The Ongoing Saga of Justin Sun

Justin Sun is a controversial figure in crypto and controversy has found him yet again – or perhaps, it’s better said that he’s violated the ethics of the crypto community again.

WHO IS JUSTIN SUN?

Justin Sun is a palatable face of youth, intelligence, and privilege. He is used as the visible person for/ face of a group of funders that include both wealthy Chinese and Middle Eastern Nationals and Chinese Government funds.
Outside of crypto, he’s notably been involved with multiple high profile tech businesses and business people in China, forming and trading on his and his network’s guanxi. In China, business is conducted based on who you know. This may not sound that foreign to those familiar with the US equivalent but unlike in the US, everything in China is based on accumulated social debts and credits to peers, mentors, business partners, and relatives. It’s called guanxi.
Justin Sun’s network has enabled him to have massive opportunities and access to capital far greater than he could hope to raise on his own. However, there have been times when Sun YuChen (Justin Sun’s real name) has exceeded the strength of his network.
Between multiple run-ins with the Chinese Government, even being forced to apologize on Twitter, and various interactions in the cryptosphere, Sun is no stranger to going against convention and taking the heat for it.
Personally, I’m not really interested in more about his personal life except to point out that while he is seen as a very wealthy tech titan, he’s a multimillionaire; nowhere near the wealth of his alleged mentor Jack Ma or any of the other billionaires he tends to link his names with.

THE SAGA UNTIL NOW

Having been involved in innumerable scandals in the industry, it’s hard to pick which are worth highlighting. The Tesla giveaway issue? The lies? The hype? The fake followers/engagement on Twitter? The guanxi provided PND’s on Binance? His company faking development via irrelevant Github commits over a year?
From acquisitions (Bittorrent, Poloniex) that have been billed as “his” even though the money comes from others to using events that rock the world as the basis for impeccably timed but incredibly poor taste self-promotion, Sun’s morality has long been at question. Two recent examples are his self-promoting tweets regarding Kobe Bryant’s death and the Coronavirus/ Wuhan mask shortage.
Ironically, one of his run-ins with the Chinese Government was due to excessive self-promotion. The irony is only increased when you examine how few of his tweets are positively engaged with in the comments in comparison to his likes and retweets. As Greg Thompson pointed out in a piece for CCN, it’s much harder to buy comments than likes and retweets.
Overall, the negative stories about personal interactions with him are by far the most out of this world aspect. From alleged shoplifting attempts to outrageously absurd personal introductions, the man thrives on attention. At times, I’ve pointed out various logical issues and attracted a few TRX shills, but for the most part I’ve stayed out of it and tried to avoid contributing to the narcissist’s need for attention.
Even in writing this, I find myself hesitating. Should I write this? Should I contribute to the number of mentions he’s got going on? To his visibility? But at this point, he’s visible and there’s not much impact someone like me is going to have on boosting it.

WHAT’S HAPPENING NOW

Recently, Steemit, Inc. was acquired by the group Sun is the face for. Steemit is a New York based company that handles development for the STEEM blockchain and runs one of the platforms you can use to view entries on the blockchain, Steemit dot com.
Steemit, Inc. has been the point of centralization in one of the largest decentralized communities on the web. Holding a large stake of the onchain currency that was “ninja mined”, Steemit, Inc promised to use the currency for the development of the ecosystem. While the currency was not forfeited, this promise pacified the growing unrest in the community.
With Steemit, Inc.’s acquisition, concern spread like wildfire and the community’s elected representatives initiated some protection and temporarily freezing the stake, requesting that a meeting be held to address their concerns and the promise that was made regarding the currency.
Acting in concert with Binance and a few other entities, Sun moved to unfreeze the coins undermining the STEEM blockchain and community voted in representatives. Within a short time, the community was able to assemble an even more impressive amount of power and prepared to retaliate as Sun called them hackers and stirred further discontent in the community in an effort to save face.

THE CHINESE FLAG FLIES

In addition to considering his actions and words, the community has reason to be concerned, knowing that Sun has had prior issues and reaffirmed alignment with the Chinese government. Their stance on censoring anti-CCP content and controlling news is well known and when combined with the large Chinese presence on Steemit spells a recipe for disaster.
The only way to gain enough power over the STEEM blockchain to censor it was through the exact play he made.
In December, I wrote about this a Facebook Group called CCT and warned that we were seeing a power play by the Chinese. Poloniex was the target at the time, but now the largest decentralized community is. I've copied it here to make sure it's visible.
The saga continues…