Justin Sun: Tron’s Vision, Liquidity Mining & Binance

Transcript

this episode of Empire is brought to you by quick node quick node is an end-to-end blockchain development platform that makes building web 3 apps super easy no matter what you want to build you can effortly develop any application by leveraging their elastic apis go to quicknote.com use codeempire you'll get a free month on their feature back build plan that's right go to quicknode.com you'll get a free month to start playing around you'll hear more about quick node later in the show this episode is brought to you by Quinta the premier derivatives platform on optimism that offers deep liquidity low fees and up to 50x leverage across 24 different assets you'll hear more about Quinta later in the show all right everyone special episode of

Empire we have Justin Sun founder of Tron joining us Justin how you doing man um good so so glad to be here and I would like to introduce our business to everyone here today yeah let's start with the uh I know you've put us on a tight time schedule here I know it's late over there as well so let's start with the end in mind and just jump right into it what would you say is the the end goal for Tron or maybe differently put like the big vision for Tron yes definitely I think we have been a very reliable layer one solution for the whole industry uh for quite a long time so first we invented Trump protocol in about 2017. uh later we turned this protocol into one of the largest stable client

Network in the world but of course I mean um the stable coin is only one of the focus of child network we also focus on D5 nft game five uh exchange solution so lots of other business but I think right now we are doing the best in in stablecoin but recently we also introduced uh BitTorrent Network which is a layer 2 solution for blockchain and also a cross-chan solution we connected ethereum BSC and the Tron together so that's why recently you have seen we have collaborate with amdax kyber and

the uh fidia so lots of D5 application in terms of integrating to be torrent Network so basically always building the best infrastructure in the industry nice all right so you have Tron the smart contract platform and then there's Tron like the Builder of I guess I'd call them applications like you mentioned exchange Solutions and Stables exactly do you see um when you think about like the competitive landscape for you guys do you see something like ethereum being a bigger competitor or you know another maybe centralized company like a binance being a bigger competitor yes um so for us I think right now we are basically doing uh lots of business right and we want to integrate them

together to have Synergy so that's why uh I think this is depends on uh what's the angle uh you see the picture right so for us for one side of course I think truang compete with C theorem in terms of layer 1 solution right but on the other side for um for for example B torrent uh protocol it's connecting ethereum trunk and the BNB chat so basically actually it helps Trump protocol to integrate with ethereum because we offer some kind of services ethereum users can very easy to move their assets to Tron blockchain to

BSC blockchain so in this angle ethereum become like a partner of us right so and and also of course I think for our exchange solution we listing uh BLC ethereum and Tron token uh ecosystem token all the time so so that's why I believe blockchain space is very big so basically we have lots of room to grow our business I always see other company in the space as a Partners rather than competitor because I think collaborate together we will have more uh Synergy than ourselves right doing the business yeah you guys um you guys have made some

really interesting Acquisitions over the years um yes you guys uh acquired I think it was flowby in October 2022. um like how do you think about competing with binance long term they're kind of the the 800 pound gorilla in the extreme space yes so first of all I think exchange has been uh long-standing business over years right so back to like 2012 like uh anti-gox like age right so we have seen lots of the companies uh uh uh uh going up and downs but always exchange is the core uh business and everyone talks about like exchange I I think uh uh um poloniacs

used to be like the Dominic exchange before uh 2017 and also like Whoopi like other exchange also wants to be like one of the largest exchange but I think today binance have over uh around 50 UH 60 percent of the whole market share but I believe in the long term um exchange will be Diversified one of the biggest reason is because the Assets in the industry changing all the time right so um exchange um crypto exchange today it's not like non-stock right uh in United States which I mean the major companies always

did in the same exchange right like apple like Tesla they're gonna be always be the most uh tradable stocks in the market but for crypto it's different right so recently even uh um pip right become PPE like become the most like tradable assets uh across all different platforms you know even uh uh they have like uh several times bigger even than lots of the major D5 token we have known so that's why not even talk about like Shiba like in 2021 right so basically I believe the the theme of uh assets digital assets gonna be changing all the time so so that's why I believe uh

exchange will always have their different advantages because of the assets they depend on so so that's why I I also believe like Finance I also see binance always as one of our most important Partners uh because we collaborate with them in uh um lots of perspective right so and I believe eventually um the industry will become lots of the exchange listing different layers of the assets um Finance probably good at listing uh mainstream assets right Bitcoin ethereum and hobby plonix and other exchange will

be uh very good at least in Innovative assets right so I think this kind of the different layer of the capital markets is also very important if you want to see the business so so that's why um we I always believe uh everyone has a room to grow their business yeah let's talk about the other side of the business which you said um so you do all these things like nfts and D5 and uh The Exchange Solutions side of the business but that you you mentioned that the most kind of dominant part of the business is um is the stablecoin network so right now and I would agree with that that right the biggest use case right now for Tron is that you're the layer one of choice for tether I think it's a 45 billion dollar market of tether on

Tron something like that and you guys I think maybe folks in the US might not be aware that tether on Tron actually exceeds tether on on ethereum exactly are you worried at all that like with tether losing market share to something like usdc that Tron is losing its main application yes uh so first of all of course we collaborate with all different kind of the stable coin you know uh in the industry uh actually you know today uh chuang is also the third largest stablecoin Network for usdc uh and also we are the number one uh stablecoin Network for TUSD so so basically we collaborate with everyone um USA T qsd usdc and also we have

decentralized stablecoin solution like usdd usdj um basically we offer everything we can to customers right so they have all different choices of stablecoin but which one they're gonna prefer we can't uh uh we can't decide that so I could I I think right right now tether obviously is the priority like everyone loves tether uh especially in Asia so we have a very uh big use case in Asia so lots of folks in United States they might not come to Asia but if you come to Asia like any country for example like Thailand Vietnam you know Malaysia like Singapore you can see tether everywhere

so basically lots of shops you know uh lots of people actually take tether as well their most important uh local payment solution so even we see lots of the on track traffic from Nigeria Africa or Europe you know especially um Asia countries like turkey you know South America like Brazil Argentina um we we saw lots of use cases uh so so that's why uh that's something I also proud of so basically we have expand our crypto payment solution um not limited only in our industry

right for depositing to exchange to do trading but uh actually it start starting to have real use case in people's daily life uh and especially for uh third world country right so I think stablecoin solution really helped them to bring down the costs of their lives and the cost of their business um basically make make their life better so so that's like something I proud of um but also I think rather than a focus on Tether only stable for Network right so we right now we are also helped grow a usdc tosd uh USD usdj business because we want them to be the

um to be a diversified stablecoin Network to offer uh different options for our customers to to grow their business yeah um all right so you mentioned stable coins a couple times and then you also mentioned binance a couple times Well I got to ask what what happened with the the recent like 56 million dollar TUSD binance uh yes Finance transfer what happened and for those who don't who aren't aware it seemed like you kind of transferred 56 million of TUSD to binance to maybe Farm the the sui the sui airdrop what happened yes yes so basically uh Toronto Ventures we are one of the partners uh Market maker partners for TUSD so uh we basically uh make markets for uh USD on different

exchanges but of course I think binance is our main uh Focus so I think two days ago um we have seen the surge of qsd price uh in binance exchange so that's why uh trundle Adventures means lots of USD and we deposit into um to into into binance um the purpose of those funds is only for Market making for TUSD trading pairs so uh actually you know we have no intention to participate in any like Siri or any other uh Landing uh or boring like business or minus but

actually I think at that time uh so the because we have different people manage different trading accounts so for our teammates um they probably uh um don't know the purpose of use those funds so they um uh basically move some funds to the uh Siri like launch pool activities so I think once we find out um this mistake so we immediately contact finance and uh refund it like all the sweet token we have uh and uh give back to the pool and uh still uh I think right now you can see most of the liquidity on TUSD on finance so um so Toronto entries be a very big part of it

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quicknote.com super easy you can use code Empire you'll get a free month on their build plan so don't forget to use codeempire Santi and I gotta get credit for this one so they know that we sent you and you'll get a first month free hope you guys enjoy it this episode is brought to you by Quinta trade Smarter with Quinta Quinta is the Premier derivatives trading platform on optimism that features deep liquidity low fees and up to 50x leverage across 24 different assets all powered by synthetics if you want to trade crypto Forex or Commodities on chain puenta is the platform for you it's built for both the casual dgen and advanced Traders it offers stop losses limit orders cross

margining and a whole bunch of other Advanced order types and unlike most of today's web3 products puenta has a super easy to use interface including a position dashboard shards and a leaderboard for a seamless experience go to quinta.io that's Quinta dot IO right now tell them we sent you Tom Santi sent you tamiano sent you Tom Empire sent you puenta dot IO hope you guys enjoy I gotta ask him I mean so it seems like uh so it seems like this was your Market making team but there's been other like kind of fun yield farming things that I've seen you doing like um yes when was it uh October I think it was October when you put like 30 or 40 million into the Ave lending pool pulled that out in

February like are you yeah this is like this is moving crypto on chain in big size are you doing this yourself do you have a team doing this yes yes uh we we definitely have a mining team uh doing this so this is very important so never do uh Define mining by yourself you know because uh Divine mining actually is very technical because you need to understand the smart contract the time log you know there's lots of the detail about the uh Define mining here so actually you know you need to have a a very tech savvy team to go through like all the loopholes or some sometimes we even see Rock pools on defy exchange or get hack right

um defy protocol so that's why why I think we always needs to stay alert you know in terms of like defined mining but for myself of course I think we are one of the biggest um defined mining Partners in the space so today I think we have uh around 600 million dollars to 700 million dollars in Lido and we also have around even today I think a few hundred million dollars in RV compound all the different D5 applications uh and also uh we are trying our uh different uh mining Solutions all the time so actually we have a team uh they will go through like all the mining opportunities in the

space uh and we will give them like a renting right so uh basically like ask ABCD so I think right now because the um the money also is very limited so we only mining uh as um rating uh protocol so uh that we we are offer um to collaborate with all different kind of the device developers um so even they are in a level B level we are also partner with them even building their device application on Truong and B torrent so so that's why I think I see mining not only as opportunity to probably uh get some

yield but also I think it's a very good channel to collaborate with the device developers in the space nice 600 700 million on on Lido is that your personal money or is that tron's money or like a little bit of both yes so I think right now it's only my money uh doing uh little uh leader mining um but of course I think in the future uh and also uh it's not even counted uh we also I think Iran have around 400 million and 500 million of uh um of uh uh B eth so it's like uh it's just like coinbase um eth staking uh product right so hobby we have the same product I think today

we are the third largest actually um uh um staking uh is taking institution uh so I think number one is finance number two is coinbase so number three is Hobby so um so basically I think we are also one of the most important uh staking uh uh providers and the participants in ethereum network how much of this is to get yield so I think the yield on Lido something like 4.8 right now maybe a little bit less how much is this for yield versus like almost basically I mean like bribing liquidity basically so so you guys launched your own stablecoin usdd and last time I looked you guys were bribing

for liquidity on convex how much of this is for like liquidity bribing versus yield yes I think for a year as you said right so it's around like five percent uh I believe uh goes up and down uh and for the bribing liquidities um on different protocols right so we we're doing on different protocols um from time to time I think we want to keep the yield uh it's around eight to um to ten percent of the year so even sometimes if we have activities we even give like 12 like 15 uh Yale like short term um but of course I think that's like

when when you launch some like D5 product right so you need to have a high yield to encourage uh the users to uh use the protocol and use the stable coin uh so for today if you you are doing this kind of a leverage on usdd mining on like just land like uh curve like other protocol uh you probably get like around eight to ten percent of the year right so um this this is all the ill is subsidized by by us so it's transparent um so we subsidize ourselves um so so so that's why I think it's consistent uh and also we we calculate the very uh very carefully about like

how much Yale we subsidize every day right so we for example we have around like 100k to 200k um this kind of the range of the subsidized we will do every day so so that's why I think this is consistent because I know a lot of people might worry about right high yield products like you know so they can't get their money back but uh for for for usdd and TUSD and all different kind of the year product we are offering today so you can see the transparency on our web page so I think right now today usdd is 170 percent um percent uh uh collateralized rate uh with Bitcoin and TRX and we also have

like PSM so you can and convert your usdd with other stable coins instantly and I think today right now we have around 15 to 20 million dollars full so you can convert your money anytime so um so it's all transparent and very convenient so so that's why you can check it and uh and also for the Yale farming side we we calculate very carefully to make sure we we actually you know earn money right so we farming in other space and also with subsides uh other of our D5 products so we will make sure it's always uh cash positive nice how many employees work at Tron you guys

have a lot of operations going on yes I think currently we are we have around two two thousand people so uh globally so um I I think we are not the largest right I think Finance probably even have 10K um coinbase last time I checked it's like uh three uh three thousand four thousand I think the okx is has like uh four thousand something right so I think we will be basically the uh mid-range I think it's not the largest all right so and also uh I believe we are still a very quite a large team compared to you know uh I know you know uh um there's a some like very small team doing a very

big job like like though you know uh and the other D5 protocol lots of them like even open c those team probably only less than 50 people um but I mean that's the uh that's the Christmas of crypto right so very small team doing very big business yeah could you ever see yourself if this Market gets bad enough are there any like companies that you're eyeing for an acquisition like someone like an open C or is there anyone that you kind of have your eyes on next for an acquisition yes uh I think first of all we are always interested in acquiring a business in our industry uh one of the reasons is because I believe uh bring companies together can really find Synergy all together so but also that's

also like a very Prince a good principle so if uh we if we acquire anyone in the space we first we will believe if we can contribute more to their business right so we don't want to acquire like some business eventually we we're gonna do worse than uh they are doing right so we always want to see like how we can contribute into the business into the first place and then we will start to see like how we can bring the Synergy together uh as if today I I believe um recently uh uh um on dcg definitely has lots of good assets um and and also right so you need to

evaluate uh whether the sellers wants to sell right uh I think this is you definitely has some motivation because they need to settle with Gemini you know they have lots of uh Genesis you know they have lots of creditors so that's why I believe they have Within These two negotiate um uh so far I think that um dcg will be like one of the biggest companies in the space I think probably have lots of interesting assets and the willing to yourself 12 months from now are you the owner of one dcg asset or two dcg assets coindesk and grayscale or just grayscale I don't know uh uh we will see we'll see

all right all right um I think that I know we got to wrap this up I know we're coming up on time the last thing I want to ask you is uh the the SEC and on March 22nd said that TRX is a security what do you think about this yes so first of all I believe um the overall SEC strategy on on crypto uh uh has started you get some like uh uh fight back right so we have seen recently like coinbase aren't you suing uh SEC for their regulation Clarity and also of course um SEC is threatening pursuing to Sue coinbase and also they have brain uh uh charges against uh Beatrix uh and the

paxos uh and that they said already it's like settle with Kraken in terms of staking so that's why uh that's also my point of view uh I believe ICC needs to have more uh regulation clarities uh rather than like go after the players in the space one by one even without like telling them like why I'm going after you and the worst the standards we need to comply here right so so that's why I agree with coinbase uh on complaints recently against like SEC so they need to um bring the regulation Clarity first right probably involved like everybody in discussion uh because lots of the

players in the space series players in the space they actually understand like what's The Regulators need and what's customer need So eventually I think we will find in the middle right so and also we we need to have a clear guidelines and clear rules for what we can do and the War uh uh uh eventually uh uh we can do in the future um but I mean the optimistic side is eventually SEC is not the one who decided all the rules right it's the court to decide all the rules so that's why I believe the repo case and the coinbase case you know with SEC or will

really uh Define on the boundaries of how we can do crypto uh eventually I think in United States but eventually I believe if a U.S continue to tighten up the um the regulation in United States uh in long term it will be bad for United States not bad for crypto because crypto entrepreneurs they can move their uh um uh Innovation and their business offshore or to other players like Hong Kong like Singapore like Dubai like Paris London this is already become like very popular we have seen lots of uh crypto attraction recently in Hong Kong

right Hong Kong government become like super positive about crypto and wants to get everyone into space so that's why eventually I believe this is just like internet right so any any countries you know falling behind of the internet era will eventually have pushback for themselves rather than the industry even in the short term probably we've seen sound like bitcoin price CCM price like Tron price crash for fuel percentage but eventually I think uh if U.S uh continue to have this kind of very vague and um are not clear regulation uh it's eventually going to hurt U.S business

Justin always a pleasure appreciate the time man yeah thank you I hope to see you next time [Applause] [Music]