Tron founder Justin Sun's $1.6 billion wallet balance dominates HTX $4.9 billion reserves (2024)

Justin Sun, the founder of the Tron network, owns over a quarter of the assets on the HTX (formerly Huobi) exchange reserves, as revealed in a screenshot of his wallet balance disclosed on social media platform X (previously Twitter) on Feb. 27.

Although the screenshot lacks a detailed breakdown of his portfolio, Sun’s total crypto holdings on the platform are equivalent to approximately 28,614 units of Bitcoin, valued at roughly $1.6 billion.

Sun shared this wallet balance to assert his substantial engagement with HTX, a crypto exchange where he holds an advisory role. This disclosure comes in response to widespread social media allegations questioning his active platform use.

Sun said:

“Personally, I use almost all main exchanges and am a supporter of those exchanges. However, if someone says I seldom use HTX.com, that would be inaccurate. I am a heavy user of HTX. My personal use of HTX is the same as all HTX users, believing and trading.”

Meanwhile, Sun’s screenshot ignited several debates within the crypto community, with some suggesting that the image might be fake.

Adam Cochran, a VC firm Cinneamhain Ventures partner, pointed out the stark contrast between Sun’s balance and HTX’s reported Bitcoin holdings. He said:

“So Sun is claiming his personal HTX balance of BTC, is more than the entire amount of BTC that HTX reports in wallets (as sources by DefiLlama) So either fake or HTX has no real users other than Sun, or he comingle a their assets as his.”

HTX reserves

CryptoSlate analysis of different on-chain service providers, including Arkham Intelligence and DeFillama, shows that Sun’s assets account for a substantial part of the HTX reserves, albeit with some variance.

According to Arkham Intelligence’s HTX dashboard, Sun’s assets comprise approximately 27% of the exchange’s total reserves, valued at $5.9 billion. The dashboard highlights over 23,700 BTC valued at $1.4 billion and 9.3 billion Tron tokens, estimated at $1.3 billion, among the exchange’s top holdings.

Conversely, contrasting data from DeFillama suggests that Sun’s assets constitute almost 50% of HTX reserves, with the exchange’s reserves valued at approximately $3.83 billion.

Meanwhile, HTX’s publicly disclosed reserve certificates indicate holdings of nearly $3.5 billion in assets as of Feb. 1. These assets encompass 540 million USDT, 21,543 BTC, 109,000 Ethereum units, and 9.4 billion TRX tokens.

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