modern, expensive art.

Which turned out to be a bitcoin metaphor.

“The banana taped to the wall is not about the physical artwork itself. It’s a concept, an image, rather than something physical,” he said.

“When I first learned about bitcoin, I thought it was cool because you can pass customs without anyone knowing you’re carrying wealth. It’s freedom. The banana has the same effect.”

Except, if someone eats it, as Sun did.

“This kind of conceptual art is new to regulation. It’s not about the physical piece. It’s about the concept,” he said. “Regulators don’t know how to handle it, just like they don’t know how to handle crypto. No matter what laws or rules you impose, you can’t stop someone from taping a banana to a wall.”

Gaming is not escapism

Back IRL, Sun has a soft spot for the Caribbean. Thanks to his obsession with Tropico, a world-building simulation game set in the Cold War tropics, it’s a region he visits as a virtual dictator under the game’s rules. But Sun prefers geopolitical neutrality.

“I run a neutral island, pleasing both the U.S. and the Soviet Union by giving each an island for their military bases,” he said. “Because, why not? They pay me for it.”

Sun says he’s a PC maxi, and not a console gamer. It’s Steam for him, not Xbox Live. Aside from Tropico, he’s a fan of the turn-based strategy game Civilization IV. He once played for 24 hours straight.

“One more turn, one more turn,” he kept saying. He finds the game addicting because it reminds him of what he does in the real world.

Justin Sun isn’t universally adored in the world of crypto. But few can look away.

“Justin Sun is like a Game of Thrones episode,” the man himself says. “No matter what you think of him, you need to keep watching.”

Recently, he riled bitcoiners through his investment in BitGo, which supports Wrapped Bitcoin (wBTC), a piece of trading infrastructure that allows the liquidity of bitcoin on DeFi.

Almost instantly after it was announced, Sun’s harshest critics came out of the woodworks with all kinds of crazy accusations.

Coinbase, which has its own wrapped BTC product, delisted Sun’s version, citing its “listing standards.” Sun and Coinbase are now continuing their argument in court.

BitGo’s CEO Mike Belshe called Sun’s loudest critics “intellectually dishonest.” They all had their own token to pump, he alleged.

Back to Game of Thrones.

In the show’s first season, it appeared the writers were setting up the character of Ned Stark as a lead – until he was beheaded towards the end of the first season.

“I thought, ‘This must be a mistake. Someone will come and say it’s all a misunderstanding.’ But no…he was really gone!” is how Sun recalls watching the show.

This surprise hooked audiences and made Game of Thrones one of its highest-rated shows in the network’s history, beating out The Sopranos, and kept viewers glued to the very end.

To really understand – and judge – Sun, you’ll just have to wait until the final episode.