Newsletter: As he builds US power, Justin Sun fights to control his story
A crypto billionaire who once feared arrest in the US is now a Trump business adviser and White House guest. His lawsuit against Bloomberg reveals what he doesn't want Americans to know about his crypto fortune.
https://www.citationneeded.news/justin-sun-bloomberg-lawsuit/
Justin Sun has sued Bloomberg for publishing details about his wealth that he himself provided. While Sun claims the lawsuit stems from privacy concerns, Sun seems to be trying to suppress unflattering details about his wealth and business activities as he reinvents himself in the US.
![Crypto billionaire Justin Sun has sued Bloomberg for publishing details about his wealth that he himself provided to qualify for their Billionaire Index. While Sun was initially eager for Bloomberg to publicize his multibillionaire status, he became furious when he learned they planned to publish a rough breakdown of the assets comprising his crypto fortune. This may be because it reveals an inconvenient detail: the majority of his assets are TRX, the cryptocurrency issued by his company Tron — and he owns most of the TRX in circulation (63%). This concentration is somewhat reminiscent of the 2022 revelation that Sam Bankman-Fried had built his crypto empire on a foundation of FTT, the token issued by his own company FTX, sparking concerns about the solvency of his businesses and the value of FTT that ended in the collapse of both.
Sun’s fury could also stem from Bloomberg’s reporting that Sun owns the HTX cryptocurrency exchange (renamed from Huobi in late 2023 [I40]). Though it has long been clear that Sun holds more control over the exchange than he claims to have as a mere adviser, he has refused to admit he owns the company. This is a pattern with Sun, who has also denied ownership of other companies with which he’s heavily involved, such as Poloniex (which he later acknowledged owning), BiT Global, and Techteryx.](https://bookwyrm-social.sfo3.digitaloceanspaces.com/images/status/3a9fa1cb-336c-40c9-9073-f8e0843834d7.png "Crypto billionaire Justin Sun has sued Bloomberg for publishing details about his wealth that he himself provided to qualify for their Billionaire Index. While Sun was initially eager for Bloomberg to publicize his multibillionaire status, he became furious when he learned they planned to publish a rough breakdown of the assets comprising his crypto fortune. This may be because it reveals an inconvenient detail: the majority of his assets are TRX, the cryptocurrency issued by his company Tron — and he owns most of the TRX in circulation (63%). This concentration is somewhat reminiscent of the 2022 revelation that Sam Bankman-Fried had built his crypto empire on a foundation of FTT, the token issued by his own company FTX, sparking concerns about the solvency of his businesses and the value of FTT that ended in the collapse of both.
Sun’s fury could also stem from Bloomberg’s reporting that Sun owns the HTX cryptocurrency exchange (renamed from Huobi in late 2023 [I40]). Though it has long been clear that Sun holds more control over the exchange than he claims to have as a mere adviser, he has refused to admit he owns the company. This is a pattern with Sun, who has also denied ownership of other companies with which he’s heavily involved, such as Poloniex (which he later acknowledged owning), BiT Global, and Techteryx.")
According to Bloomberg, Sun owns 63% of the supply of the TRX token. His TRX holdings, even massively discounted by Bloomberg, represent 40% of his net worth. Another 30% is his ownership of the HTX cryptocurrency exchange — ownership he’s previously denied.
Sun claims that Bloomberg violated a confidentiality agreement when they published estimates of his major crypto holdings. However, his own exhibits suggest Sun tried to retroactively impose extreme confidentiality terms a month after sharing the information.
The conversations between Sun and the journalists reflect eagerness to share information, followed by concern and then regret once it became evident that Sun would not be allowed to dictate the format or contents of Bloomberg’s reporting.
![The exhibits
Telegram conversations and email exchanges attached as exhibits in Sun’s lawsuit appear to tell a somewhat different story than the one he laid out in the complaint.14b A message from a member of Sun’s team on February 28 indicates that a fellow employee named Timothy “will share with u the documents once get [sic] the approval from Justin ”. Several hours later, Timothy confirms he shared the material with Bloomberg journalist Dylan Sloan. Later that evening, Timothy asks about security policies to “prevent data leakage”, and Sloan describes cybersecurity practices and plans to analyze Sun’s crypto wealth using the Arkham cryptocurrency analysis platform. The subsequent week, on March 4, Sloan provides a more detailed plan for their Arkham analysis and outlines that they use a custom API. He assures them that “the file of Justin’s wallet addresses won’t leave our office”. “Are you all OK with that plan as it relates to data security?” he asks. Timothy responds, “ok, [no problem]”; Sun himself also responds “Ok”.
Then, on March 27, Sun suddenly posts what looks like several paragraphs of a confidentiality agreement in the Telegram chat — a month after his team had already shared his financial information.](https://bookwyrm-social.sfo3.digitaloceanspaces.com/images/status/a36fa5af-f055-4b9c-a0b3-f16de58e8edd.png "The exhibits
Telegram conversations and email exchanges attached as exhibits in Sun’s lawsuit appear to tell a somewhat different story than the one he laid out in the complaint.14b A message from a member of Sun’s team on February 28 indicates that a fellow employee named Timothy “will share with u the documents once get [sic] the approval from Justin ”. Several hours later, Timothy confirms he shared the material with Bloomberg journalist Dylan Sloan. Later that evening, Timothy asks about security policies to “prevent data leakage”, and Sloan describes cybersecurity practices and plans to analyze Sun’s crypto wealth using the Arkham cryptocurrency analysis platform. The subsequent week, on March 4, Sloan provides a more detailed plan for their Arkham analysis and outlines that they use a custom API. He assures them that “the file of Justin’s wallet addresses won’t leave our office”. “Are you all OK with that plan as it relates to data security?” he asks. Timothy responds, “ok, [no problem]”; Sun himself also responds “Ok”.
Then, on March 27, Sun suddenly posts what looks like several paragraphs of a confidentiality agreement in the Telegram chat — a month after his team had already shared his financial information.")
By the time Sun filed his lawsuit, Bloomberg had already published the Billionaires Index entry. Sun has withdrawn the motion for a TRO and injunction, claiming he is “engaged in discussions” with Bloomberg to correct errors, though corrections seem minimal thus far.
This is only the most recent incident in which Justin Sun has used legal threats to try to shape media narratives around himself and his companies — BuzzFeed news in 2018, CoinGeek in 2023, CoinDesk in 2024.
![In late 2024, Justin Sun and his team demanded crypto media outlet CoinDesk take down an article about Sun’s $6.2 million purchase of Comedian, a conceptual artwork appearing as a banana duct taped to a wall. Shortly after Sun purchased the artwork, he captured additional headlines by eating the banana at a press conference in Hong Kong.e According to the Wall Street Journal, Sun’s team had objected to the “tone” of the CoinDesk article, which described Sun’s desire for fame, then-ongoing SEC lawsuit, and legal threats against media outlets, and suggested that his headline-making art purchase could be an attempt to distract media attention from less flattering coverage. (As I noted in a past issue of Citation Needed, “The [banana] stunt was timed right around Sun's first WLFI token purchase, diverting some press attention from it.”) CoinDesk had just been acquired by the crypto exchange Bullish, and Bullish executives reportedly were the ones who ordered the article’s deletion. According to some CoinDesk employees, Bullish executives had been pressuring reporters to avoid critical coverage or negative opinion pieces about important sponsors of CoinDesk’s annual Consensus conference, a major income stream for the struggling media outlet; Sun’s Tron was among them. Not long after the article was removed, CoinDesk fired its editor-in-chief Kevin Reynolds and deputy editors-in-chief Nick Baker and Mark Hochstein. CoinDesk said the firings were part of a downsizing effort and unre](https://bookwyrm-social.sfo3.digitaloceanspaces.com/images/status/b4caa6de-3d65-4fed-899d-6736d37f3b86.png "In late 2024, Justin Sun and his team demanded crypto media outlet CoinDesk take down an article about Sun’s $6.2 million purchase of Comedian, a conceptual artwork appearing as a banana duct taped to a wall. Shortly after Sun purchased the artwork, he captured additional headlines by eating the banana at a press conference in Hong Kong.e According to the Wall Street Journal, Sun’s team had objected to the “tone” of the CoinDesk article, which described Sun’s desire for fame, then-ongoing SEC lawsuit, and legal threats against media outlets, and suggested that his headline-making art purchase could be an attempt to distract media attention from less flattering coverage. (As I noted in a past issue of Citation Needed, “The [banana] stunt was timed right around Sun's first WLFI token purchase, diverting some press attention from it.”) CoinDesk had just been acquired by the crypto exchange Bullish, and Bullish executives reportedly were the ones who ordered the article’s deletion. According to some CoinDesk employees, Bullish executives had been pressuring reporters to avoid critical coverage or negative opinion pieces about important sponsors of CoinDesk’s annual Consensus conference, a major income stream for the struggling media outlet; Sun’s Tron was among them. Not long after the article was removed, CoinDesk fired its editor-in-chief Kevin Reynolds and deputy editors-in-chief Nick Baker and Mark Hochstein. CoinDesk said the firings were part of a downsizing effort and unre")
