After the news broke out that Tron (TRX) founder and Chinese crypto billionaire Justin Sun has secretly become one of the top clients of crypto asset manager Valkyrie, many experts found it odd he would place so much capital in a vehicle designed for ‘boomer asset managers’ or those uncomfortable with self custody.
Indeed, Justin Sun has stashed a large amount of his assets in Valkyrie Digital Assets, specifically in one of its separately managed account (SMA) investment vehicles, designed to provide crypto exposure to those familiar with traditional finance investments, as CoinDesk’s Danny Nelson reported in December.
In early January, Sun’s spokesperson told CoinDesk that the Tron founder was looking to allocate “some of his wealth in U.S. holdings” and to support “regulated crypto industry growth,” as $500 million of his wealth was locked in Valkyrie’s treasury.
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Top investor in ‘boomer’ vehicle
What many found interesting was that Sun’s investments amounted to more than 90% of the money at Valkyrie’s crypto division, at the same time the largest division of the U.S.-based money manager Valkyrie Investments, with a Tron guest joining Valkyrie’s bell-ringing at Nasdaq in September.
On top of that, CoinDesk writes that “there’s an angle to be examined if Sun’s outsized holdings domiciled in Valkyrie are a way to mask what the market perceives as institutional demand for cryptocurrencies. But that’s neither here nor there at the moment.”
Valkyrie as hedge against Beijing
According to the report, part of Sun’s decision-making process may have accounted for the unfavorable conditions in his home country of China, including the unpredictable and trigger-happy legal system that had led to billionaires stashing their money abroad for decades.
Although Sun is no longer a citizen of China, the country’s authorities are known for forcibly reinstating citizenship for individuals that found themselves under their radar, such as Gui Minhai, a Chinese-born naturalized Swedish citizen and a published author in Sweden who also ran a bookstore in Hong Kong with titles criticizing the Chinese Communist Party.
If Beijing decided to go after Sun for any reason, his Grenadian citizenship could be rendered useless as the Chinese government could easily force Caribbean nations such as Grenada into forsaking companies that store crypto, in which case holding wealth in Valkyrie’s treasury with the protection of the U.S. legal system could prove valuable.
Meanwhile, Justin Sun continues to be the source of controversy. Back in June 2022, Finbold reported on a YouTube investigator Stephen Findseisen, also known as Coffeezilla, suggesting that the USDD (USDD) stablecoin issued by the TRON DAO Reserve could be a Ponzi scheme.
Featured image via TRON Foundation YouTube.
