Justin Sun - CEO of TRON: Why DeFi & NFTs Are Changing The World Forever

Full transcript: Justin Sun on London Real

2:38 This is London Real. I am Brian Rose. My guest today is This is London Real. I am Brian Rose. My guest today is Justin Sun, the business leader, technology entrepreneur, cryptocurrency investor and early Bitcoin adopter.

2:58 You are the founder and CEO of TRON Network, one of the world’s most active blockchain and smart contract platforms with over 63 million user accounts and 2.6 billion transactions. You’ve appeared at the Forbes 30 Under 30 for three years back to back, and you famously paid four and a half million dollars to have lunch with Warren Buffett. You have invested heavily in NFTs, paying six million dollars for a Beeple, half a million for an Ether Rock, and you recently purchased the iconic sculpture L’Homme qui marche by Alberto Giacometti for 78.4 million dollars at Sotheby’s.

3:29 TRON Network is one of the fastest growing public blockchains, and your mission is to become the global human settlement layer of the future. Justin, welcome to London Real. Thank you, thank you, thank you, Brian, and happy to share like my opinion about blockchain, metaverse and NFT to everyone today. Great, I’m really looking forward to it. And again, I think we need to start maybe with the art and the NFTs, because you’ve gone really big on NFTs, but you’ve also gone big into physical art, Picassos, Warhol, and then, you know, Giacometti.

4:05 That was a big, a big thing, and I’m wondering why do you find NFTs to be so important, and why also the physical art? Why is that important to you, and what does that teach us about the blockchain? Yes, sure, definitely. NFT is available words right now, is trending everywhere. I think the most important things about NFT is arts.

4:30 I think with physical form or blockchain form, like we have the non-fungible token, like unlocked today, it’s all the same. I think it’s all about your understanding of beauty and about your understanding of how this kind of the art will shape our future. So that’s why I think in some instance, basically, people’s art and CryptoPunks, all the profile NFTs, and the Giacometti developed by the committee, I think they have something in common. So that’s why I think we invest heavily, not only in the blockchain world and NFT world but also in the traditional world, and we are, frankly, we want to become the bridge between physical art world and the blockchain world.

5:33 Yeah, I think you once said that NFTs are an easy way to understand how the blockchain works, which I’ve never heard anyone say that. And again, like you said, NFT is a big buzz right now, and so, you know, when it comes to the NFTs, like you said, it’s an easy way to understand how the blockchain works. Maybe you can explain that to me, because you know, Justin, I have a 17 year old daughter, and when I gave her an NFT, all of a sudden I became the cool dad.

5:59 We had an amazing relationship, you know, we really understood it, and she understood the blockchain better. Why do you think that’s a way to maybe educate the world when it comes to blockchain? Yes, I think NFT is a very good example. So everybody, for example, like myself, I used to collect lots of the game cards, like, I know, like everybody has like NBA cards, right, for boys, and the dogs for girls. I think for the next generation, for the next five, ten years, people will start to collect like NFT instead of like physical form of cards or like NFT players.

6:46 So these have like three benefits. The first thing is you don’t need to worry about the provenance of the artworks or the collection, so basically everything is on blockchain, so you can see the previous owner, like how much they bought for the arts, and you can see like how many people collect them, and for total like how, you have like how many of them, and the second is very easy for trade or transaction. So you can just like get your friends transact these on smart contract platform and with seconds you can settle those transactions, and also very easy to preserve, so you don’t need to move them around, right?

7:34 So it’s all set on blockchain. You can have one account, it’s like decentralized identity, you can check all the artworks. So I think it’s very convenient and the easy way to collect our pieces, right, just like souvenirs. Yeah, I’ve been really understanding NFTs recently. I created a few and put them up on OpenSea a couple weeks ago, and yes, and I woke up on Sunday morning and I had sold four NFTs.

8:05 Justin, I was like, what’s going on? And I found out that one of my students in my academy bought them, and it was because of provenance. He’s like, Brian, I can prove that you were the one that minted it and you owned it. Yes, and that’s on the blockchain and it’s got value. And yes, I really got an education, a small education in what you mean by those NFTs.

8:25 Exactly, so not only the provenance but also the record is permanently on the blockchain, so it won’t like be deleted by any like central parties, and it’s gonna preserve as long as the blockchain exists, basically is forever. So this is also why the NFT records is very important for all the artworks, and that’s the beauty of blockchain and NFT. Yeah, it’s immutable, and with art that’s something we haven’t seen before, right? Exactly. I had Stani Kulechov here in the studio in London who owns Aave, and he said, Brian, I got 2,000 NFTs, and he was showing it to me on his phone.

9:12 He said I’ve never sold one of them, and he really enjoyed his NFTs on his phone, and you know, when he would go to a social event he would show them off, and you know, it was like his art gallery, right, but on his phone. Yeah, exactly, exactly. It’s much, much better, like even for traditional arts. For example, the news, because of work I own basically most of the time we just restore those pieces in Hong Kong, our storage. The only way I can show them is by like showing my friends the picture.

9:46 So actually, you know, the traditional art even have this kind of a like a new way of showing them rather than like you really seen them in the art museum. So I think this is like even like a pandemic accelerate this kind of transaction of our collection. Yeah, that’s really good. I think we dropped your audio just a little bit there. I’ll just have you check with your crew.

10:14 But you make a really good point, Justin, something I mentioned when I started learning about NFTs, you know, a couple years ago, if you were a wealthy investor and you bought a Picasso, you would put it on your wall in your mansion in LA or New York City, and how many people would come to your house that year? Maybe, if you were a Dan Bilzerian, you’d have a few hundred people over for a party, but otherwise not that many people, and in COVID probably less than 10 people came to your house. So, exactly, then where’s the utility somehow, right?

10:43 Yes, and also I have a very important principle. Basically, the pieces you preserve is eventually going to determine by how many people see for your art in the first place. So that’s why I think this is very important to make your artworks or NFT available to anyone on the internet, so everybody can see our works, and the value of your artwork is kind of going up. Okay, a bit like kind of YouTube, free content, everyone sees your message, your value goes up.

11:20 Exactly, exactly. Interesting, because I started YouTube, my channel, 10 years ago, and at the time people were saying, you know, you don’t give away your content for free, put it behind a paywall. But yeah, you know, we have about a half a billion people watch our content that wouldn’t happen behind a paywall or in an art gallery, right? Exactly, exactly. Yeah, that’s super helpful.

11:41 But now let me say, Justin, it’s one thing though for you to buy a Beeple and buy an Ether Rock and buy a CryptoPunk, but when I see you buy Giacometti, I mean, that’s a physical piece of art. It’s an iconic piece of art, it’s big, and it’s expensive. Now you’re bridging into that physical world. You’re making a big statement there, Justin. What is that statement?

12:01 What are you trying to tell the world when you buy that? Yes, first of all, I believe, like as you said, like Giacometti is a very iconic art, and also I think by purchasing these artworks, I want to deliver the message to the world is that we can collaborate with the traditional art museum to turn more art into an active world, and we also want to become the bridge between the artworks and the blockchain world. So basically I think Giacometti is super popular, Guggenheim Museum, MoMA, Tate Museum, so that’s why I think this is our plan for the next step.

12:48 So we want to collaborate with all the big museum in the world to make our works available to everybody in the world rather than just put them in the museum to hold the physical collection or exhibition, but we want to make them available online so everybody in the world can see them, just like what we do with the work with Picasso under the NFTs of Giacometti. On today, you probably made that sculpture ten times more famous just by buying it, right? Just, exactly, exactly.

13:25 What’s it like to be in the presence of that sculpture? I’m just curious, is it powerful, is it big, is it intimidating, is it creepy? What’s it like? Yeah, yeah, yes, I think he’s basically all the words you say about the sculpture. That’s why I love Giacometti in the first place, because there’s so many ways you can interpret on the statement, right?

13:49 And also the same time I think in all the Giacometti collection, that’s the first one grabbed my eye in the first place. This is also the cover of Giacometti collections. So that’s why I think among all the collections in Sotheby’s, this one has the most powerful statement, and also the same time you can imagine all the possibilities gonna happen with this sculpture. So that’s why I think I also like other like paintings, like the orange one with Rothko, and also other, Cy Twombly, and other, like Jackson Pollock, but I believe the Giacometti one is the most powerful one.

14:51 So that’s why I’m the underbidder, I think, for Rothko, but I dropped because I really want to get the Giacometti piece. That’s nice, that’s a great explanation. It’s also got quite a history in previous versions and sketches. It’s a bit blockchain-ish in the way, right, because you kind of have previous versions and better versions coming later, and it’s yeah, it’s very fascinating, him and this whole, exactly. Yeah, there is only, I think, six, and two of them is held by private collector and the rest of the four is all in like Guggenheim Museum, MoMA, like other like very big art museum.

15:33 Okay, you know, I’m looking forward to diving into TRON Network and everything you’re doing, which is super exciting. Yes. Before we do that, I’d love to hear a little bit about your background, because honestly, I was telling my guys here in the studio, Justin, you’re probably one of one or two guests in a thousand guests I’ve had that actually spend a lot of your time in China growing up and understands that culture, but also spends time in America and understands that culture, and this East versus West, this is going to be our future for the next 100 years, right?

16:05 How these two societies and cultures conflict or cooperate with each other. You know, from a young man that grew up in China, how do you view it? How is it different from the U.S.? How does the U.S. not understand China? What are some of your thoughts?

16:22 Yes, I consider myself like a global citizen and a digital nomad, so basically I have never, since I was born, I never stay in like one city more than six years, so basically like every five, six years I migrate to like other places. So every five or six years you kind of move, okay, good. I think you’re, your sound, people, it’s kind of coming in and out. We were good for a while, then we’ll just tell you some people to get it back up, but I think they’re coming back.

16:58 But you said every five or six years you kind of move cities, is that right? Exactly, exactly, yeah. So it’s like a digital nomad. So like back in, you know, Asian China time in the north part of China, we have lots of nomads, you know, they are different from traditional Chinese, so they move around like all the time. So I think I’m kind of like this kind of the tradition but in a digital way.

17:28 Got it. And what about culture-wise, you know, what do you pick up from China that works well for you in business, and what is also not working so well? I think in the past you’ve said that especially when you did early Bitcoin adoption in China, if it wasn’t sanctioned by the government, nobody cared about it. It was definitely considered a scam, whereas in America it might be a little more open-minded to an entrepreneurial, is that one of the big differences you see, or are there more?

17:56 Yes, so back to 2012, Bitcoin is also available on Taobao. That’s how I told like Jack Ma, you know, actually the largest trading platform for Bitcoin in 2012 it’s not like a Bitcoin exchange, it’s a Taobao, basically the eBay in China, because at that time all the miners in China, they have no place to sell, so they want to basically sell their Bitcoin, and everybody can buy it cheaper than like one dollar. I imagine when the first time I buy Bitcoins, like three, three RMB, it’s like equivalent to 50 cents.

18:39 So basically I think this is a very interesting story. I think that basically I think the biggest advantage China team or the Chinese background founders have is it’s a very productive team, and with a very, I think, high quality of the development of the software, but also Chinese people is very diligent. So for myself, like I work like like 12 hours to 15 hours a day, so basically I think this is more like our tradition to focus lots of time on work. So that’s why I mean China also have a famous name for the world’s factory, right?

19:33 So I think this is basically we have lots of the power of productivity, but I think also we have some disadvantages. First of all, I think it finds the determination against Chinese people, because I know like not like everybody is living in China, there’s lots of stereotypes or misunderstandings about China and the Chinese people, so it’s sometimes it’s very hard for you to do that to some people, it’s not like completely in war like environments, they don’t share the experience with you. So that’s, I think that’s the third one.

20:18 A lot of not only like Chinese people but also lots of Chinese enterprise, for Chinese background enterprise, when they try to get to Europe party and U.S. market, they all face places, kind of the dilemma, right? For example, like Xiaomi, you know, TikTok. So there is start to have some China background company trying to make their product available in U.S. and Europe, they all are basically kind of the Chinese. I think you pointed out something really important there, Justin.

20:54 Sometimes there’s some discrimination, like in the West people don’t understand necessarily what’s happening in the East. We’re also continually fed this narrative, right? China’s banning this and China’s banning this, but yeah, obviously the narrative is never correct. What do you think people should know about what it’s like doing business in China, China itself, the way it looks at tech and blockchains, just any learnings from you? Yes, definitely.

21:20 I think one of the biggest stereotype for for Chinese enterprise is people don’t believe in the integrity of Chinese enterprise. They always thought like Chinese entrepreneurs may doing something fishy, I mean on the back end, even they not really do it, right? Even for like what we’re using today, you know, Zoom’s founder Eric Yuan is also like Chinese entrepreneur, right? So people always like picture him of like restore like all the videos on the back end, right, and trying to like monitor everybody, right, and also collaborate with lots of government authorities try to censor or scream like everybody say Zoom, right?

22:09 So that’s I think one of the biggest stereotype. If like the entrepreneurs is a U.S. background completely, like U.S. background, they won’t like picture him of doing that, right? So and also I think just like trade the Chinese background like enterprise the same like with, right, a U.S. based company, because we all have the same regulators, we all have same capital funding. So basically, for example, my company is funded by IDG Capital, they accept like LPs from Excel, basically it’s the pension fund like in United States.

22:52 We share the same investor, we share the same like regulators. There is no way or like there’s no like any other like, because right now like we have like a global business, there is no way like Chinese enterprise should be traded like differently from others. And also I think the second the biggest stereotype is they always like doubted there is something wrong with the security and of things in the Chinese enterprise, you know, for example, right? So if something people thought is made in China, they will feel like this is low quality or there’s always some quality issues.

23:38 This even like when I develop like TRON blockchain, even, I mean, the TRON blockchain is developed by the worldwide developers. Like I believe like 70 percent of our developers is overseas, it’s all from like different people with different background, it’s a community collaboration by the whole TRON blockchain, and this is totally decentralized, like all the nodes is called by people around the globe. But just because I’m the founder, I look like a Chinese, right?

24:15 People are gonna solve is maybe some security issues about the TRON blockchain. Sometimes they won’t even have the boss to test it on blockchain first place, but I think right now it’s way better since it’s already like three years, we never down for a day just like Bitcoin, Ethereum. We transact basically 15 billion US dollars every day, so I think right now people feel like much safer than when the first time we deliver our blockchain. A lot, lots of people thought it’s wrong our work because I’m a Chinese.

24:53 I think this is also something also happened in like Xiaomi, like TikTok. It’s super popular globally right now, but sometimes people will still feel like this is not safe or there’s gonna be some quality issues, even, I mean, most of people won’t even know, right? So China today is already produced like 70% of the all the things we are using, right, even like furniture, clothes, most of the things is produced by Chinese, but I don’t know where all those like stereotype or or I mean misunderstanding comes from, but this is the reality.

25:37 I think, Justin, it’s a political narrative that gets used, you know. I think it’s used by American politicians to vilify the Chinese so they can maybe get better deals on a trade term. Yes, right, that’s what it is. I mean, I spent the six months of this year running to be mayor of London, and last year we fought heavy for freedom of speech, and you realize we’re in an information war, and so I think you’re right, certain people choose those information strands and magnify them to kind of create enemies, but exactly, there’s not always reality.

26:10 I mean, people use TikTok and it works, and it’s also a nice alternative as opposed to the Meta, you know, conglomerate. Exactly. And yeah, and like you said, most of what people probably sit on in their house in America is made in China anyway, so yeah, if they’re honest about it. But I appreciate you addressing that, that’s super helpful. I want to jump into TRON, but quickly I want to go through your background.

26:32 You mentioned earlier that you started buying Bitcoin back when it was 50 cents back in 2012, and you really saw something and you went all in on that. You know, Justin, before we get into that, you have a way of going all in on everything, Justin, you know, whether it’s having lunch with Warren Buffett or buying Giacometti sculptures or buying Bitcoin. You know, is this something that was always in your personality to kind of go big, Justin? And also we got an expression around my place here where we say everything we do is one part Einstein, two parts P.T.

27:06 Barnum, which was the guy behind the circus, and if you don’t have the Einstein you’ve got nothing, but if you don’t have the Barnum you’ve got nothing either. Is it exactly? Are you part like that too? Are you one part Einstein and two-part P.T. Barnum?

27:21 Yes, it’s like go big or go home, right? So I think this is like very important. This is also the motto of like when we’re doing things, we will always want to be a success, successful. So I think, for example, like the first time I get into Bitcoin, so lots of people think this is my have loss of risk, right, especially back to like 2012, 2013, there’s no loss of people knowing Bitcoin in the first place, but I see things in this way. So basically I will see like what gonna happen in the next five to ten years.

28:04 If this is the future, this is the way we’re gonna move into, this is the new world, we’re gonna eventually like migrate, you, right? Why not just migrate like completely, right, rather than right, some people made me thought like I can’t like put 100% into one basket, right? I’m kind of the guy, I’m gonna put 100% of all my energy, efforts and assets in the future, right, rather than the past. So that’s why I think every time I just want to put everything and everything I can do in the future.

28:41 You know, it’s one thing to say go big or go home, Justin, it’s another thing to actually do it with your actions. There’s not many people that do it. Obviously you were doing it. So got in Bitcoin early and then you got into the blockchain and you continued to move along, you did some work for Ripple and got a lot of experience there. Yes, you bumped into Warren Buffett along the way, that just happened because that was important, you thought, I’m just going to do this.

29:07 Yes, yes, yes, definitely. I mean, I had lunch with Warren Buffett, I think in early like 2020, something like that. So I advise like Warren Buffett to invest in Bitcoin and Tesla at that time. I think if like Warren Buffett listened to me he will be like 10x like richer than he’s now. I mean even I think he’s a rich man, so he might not like care, right, about being like 10x rich, richer, but definitely I think this is a good advice.

29:47 Well, I advise him, I think Bitcoin price is it’s around three thousand dollars, I mean, and Tesla price is also pretty low at that time, so I think I gave him advice not only for the 4.6 million dollars I pay for it but also a very good investment otherwise. And what about you, did he give you any advice, or what was lunch like? Yes, I think Warren Buffett gave me lots of good advice about like investment, about like life, even like about like how to grow your team and how do you choose your partners.

30:30 I think he gives me lots of wisdom of life which I think is definitely gonna benefit my whole life. Since I think even the future of the finance, like the technology we’re gonna adopt gonna change all the time, but the wisdom of the lives can be last for 100 years, right? So something you learn from history, right, can be can definitely be very useful even after a hundred years. Yeah, one thing China is good is as a long-term view, right? China’s had thousands of years of history, and I will say, exactly, probably better equipped than America, where I’m from, with long-term views because America has only been around for 300 years.

31:20 So yes, and again, like you said, Warren Buffett has a lot of deep knowledge, and whether it’s about a stock isn’t as important, probably the way he sees the world. I bet he didn’t buy Bitcoin and he’d bought Tesla. I’m pretty sure he didn’t. Yes. Now, can you contrast Warren Buffett to another one of your mentors, Jack Ma, two very successful men to from very different countries?

31:41 What’s Jack Ma like, and how is he different from Warren? Yes, I’ve been the protege for Jack Ma since 2015, and I think lots of things changed, right, in these six years. I think the difference between Jack Ma and the Warren Buffett, I think Jack, Warren Buffett always want to bet on the winning side, that’s the difference. So Warren Buffett is very conservative in terms of the investment, so he don’t pick sides, so basically he will only pick the winner when those winners win the game, so he don’t want to take the profits of risk, he only wants to take the profits of the winner himself.

32:36 So basically I think if this is a boxing fight, right, so Jack Ma is kind of the guy like me, right, so I’m gonna analysis the game in the first place, I’m gonna back huge on the one I think he’s gonna win the game, right, and then I’m gonna watch the game itself, and then I’m gonna, if I lose I lose my money, right, if I win I win on all the prize. But Warren Buffett is the kind of the guy who has lots of money, so he won’t pick side before the match, and the key will basically pick the results in the last 10 seconds when it’s already show like who gonna be the become the winner, right? So and then he gonna bet, shoot, maybe like by like what one trillion dollars on the companies, even the profits might be much, much less than bad like in the early stage, but he can get like maybe 20 was thirty percent of the profit secure, right, because this is not gonna change, I mean, anyways.

33:43 There’s also something in the Apple stock, right? So in the early days when even Steve Jobs like several times convinced like Warren Buffett, you invest in Apple, he won’t do that, he will only invest in Apple when Apple is dominated in the smartphone markets, make like a hundred billion dollars every year, right, watering in the back huge, right? You’re gonna buy like five percent or even ten percent of the Apple store. I think that’s like the big difference become between these two biggest entrepreneurs in the world.

34:23 And I think you really describe Warren Buffett well. That’s why he owns Coca-Cola and Hanes underwear and all these, like you said, these winners that aren’t the most exciting companies, but with compounding over time they’ll give you nice returns. Yeah, exactly. And then Jack, what what if you had one lesson that you learned the best from Jack Ma, what would it be, or a piece of advice he gave you, or just a vibe, what was that? Yes, I think Jack Ma heavily invest himself and also money into e-commerce, right, back to like 1999.

34:58 I think the biggest lesson and also the advice he give to me is basically thinking forward. So basically lots of people when they think about doing entrepreneurship, basically, for example, back to 1999 there’s lots of the things you need to resolve for people to purchase things online. So there is no people gonna deliver those things, there’s no place you’re gonna find the information, there’s not even like a way you can take a picture and display them on the internet, the internet itself is super slow, basically there’s a lot of things you need to resolve in the first place to make all the items available on the internet.

35:50 And most of the people when they think about this, they see this kind of connective impact, right? So they see this is impossible, it’s impossible to put things on the internet and to sell them, even settle them, there’s not even a payment rail, right, for the e-commerce. So Jack Ma sees this like opportunity, right, so because this is the future, right, for the next five, 20 years, 20 years people gonna purchase things online, and if you are the first one to resolve all the problems you’re gonna become the most successful, not only become the most successful entrepreneurs in the world but also you’re gonna benefit the kind in an incredible way, right?

36:43 So that’s also why I see it’s like Bitcoin, blockchain technology, this is something like brand new, right? The first time when I get into Bitcoin there’s not even a good wallet for you to hold, because in the first place it’s very easy to lose your money, right, and it’s very hard to transact money, right? There’s need lots of the things you need to build to use the product in the first place. I see this is a big opportunity too, right, because I can resolve all the problems and become huge and everybody can get benefit from my career as well.

37:24 So that’s, I think this is the big difference between the common people and Jack Ma. And so you’re doing the same thing with blockchain, you see this as the future, and not only you’re investing your current assets, you’re investing your future assets because this is going to be your life, you’re dedicating your life to this. Exactly, there’s no way, no, no, no countries or no career I can go besides cryptocurrency or blockchain. I cannot stay here forever, right?

37:57 It’s like if, right, eventually everyone on earth is gonna migrate to Mars, right? Might not be the first one, but eventually, maybe after like 200 years like everybody gonna go there, I might not be the first one. You and Elon are going there as well, and you like Elon, you appreciate Elon because he’s himself and he doesn’t try to be your typical CEO. At the Davos concerts he can go on Joe Rogan and smoke some weed and just be himself. You appreciate that about Elon, right?

38:30 And you think that’s what maybe makes a great entrepreneur. Yes, around like 2012 I also invest lots of since my tuition into Tesla as well. So I think in 2012 I find like two image magic things, Tesla and a Bitcoin, right? Two of them go like really big after these like nine years of developments. And also I think Elon Musk share the same vision of checkmark, so they all like picture what gonna happen, right, in the next 10 and 20 years, really like dedicate their efforts to solve like all the questions, no matter how like people challenge it, they resolve like all the obstacles and try to move to the destination.

39:26 I think that’s something I want to do for my life in the next like 20 years. Don’t know I’m gonna accomplish the same, but at least we hold the same model and the same spirit. Yeah, I appreciate Elon Musk, and when people look at him and they say he’s quirky, he says with something on his mind and he does crazy things, I’m like, this is what genius looks like. If you want your Tesla and SpaceX, it can almost only come from an Elon, right? Exactly, exactly.

39:59 Yes, it’s very hard for you to imagine, right, like Warren Buffett can develop like SpaceX and Tesla or even appreciates SpaceX and Tesla. I mean, we need Warren Buffett, right? He also helped like Apple and those companies, Coca-Cola, those companies to grow, but if we want humankind to have breakthrough, right, rather than like normal life have very big companies serve your daily life, if you want to have breakthrough just like blockchain, right, space exploration, and also like smart cars, right, if you want to have like a new Apple basically, you need Elon Musk rather than like Warren Buffett basically, and maybe a Justin Sun as well.

40:52 And again, Justin, you bring now a brand new generation because what Elon’s, he’s no spring chicken, he’s in his 50s, I’m sure like me. And now we bring in you where you started really coming up in your 20s and now you grew up with blockchain and now you see a vision of the future, especially when it comes to financial markets, that maybe no one else sees. And you know, just a little background on me, I went to MIT, I graduated mechanical engineering, I went straight to Wall Street, so at 22 years old I was trading derivatives on Wall Street, and it was an amazing experience, and I had a balance sheet, we did all sorts of crazy stuff, but when I look at DeFi today I think, wow, this is real innovation and this is real scale, and you don’t have to have a balance sheet and a line to the Federal Reserve and all this other nonsense, 10,000 employees, all you have to have is a great DEX and you can play.

41:50 Is that the way you see the future of finance? You I think you once said that the younger generation people are willing to make their own decisions on trading instead of putting all their money in a pension fund or a mutual fund or a hedge fund and let those funds trade for themselves. You say they would rather trade on the sofa or trade on an app or trade on their mobile phone. Do you think that this is the big thing that Wall Street and the financial markets really don’t understand, that there’s a fundamental shift and we can no longer do business the way we’ve been doing it since the Medici era for the last 500 years?

42:20 Yes, definitely, I fully agree with you. I think not only Wall Street but also the regulators, a lot of them have a misconception is they basically believe like the customer or the investor need to be taken care of by someone, right? So they kind of like fall like the investor, they don’t have their own like point of view or they are all like blind, right, and the ignorant, and they need somebody to take care of them, right? So that’s why they invented like Federal Reserve, like all the infrastructure is like very centralized, depend on basically the chairman or Federal Reserve to tell you like what you do, right?

43:07 You told you like what’s gonna be like over like next like five, ten years, federal like financial policies, and all the futures is defined by the regulators, like, and all the infrastructure is building on those like very centralized institution, rather than I think today blockchain and the blockchain entrepreneurs try to present a new future. You don’t need to believe in those blockchain entrepreneur, you don’t need to believe in the newcomers, you only need to believe in the technology, believe in the math and believe in the new technology rather than, I mean, believing like a single person, believing like some agency told you what to do. I think that’s like the biggest difference, it’s basically decentralized the whole financial infrastructure, and this is also very inclusive, very inclusive.

44:13 So basically I think in the past U.S. decided to basically define on like all the financial rules what you need to do, and everybody and all the rest of the world central bank they need to follow, basically the trend decided by like Federal Reserve and all the regulators in U.S. But right now blockchain adopter trying to advocate a new order, right, for the world finance. It’s basically we have a very open protocol so everybody treated equally in the protocol, and as long as you are doing things by the protocol, it’s just like English, right?

44:59 So as long as you speak in this kind of the rule you can communicate with one another, right? There’s no like for example, right, so if you imagine this kind like a language, so like U.S. government can ban you on speaking English, you can’t speak English, right? And then they’re gonna ban you or gonna treat you differently, right, the way you speak, they’re gonna treat you like in that completely different or unfair way. So right now blockchain is just like language, so everybody can adopt the protocol, everybody can own Bitcoin and everybody can trade Bitcoin and everybody can send Bitcoin from one to another, just like TRON, Ethereum, is all the same, it’s all open source, everybody can check the code, and even I’m my founder, I’m like decentralized, I can’t decide it will happen on TRON blockchain, so everybody can everybody can do it on your own.

45:56 I think this is kind of like the new things we want to present to the world, and I think this is not only fair to everyone in United States but also fair to everyone around the globe, right? I know a lot, there’s not lots of conflicts between like China and the U.S., they are all like world superpowers, they don’t want to ban, ban, ban the, so they saw like you need to comply with my rules, right? So that’s like basically their conflicts in the first place.

46:29 I think why not just having the rules of internet, right, blockchain, so everybody have the same rules, right, so everybody can join together. So that’s why I think Bitcoin is a very good example, right? All the Chinese traders, U.S. traders, everybody in the world they can trade in the same network without like any conflicts, they trade like equally in their work, and people are still trading Bitcoin in China and everywhere around the world, right? So it’s exactly, exactly right, and it’s just like numbers, you you don’t even need to understand the language or all the things behind it, right?

47:08 So anyone in Africa, in China, in U.S., even they don’t share the same language, they can all trade Bitcoin. Yeah, I had Dan Tapiero of 10T Holdings on last week, who’s got about a billion, they invested in Animoca Brands and a bunch of others, and he said it’s a, he compared, you know, cryptocurrency or the blockchain to the steam engine. He said it’s really an invention that makes humanity better and adds value, and it is technology, like you said, it’s technology.

47:35 Technology, exactly, there’s no bad technology by definition, right? Like there’s no bad language. There’s maybe a bad novel or a bad use of tech, but like you said, the regulators, you think they’re coddling people too much, and maybe that’s because of a hundred years ago and the Securities and Exchange Acts, and but it does feel like they’re coddling the investors in a world where now everyone has information and it feels like we’re stuck in this old paradigm, right?

48:02 Yes, exactly. So I think first of all I think sometimes regulators is very arrogant, right? So they feels like they did smarter than anybody else, right? So and which is not true basically. I think there’s a very good example from like 9/11, even like George W.

48:28 Bush knowing like 9/11 from television, it’s not like from CIA, from like special like agency that seems to know the information faster than the New York Times, faster than like the people around the globe, basically they know all the information, I mean, in the same time, you know. So that’s why I think right now, right, so we have internet like every information spread like lightning speed, right? So like everybody knows information, like anybody have their point of view of like investment, of how like technology like works.

49:09 So that’s why I think regulators needs to learn as well about like all the technology and how it works, right, why people interested in that technology, so rather than like judge those technology and also be like very conservative about that. So that’s why I’m really think, but even regulators is compete with one another, right? So today right, even because blockchain is global, so if like one country it’s not like taking innovation like seriously, other countries gonna surpass them, right?

49:50 It’s just like back to 2000, sorry, back to you like 1860s, at that time China is the biggest country in the world, occupies like 80% the GDP of the world, right? But China at that time don’t take like steam engines, don’t take those like technology like seriously, right? British is the first one to take those technology seriously and not taking long time but also even like 30, 40 years British gonna surpass like China become the number one like super powers in the world, right?

50:28 And then the second like industry like revolution, industrial revolution, right, U.S. start to take those technology like very seriously, right, about like automobile, like Ford was first like the wild and at that time like even for Chinese it’s very hard for them to even fight to get those automobiles like even drive in China in the first place, they don’t even have the same regulation, right? Chinese people take like automobile is like crazy stuff, right? So they used to walk, basically.

51:06 So that’s why I think blockchain is the same thing, right? If you don’t take it seriously other countries gonna compete with you, right, and they eventually gonna win the competition. So that’s why I believe even the regulators is to compete with one another. Yeah, it must be a very difficult job being a regulator. Let’s talk about stablecoins, because a big chunk of what TRON does is with stablecoins, you guys are massive, and right now the guy who’s calling out stablecoins is, you know, SEC Chairman Gary Gensler, who kind of got Coinbase not to do their lending protocol that they had talked about offering.

51:47 I’ve actually done a deep dive into Gary Gensler, and let me tell you what I learned about him, Justin. He gave a class at the Sloan School of Management back in 2018. I attended Sloan, but back in the 90s, and it’s open courseware, I’m about 20 hours in, and Gary is very smart, he understands the blockchain really well, and yet when he becomes the chairman of the SEC, and by the way he wasn’t the chairman back when he did the course, so he’s quite agnostic.

52:10 Yes, yes, he wasn’t even the CFTC chairman either. And so yeah, he’s quite open, agnostic, and it’s 2018 so the ICOs are going off, and but you know, Gary has said that stablecoins are the poker chips in the Wild West, and I’m like, that doesn’t sound like the Gary Gensler that taught the course at Sloan in 18. That guy understands hash functions, he understands cryptography, he understands everything at a deep level, and now you’ve got a guy who I think maybe acts like more of a politician, and maybe that’s part of his job also.

52:42 We forget, and you mentioned this, Justin, the SEC has what, a thousand employees, how many people do they dedicate to crypto? Less than 10. He’s already asked Congress for more money. They have probably the worst minds in the world in their offices. Exactly.

52:58 So what do you mean, what do you make of him and what they’re doing, and do you think they struggle with bandwidth and they use a blunt instrument, which is maybe fear, to try to control bad actors, and that also hurts the good actors? Yes, exactly. I think in like back to like Asian China there is a guy like similar to Gary Gensler, it is called like Li Hongzhang, so basically Lee is like understand about industrial like revolution like very well, basically he’s like the first one to intro, introduce like all the new technology into China in the first place.

53:43 He invented the first like steel like factory in China, he built lots of good things about China, but when he was appointed to be the prime minister basically in China, serving the Qing Dynasty, Ching government, at that time he suddenly becomes like the conservative like leaders in China, and he like banned like all the reform, like all the innovation in China, and guess what, because he understand those innovation he can even ban those like innovation in a perfect way, right? So if you take the stand of the like the conservative stance, because he understands, he’s not like ignorance, right? He understand like how this technology works, so okay, he can even like do it in a very effective way.

54:41 So that’s why I think it’s more like when he like put, when people put him into this kind of position, right, for example Gensler, like the chairman of SEC, his job like KPI is not like encourage the innovator to doing their job and everybody have it, right? He become like the regulators, he need to like catch the bad actors and the kids position become, right, we need to find a bad actor and try to catch them instead of like encourage like innovation. It’s just like Lee was appointed as a prime minister.

55:19 Before that he’s doing innovation and after he appointed as a prime minister his job become like a defender of the Qing government, defend the Qing Dynasty, right? It’s not like encourage the technology anymore. If the technology is doing something for government it’s okay, but if it is just trying to increase the benefits of the people but undermine the management of Qing government, they’re gonna say no, right? And because of he understand technology better, right, he can even better to shut down or ban those technology in the first place.

56:01 Yeah, I think you made a good point. Again, I’ve never had political office, but I ran for office for six months and, you know, when you become a politician, I mean, Gary’s job is basically not is to make sure the senators and congressmen and president don’t look bad, and maybe to catch some bad guys, but it’s like you said, the KPI changes completely. It’s almost about not doing wrong more than doing right. You know, exactly. But you know, stablecoins, I had Alex Mashinsky of Celsius in here and he said, Brian, you know, do we want, you know, stablecoin to be run by the government or entrepreneurs?

56:33 The government has no history of ever running any piece of technology well. Or would you rather be one of the entrepreneurs, and that’s what’s happening with stablecoins right now. Will it become a digital dollar and be regulated, or will be run by platforms like yours and increase liquidity Yeah, exactly, it’s important, exactly. Let’s talk about TRON, because it’s, you know, what I’m seeing right now, Justin, is what I call the layer one wars. You know, you’ve got a lot of people coming in with innovative proof-of-stake solutions that are giving Ethereum and their proof-of-work model a run for their money, or maybe their potential proof-of-stake model, which we don’t know when that’s coming, a real run.

57:11 And I’ve had Avalanche’s founder, Emin Gün Sirer, here, I had Silvio Micali of Algorand, we’re talking to you, we’re obviously talking to the Cardano people and the Solana people, but maybe you can tell us what are your visions for TRON, and why do you think that, you know, you will win this layer one war? Why do you think it’s going to be a crucial part of the infrastructure, including that as stablecoins? Yes, I think right now in terms of the development of TRON Network we are doing the best in the stablecoin transaction.

57:41 We handle like over, at high days it’s like 15 billion US dollars, lower days like five to six billion US dollars. We are three years, sorry, three times more than, three to five times more than PayPal is doing. So sometimes I’m not like a picture like those like layer one, other like layer one solution as competitors, and more like rather picture like SWIFT, like PayPal, as our competitors, because eventually, I mean, at the end of the day we are building a new world, right?

58:19 So we are replacing the overall, even, I mean, we have some competitions within the layer one solution, but even I take like Ethereum as a friend, as a as a good friend when we moved to on the new world. So basically it’s just like back to you like 200 years ago, right, when you first developed steam engines, right, other developer of the steam engine is not your competitor, the mission is try to make steam engines available for the people around the globe. So today I think our mission stay as the same, to make our financial infrastructure and services available to seven billion people around the globe.

59:11 So I think that’s like the first of our vision, and also for the stablecoin, I think we are doing perfectly on the settlement. Right now I think we are the biggest network of USDT, we have surpassed Ethereum as the settlement network, we are also moving on USDC, we’re trying to become the largest network for USDC as well, and also we will move to other regulated stablecoin as well, but eventually we want to become the biggest stablecoin network in the world. And then also the second, I think the most important, is we want to encourage as many developers as possible to develop our network, because we really believe the more decentralized the network, the more developer build on the network, the more powerful the network and the protocol will be.

1:00:10 So that’s why we really like, for myself I focus lots of my time building the network itself to get more and more developers to build our network. Yeah, and I want to talk about kind of that Web 2.0, 3.0 transition soon, because it’s a very strange human transition where we go from you know the founder of a company like Mark Zuckerberg being the leader, the shot caller, owning all the equity, to a world of Web 3.0 where the technology is and the information is owned by the people, right? It’s a DAO, like you’re like TRON, it’s a decentralized autonomous network and operation, where you know, when Stani Kulechov was for Aave was in here he said, Brian, my job every day is to make good code, that’s my job, and if I make good code the developers use it and other people use it.

1:00:58 He said I don’t tell people where this is going, I just try to deliver great product and get people to use the product. I guess that’s probably what you do every day. Yes, exactly. So basically at the end of the day, right, so just as I said before, everybody needs to trust the technology, everybody just need to trust the code, right? So as long as we are writing the best code in the industry, deliver fast in the industry, everybody eventually gonna use our solution anyway, right?

1:01:30 I’m not like worried about the competition with SWIFT at all. So SWIFT is all right, it is 80 years old and it’s super slow, it’s not smart, right, and it costs lots of money and efforts you transact money, right? If you move money today on TRON it’s instantly with almost zero cost, and also everybody is happy, right? So we grow like 100 times compared to last year, right, and I think we’re gonna grow like even bigger. So I’m not like worried about the our competition with SWIFT at all.

1:02:06 So I think that what we should do is hire more developers, teach them about blockchain, writing better code, fuel delivered to the market. Okay, let’s talk about Ethereum really quickly. The biggest complaint I get from my students in my DeFi Academy is they complained to me about gas fees. I got over 500 people, they’re constantly complaining, because what I do is I push them to do DeFi protocols in small size, kind of before they’re ready, so they do yield swapping trades, they do liquidity pool trades, and so they’re doing sometimes really small transactions and the gas fees are massive, and everybody says, the narrative typically is, don’t worry, proof of stake is coming soon and then it will be cheaper.

1:02:49 And yet I’ve had a lot of people here whose entire companies are based on Ethereum, not naming names, but like Aave and Polygon, saying, you know, Stani said, I said when’s 2.0 happening, he said sometime in the next decade is what Stani said, and he laughed. So but you’ve said something I’ve never heard anyone say, Justin. You said I think Ethereum should stay proof of work because it solves that problem from the ecosystem, let it keep doing that and that will be at least something that’s consistent, and let the rest of us work on the proof-of-stake mechanisms that are making everything fast.

1:03:23 Did I get that correct in summarizing something you said? Exactly. So I get into ETH world also in a very early time, I hold like even around like one million ETH, something like that. So I even hold more is more than Vitalik, so that’s why I think my overview is definitely some of the Ethereum like community member things. So actually I think Ethereum is heading to a wrong direction.

1:03:55 So basically Ethereum should we stay in a proof of work, not only not because of I’m developing like TRON, some kind like compete with Ethereum, right? I want them to stay in the wrong way, right, because TRON is POS, is proof of stake rather than proof of work, but I really see something Ethereum can do but TRON cannot, and of course there is something Ethereum TRON can do and Ethereum cannot do. So basically it’s just like Google and Android, so sorry, it’s like Apple iOS and Android.

1:04:31 Basically iOS deliver a very safe but very strict developer rule, so every thing you develop on iOS is very safe and also of course is very expensive, but that’s why people use iOS in the first place, and lots of people trying to use Android, right? But Android is very dangerous, it’s very easy to get infected by virus and also yeah, it’s very easy to get hacked, but it’s very cheap because it’s open source, everybody can develop on it. Like everybody using Xiaomi is using Android, right?

1:05:11 So all the people in Southeast Asia using Android, but nobody in United States is using Android, it’s like Apple occupies like 80, 90% of all the market shares in United States. That’s how smartphone works, is it, it’s not like gonna work if Apple like switch their strategy also to Android as well, because this is going to destroy the foundation of Apple in the first place. Ethereum has the same thing, lots of the whales these days using Ethereum is because it’s proof of work, so the transaction is bulletproof, it’s same level with Bitcoin, so people is like comfortable of like, for example, as you said, right, so Stani built whole his whole company on ETH, right?

1:06:07 I’m one of the Stani’s biggest clients, so I developed, deposit most of my like stablecoin is on Stani’s platform. Okay, so it’s because it’s building on Ethereum, and other people using TRON, like using other like layer one solution, because they want a faster and cheaper transaction, so this is because the protocol is targeted in different users. You know the founder of Huawei, founder of Xiaomi sometimes even use Apple because you using iPhone, it’s because iPhone developed like a very good developer environment for even the founder of Xiaomi, right?

1:06:51 But it’s not gonna work if Apple moved to compete with Xiaomi in Southeast Asia, develop like very cheap like and open source software. So that’s why I think Ethereum should stay at proof of work, because the upgrade of proof of work and the proof of stake is very dangerous, especially considered Ethereum today is a 500 billion dollars financial protocol. I mean, at least I won’t be feel safe when they’re gonna actually migrate to proof of stake. I think they’re gonna have lots of problems they need to solve, and to be honest I think it’s gonna end badly.

1:07:40 I mean for like ETH community in the first place, right now everybody is not panic is because, right, as you said like Stani says it’s gonna happen in decades, so nobody is worried about that, but when the day is closed, right, it’s just like British withdrawal, right, exit from the European Union, right? So it’s gonna have a huge amount of work to do, and guess what, like nobody even know the results before it really migrates in the first place, right? It’s just like UK actually, Brexit, right?

1:08:19 So before the Brexit nobody even know what’s the result going to be, even we can do a lot of analysis, right, we can do lots of the plan B, but nobody even knows what gonna happen. It’s just like Ethereum migrate to POS, so I don’t think this is a good idea at all. So I think we should just stay at proof stake and let’s other like prove, sorry, stay improved work and let other proof of stake like protocol compete with one another. That’s like how blockchain works.

1:08:57 Yeah, it’s a great point you make. I mean, it’s a huge unknown and you know it embodies so many DeFi protocols and so much volume now that, and again we’re told that it’s being tested in the background, but when you finally move to it, we’ve never seen the proof-of-stake mechanism work on that scale ever before, let alone one that’s been run in parallel, and it’s a big, big question mark. And I don’t know if it’s going to happen. I’m curious, and the Ethereum is also the foundation for a lot of that like layer qr layer one solution, you know, today like Polygon, like Avalanche, those blockchain underline assets, it’s all based on Ethereum, they’re basically doing like a smart contract lock, you know, you migrate your assets from Ethereum to like a contract in Polygon and play in the Polygon.

1:09:51 So if you Ethereum going down, like every like so-called like layering solution like Avalanche, like Polygon’s gonna go in down too, you know, you know, it’s just like if Federal Reserve going down, you know, like the central bank of China, like Japan, they all holding like a new ass dollar as a reserve in like Federal Reserve in the first place. So that’s why I think Ethereum migrate to proof work, proof of stake is very dangerous. I don’t think they’re gonna do that, they should do that at all.

1:10:26 So and they should just let like, we also release like a new cross chain solution called BitTorrent, Bit Horizon, also gonna release in two, two weeks. So this is also building largely on Ethereum to bridge like the Ethereum, Binance Chain and the TRON together. So that’s why I think the Ethereum is as good as it is now, so they shouldn’t like migrate you a proof of stake at all. Well, and I guess people should listen to you. I mean, you just said you own more than one million ETH, you got more than Vitalik.

1:11:07 What would you suggest Vitalik does at this point? I know he was a little critical of TRON in the past, I think he said you guys copied their blockchain and created TRON. First of all, what do you say to that and what would you advise Vitalik do, because he’s being pulled in a lot of directions? Yes, exactly. So first of all I think we basically opened the era of Ethereum Virtual Machine, so TRON, at that time like Ethereum maximalists don’t feel comfortable, right, when TRON is adopted the Ethereum Virtual Machine, but actually we are the one who pushing Ethereum Virtual Machine become the industry standards in the first place.

1:11:48 You can see like TRON is the first to adopt Ethereum Virtual Machine back to 2018. Today like our launch, like Polygon, like everybody is doing like Ethereum Virtual Machine, so what we do basically become like a popular trend for the developers in the first place. So I really hope with Alec, actually in this way, even I mean not like in a way maybe he’s prefer that’s his preference, but in fact I really like help like Ethereum to develop their EVM virtual machine standard to a world standard.

1:12:33 It’s just like you know when first time when Google open source like Android, right, so Xiaomi is the one who really pushed Android standard become world standard, but I don’t know Google is hype and happy about like Xiaomi or not, but in fact we are the one who pushed this EVM to a marquee standard. And the second thing, I think these days I think a lot of the pressure about like gas fee, people is pushing lots of pressures on Ethereum developers and Vitalik. I don’t think they need to listen to those voices in the first place, even I mean as a competitor and also a friend, right?

1:13:20 So we build a blockchain computer with Ethereum, but also if you see in a positive way, actually we help those Ethereum users to enjoy the blockchain services for something in Ethereum country, right, but also with Ethereum we make a full picture. It’s just like Android and Apple actually fulfill a better and bigger vision is like enable the smartphone to seven billion people on earth, right? It’s like TRON and the Ethereum together enable these like better version, like enable blockchain services to seven billion people on earth.

1:14:05 We are just doing like different job. If you’re doing the proof of work, like settlement transaction, TRON is doing a proof of stake. If I think if Ethereum migrates to proof of stake today we don’t even have a smart contract platform is based on proof work anymore. Actually Ethereum is it’s the last one, even some people might argue, you know, we have Ethereum Classic, but the Ethereum Classic don’t have like enough developers to build on the protocol, and also the same time proof of work is building on the miners mining on those networks.

1:14:54 Ethereum Classic is very, very weak, it’s even weaker than most of the proof of stake protocol, it’s very easy to launch like this 51% attack on Ethereum Classic. So that’s why most of the exchanges, even for example like Coinbase today, even give like 5,000 confirmation before they can receive like any ETC like tokens on the network. So that’s why I think Ethereum is the only proof of work smart contract in the network, so they should stay in this position, right, and they need to defend this position, and today, right, everybody is building out in ETH, even most of the OpenSea like trade, large trade is happening on ETH as well, right?

1:15:45 They need to allow like OpenSea to build on TRON, right, to other like later on solution to settle small transaction, but Ethereum should stay the same, right, subtle like large transaction. That’s how I picture like blockchain world in the first place, and I mean if we had insist you migrate you proof from stake transaction, I myself oh my is because of that, because I mean if I need to bet on some proof of stakes my contract, why not just call the TRON, right, in the first place? I call lots of TRON already, right?

1:16:25 So but if Ethereum, right, migrate you proven stake, there’s make no difference between like Ethereum and TRON anymore. Yeah, all right, well I hope Vitalik’s listening, and you’re friends with him, you’re saying, are you frenemies, what with that, Vitalik? I think I’m friends with stuff. And I want to get your thoughts on the metaverse, but just really quickly, just your thoughts on the other layer one solutions out there. We got the big ones, obviously Cardano, Solana, AVAX, Polkadot in the news.

1:16:56 I had, I spoke to the Algorand, they’re coming along. Your thoughts on those? Yes, so first of all, I believe like multi-layer one solution and the multi-layer one development is the future of the world. So I think eventually, right, even not because of the business reasons, even because of the political reasons, some of the countries gonna prefer to have their own like blockchain rather than like settle on open protocol like ETH, TRON and the layer one solution you just mentioned.

1:17:34 So that’s why I think based on the like the technology, business reason, political reason, eventually we’re gonna have multi blockchain, and those blockchain eventually gonna be settled together. So that’s why I’m building TRON and also I’m collaborating with developers to building like BTTC, it’s a multi like blockchain settlement solution, so we can settle right now, settle we have like 10 slots, so basically we ran out of three slots we deliver is Ethereum, Binance Chain and TRON. So we’re gonna basically also building the layer one solution you mentioned like Cardano, Solana, Avalanche, Polygon based on the usage of users, we always respect the user’s choices, so we’re gonna connect those blockchains well with Bitcoin chain.

1:18:38 So I definitely believe this is the future, so we have multi blockchain serving different purposes, right? Ethereum is also one of them, and we will settle all the transaction in like a cross-chain solution, so which we are also trying to build is a Bitcoin chain, so I believe this is kind of like the future of blockchain. Yeah, I hope you’ve solved that, Justin, because when we get the cross-chain solution working it opens up everything. Right now it’s a massive pain moving assets between chains, as you know.

1:19:13 Exactly, and again we don’t have to pick a winner right now, each well, the market will determine what each one is good at, right, in whatever locality, whatever regulation, whatever product, and then if if someone can bring the cross chain protocol, then that’s the future. I’m looking forward to that. For sure, exactly. Talk to me about your views on the metaverse. We had Yat Siu here about two weeks ago, Animoca Brands, and I know you invested in them back in the day when nobody wanted to talk about gaming, when nobody wanted to talk about the open blockchain.

1:19:46 Yat Siu finally explained to me what the metaverse was, and he also was the first one to say we have to keep it open, not closed, which is what Facebook Meta is trying to do. I know you have some interesting projects with NFTs and horse and things like that. How do you view the metaverse, Justin, and how do you try to explain it to people, and how is TRON going to be involved? Yes, first of all I think like metaverse and the blockchain basically is the same thing.

1:20:15 So I see some research paper talking about blockchain is the foundation for metaverse, but I will see blockchain is the metaverse. The reason you see some difference is because you need to see things in different way. So basically if you see things in a financial way, you see metaverse, it’s basically just like blockchain, and if you see things in like a game way, right, you see like GameFi, you see like decentralized sandbox, which is recently extremely popular, and if you see in a social way, you see like Facebook, like Meta, right?

1:21:04 So since we kind of like cover every aspect of metaverse, for myself I will only build on some things I’m good at, which is blockchain development and GameFi development, and I will leave like VR, AR, like other technology to Facebook, basically Meta, right? But eventually I think all the things going to be combined together, so we got some metaverse. So that’s why I believe if we only get what it shows on the Facebook video, which everybody sees, right, so on the Meta video, so like virtual conference, you can get your own like avatar and you can get your own like voices in a virtual conference room, this is not metaverse.

1:21:57 So you have to have the completely a decentralized virtual character and interactively with other people in a decentralized way, this is metaverse. So I believe in the metaverse in the future you can have the future avatar get into the virtual conference, talk to your friend, pay your friend with blockchain, and buy a close in the virtual store, but the payment itself needs to be settled on blockchain instead of settle on PayPal or Facebook Pay, right? And I believe this is the future of the metaverse rather than, right, so it’s just like Facebook but in a virtual version or in a VR version.

1:22:46 So that’s my understanding of the metaverse, and I believe it needs lots of developers from different perspectives rather than like Facebook, right? So I definitely believe Facebook technology gonna really enable the metaverse, but I believe like everybody can contribute to the metaverse. Do you think we’re in danger of Facebook closing the metaverse in the future and we have to kind of fight for that real estate or that mind, the control of our own minds?

1:23:21 That’s what I mean, yeah, really was worried about that, and I’m wondering if you think that’s a real concern or will that just not happen because blockchain and open source will win in the end? I believe blockchain open source is gonna win in the end, and I even believe eventually Facebook will embrace this kind of the trend. It’s just like when like back to 1789, right, so US is the first like democratic like country in the world, so monarchy like occupies like 95% of the politician like political regime, right, but eventually I’m not, I mean, democratic like country society become the mainstream of the choices of the company and how like networks works.

1:24:13 I believe these kind of same like happen in the company type in the future, so I believe this kind of the open source DAO like version of the mechanism gonna eventually replace company in the governance structure of technology in the future. So right now we know, right, like Facebook controls like WhatsApp, like Instagram, Facebook, like all the infrastructure, and they can know what you are talking about, right? They can know all the things if they want to know, right, and actually they’re building a very big data team, learn about it, right, right, and then push ads for you, right, in the first place.

1:25:02 I believe all these kind of the structure gonna change to DAO eventually in the next five, ten, like 20 years. We might like not see it in 10 years but for like 20 years, 30 years we’re gonna see it eventually. It’s gonna slowly evolve through that direction because this is the way, right, this is a better way for governing things. For example, like today we have seen Ethereum, like Ethereum, lots of the protocol is already governed by community, is decentralized, like everybody can talk about their point of view, right?

1:25:44 Eventually I think Facebook needs to like listen to the users, it’s not like today, right? So they have a board, basically board of director can be decided everything. I imagine in the future if Facebook really wants to move to metaverse Facebook needs to be governed like every like Facebook users, they can get like a Facebook coin or something like that, right, and they can vote for every proposal on Facebook and what Facebook gonna be, it’s not gonna be governed by some Nasdaq board of director in Wall Street, gonna be governed by in the blockchain, like everybody can vote and Zuckerberg himself cannot like decided on all the things happen on Facebook, right?

1:26:36 So it’s just like Vitalik and me, right, I can’t decide it will happen on Ethereum, and if Vitalik can’t decide everything happen on Ethereum, I can’t decide on everything that happened on TRON. Well, first of all, that’s probably not going to happen with Facebook, but I see what you’re seeing going forward. And again this brings maybe our final couple questions I got for you, Justin, is this concept of Web 2.0 to 3.0, and we’ve talked about this, you know, we’ve been stuck in Web 2.0 and also a capitalistic mind frame for hundreds of years, Web 2.0 for 10 years, where you know, again, Facebook was created, everyone got use of it, we got in touch with our old friends from high school, we realized we didn’t need to talk to them every week, right?

1:27:18 We got a place to put our pictures, but Mark Zuckerberg got rich, Facebook got the information, and he still makes the calls, including telling us we’re going into the metaverse or whatever he wants to do. Now Web 3.0, the idea is that you create the code and then you give it to the people, the people develop it, they own their data and they control the future of it in like a DAO type organization, and that’s what TRON represents and Ethereum represents. But Justin, I’m curious, as we make this transition from Web 2.0 to 3.0, how do we not continue to create great products and leadership without Zuckerbergs, without a Justin Sun who’s out there, you know, innovating, pioneering, sometimes breaking some rules, sometimes buying pieces of modern art for 78 million dollars?

1:28:06 You know, how do you have that future without a leadership role? Have you, you must have thought about this. Is it possible? Yes, first of all I believe the leadership and the DAO can co-exist together. So I can give you some example.

1:28:25 I think this is all basically based on the technology itself. So as I give you the example before, like before 1789, right, so why like a monarchy is like the mainstream of the politician regime at that time is because there it is impossible for people to holding democratic election in the first place, most of people they can’t even read, right, and they the information transaction is very slow, right? So and after that we have like two industrial like revolution, people got smarter than before and also they find out like if we have this kind of the constitutional like governance is way like better than the monarchy world.

1:29:17 But we have the democratic leader as well, right? We choose the democratic leader, they have by even like for United States is seven years, right, so like of, sorry, it’s a four years. But we have a new way to generate in blockchain, we call it generate consensus, right? So we have a new way of generate consensus rather than like monarchy world is killing each other, right? So we have the bullets, right, bullies continue ballots, and I think the blockchain world is much better, because before that why we need this kind of the board of director role for companies governance is, this is very hard for the shareholders to vote for proposal in the first place, because like all the shareholders they need to get register on that stock and there is no reward for the governance, right, and the most of the shares is controlled by big shareholders.

1:30:21 We see, because of the SEC regulation, right, without like we see investment building a very mature product, you can’t even go IPO. So when is go IPO the shares already divided by all the big VCs and the big firms, big hedge funds, and also the voting, voting structure is very very, very unfair. For example, like Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, like one vote equivalent to 100 or something, right, right? So basically they have like a B share structure, but I think right now blockchain has a way like a better governance structure.

1:31:01 So for example, like every TRX holder today they can vote for all the proposals on TRON blockchain like instantly. We have like a six hours election for super representative, which govern on TRON blockchain, every people can change their vote instantly and they can make proposal instantly, right? Imagine like today like the U.S. everybody have decentralized identity control by their own like secret key, and then they can vote for any proposal regarding like you us as a country, right, and instantly they don’t need to spend like a hundred, hundred billion dollars or like ten billion dollars to hold this kind of the ceremony to generate the consensus in the first place.

1:31:58 The cost of generated consensus becomes extremely low, so it’s just like holding like a consensus vote on blockchain cost like zero dollars basically, so everybody just get a signature, right? It’s also cost zero dollars. The cost of generates consensus becomes extremely low, so that’s why I believe this kind of the democratic election or democratic way to generate consensus also become possible for the governance structure. So that’s why I believe on DAO like is the future for governance and technology.

1:32:42 Even, I mean, Facebook might migrate in a very slow way, but I believe the next Facebook will definitely grow in this kind of the way. And let me finish with what you said, the future. What does the future look like, Justin, 10 years from now? What does the crypto verse look like? What does TRON look like?

1:33:01 What are you doing? What are you going to be, 41, then 42, something like that? Yes, after 10 years I think I’m gonna be 41 years old. You’ll be old, you’ll be one of the old guys then. Yes, yes, but I definitely believe I’m gonna create like a more DAO in the future, so I become the public members of DAO, and also the same time we will see more and more new technology, right?

1:33:29 As we interview today we see a cross-chain solution is emerging, right, so we’re gonna see a new blockchain settle other blockchain transaction, we see GameFi, we see NFT, right. Probably in the next year we’re gonna see some games it’s completely governed by the player rather than the developers. We’re gonna see more like evolvation of DAO itself, because right now 99 percent of the company is still you can at least see the announcement, right, deliver the services to their customer instead of like customer is governed the whole company, right, or at least customers can vote to govern the company, they’re gonna hold out some proposal in the future.

1:34:20 I was surprised if like Burger King or McDonald’s gonna let your users vote for the next like dishes that they’re gonna deliver to the markets, right? So everything’s gonna be like very interesting in the next 10 years. And Justin, what does a typical day look like for you? How much time do you spend doing media, doing TRON, looking at artwork, you know, what’s your day like? Yes, I think I get up like 9, 10 in the morning and I go into office.

1:34:54 I think the first like four hours every day is like a world war, so basically, wow, there’s gonna be numerous things coming up to me, I need to make decision and you settle all the things. So basically make me feel like I’m playing like those computer games to hit the mouse, you know, so the mouse is keeping come up from different holes, you know. Yeah, yeah, whack-a-mole. Awesome, whack-a-mole, yeah. Exactly, yeah, and after these four hours I can take some rest and start to do afternoons that you do some like interview, meet with friends, and also I need to check out my Twitter to see like what happens today, right, in our industry, and the reply on Twitter with fans, interact with community to doing something.

1:35:51 So basically I think the first four or five hours is do my own job, right, several dollars of the team, and they got a lot of the comments and you make this year and you may, and that’s four or five hours is it’s impact with outside world, right, media, community, friends, and other people as well. So I think this is my typical day. You know, I want to finish by asking some questions I would usually ask if you were in the studio in London, and we got to get you in London in the studio, Justin, at some point, but I always say, you know, if you could pick up the phone and call up the 21 year old Justin, so 10 years ago, and give him some advice, if you could give 21 year old Justin some advice, what would you tell him to do differently than what you did?

1:36:39 So first of all I think I already did it, so I will talk him to owing to Bitcoin and Tesla, which I do, right. But I believe so if I call him I will ask him to be even more confident about like what’s gonna be in the future. So I believe if I’d be more like confident like 10 years or even 20 years ago when I first founded the company, I think I can convince even more people into my team, because before that, you know, most of the people they won’t believe you until they see it, right?

1:37:26 So that’s why it’s very hard for you to convince people to join you, even use this is the future, but even it is very hard you to be convinced other people to join you. Is that missing sometimes in a lot of the projects and entrepreneurs you see, just simple confidence, they don’t believe in it enough? Is that a missing element? Exactly, I received lots of doubt from China when I first tried to promote this kind of the concept. I think this is famous in like an interview, there is a call like Wang Xiaochuan, so he’s doing like Sogou, it’s like the number two like searching engines in China at that time.

1:38:10 He was portrayed as like a very smart and successful like entrepreneur, he’s like eight years older than me something, but he really don’t believe like a blockchain at all at the time, he believed this is a scam, like I’m just like a scammer trying to scam people. So so that’s why I also been through a lot of time, right, even back to China. Yeah, if you’re here now you’ve been through a lot of, I hate hard times. Best advice you ever received in your life, whether it’s from Jack Ma or Warren Buffett or someone else, is there a single piece of advice that you would give to people?

1:38:51 Yes, I think the biggest advice for entrepreneurship is always like enjoy in building things rather than like earning profits. I believe like province money is just like not number two to me, because I can’t spend those money like anyways, right? So that’s why I think I’m right now more focusing on the satisfaction when we deliver the product to the community. If like everybody loves the community and loves the, if everybody loves the product we deliver, I receive lots of satisfaction for what the time I spend, like where the energy I spend, and also I feel my life is really meaningful rather than earning like profits or money in the first place.

1:39:46 I believe, I mean, back to 2012 I really believe, sometimes I believe that the price is also very important, because at that time Bitcoin is only like 50 cents, right? So when the price pump to like one dollars I feel kind of the recognition, but today I think I really care only here about customer satisfaction, community satisfaction, rather than like how much money we make. Eventually it’s almost like you have a little metaverse there, right, and the money is, exactly, the money’s the points, and the this is the that, and you’re interacting with people socially.

1:40:31 I mean, it does sound a bit like a metaverse, because like you said, you can’t spend it all, and we’ve seen you try to spend it all on modern art and you can’t, so I guess it really does become a game, and I guess life is a game, isn’t it? Yeah, exactly. I I want you also give you like a very good example. So when I have some cryptocurrency like TRX, ETH, Bitcoin and at one time I didn’t keep it very well, so a small amount of the money got stolen by some thief, and I literally going to police station and ask the police to arrest those thief, but at that time Bitcoin is too early.

1:41:16 The policeman asked me, right, so is this like Bitcoin, like TRON is some kind of like game points? We don’t protect like game points at all, you know. If you lose like game points you lose it, you know. So I think even at that time the reason is because of the policeman he don’t understand like crypto and blockchain like how it works, but I think he also tells some truth, right? So just like you said, it’s just like a game, like life is a game, like a metaverse is a game, so we need to enjoy the game.

1:41:55 Yeah, that’s what, yeah, it suited me, he said, Brian, you get up every day, you open up a screen, you interact with people, you get sent some points or currency at the end of the month, he’s like, how is life not a game? How is the metaverse any different? I said, well, you got a point there. Biggest misconception of Justin Sun out there, what do people really misconceive about you? They think you’re this but you’re actually this.

1:42:17 Yes, I think it’s about the hate from like Ethereum maximalist, so actually I’m like one of the first one to promote like Ethereum, Ethereum Virtual Machine to a very fast proof of stake network. Even, I mean, today TRON is the first EVM compatible proof of stake protocol, we push like EVM to market standards, and personally I hold like more ETH than Vitalik, we participate in lots of Ethereum DeFi application, such as Avalanche, like Compound, like lots of different applications. I’m one of the biggest holders of those platform token as well, and I really collaborate with lots of Ethereum developers, right, and Animoca Brands, they also build lots of games on Ethereum as well.

1:43:17 So actually I’m like one of the biggest contributors and builders on Ethereum, and also I see Ethereum just like TRON’s Android, Ethereum as iOS, as a part, very important part of the blockchain ecosystem. But sometimes I think Ethereum some of the Ethereum builders sees me as a enemy or trying to compete with me like in lots of time, and also I see this Ethereum is like a very good friends in the journey of our vision, right, basically enable blockchain technology to seven billion people on earth, and I think TRON is doing something Ethereum can do, and the Ethereum is also doing something TRON can do, so the best way for us is to collaborate with together. I agree, we’re all stronger together with our individualized, so exactly.

1:44:15 If people stop hating is what we got to say. Justin, final thoughts, anything that you want to leave people thinking about for the future or anything we didn’t cover? Yes, I think eventually it’s just like, I give an example, like we’re gonna migrate to Mars, right, eventually. Are you going to Mars? You want to go tomorrow?

1:44:37 Yeah, I hope so, I mean in my lifetime. I want to take a chance permanently, or you just want to visit, you just want to go permanently? I think if I gonna visit Mars I want to go permanently, right, if this is the place all humankind gonna end, right, so why not just live there like permanently, just like you know if Elon Musk open the registration of like competition for or auction of going to Mars like tomorrow, I will participate for sure. It’s just like this.

1:45:12 Yeah, you don’t like Earth, it looks pretty hot over there on Mars, but you really want to check it out, you think there’s something new over there? Oh, that’s the future. Yeah, I think it is because it is the future, it’s not because the environment. That’s also something I want to at here, it’s just like, right, the first person buy Bitcoin, the first people build on Bitcoin, the first people build on blockchain, it’s not because of blockchain it’s awesome, it’s not because of like Bitcoin is awesome.

1:45:45 It’s just like when Jack Ma first built on Alibaba, actually it’s awful, you know, it’s the worst user experience ever if you buy anything online in 1999, you want experience again. So that’s also why we need builder, we need the first people to migrate to there in the first place, right? It’s just like the immigrants of Mayflowers when they first come to United States, there is no infrastructure at all, right? People take like United States as a some place of exile, right, so if you’re gonna go exile please you can go there.

1:46:28 I think the Mars is the same, right, Mars gonna be awful, right, if you see the movie, right, you need to do everything you can to live there in the first place, you won’t even have the casual time to enjoy your life anymore, you need to focus completely 100% of your time on making living, right, to grow potatoes, right, to generate oxygen, like you know there’s lots of things you need to be worried about in the first place, but that’s the future, right? It’s like blockchain, it’s just like the crosstalk experience right now, it’s awful, right? So you take lots of time, but that’s also the reason and the meaning of life, right, in the first place, is building new things.

1:47:16 So you want the challenge of going to Mars and you want the experience of doing something no one has ever done, even if it kills you, that’s something you want to do. Exactly. Justin, I think that pretty much sums up exactly who you are. I appreciate that, and there’s not many people that are willing to go to Mars just to try it out, but I guess that shows who you are as a pioneer. Justin, just want to finish and say, you know, a lot of people see you buying these pieces of modern art and spending six million on a Beeple and they see a lot of flash, and I get accused of the same thing.

1:47:48 I wear the three-piece suits, when I ran for mayor I drove a huge bus with my face on the side of London around 6,000 miles through London, I put billions of video ads through the social channels here in London, and sometimes people get the wrong impression of me because I’m trying to get their attention, because actually I was trying to fix this city. And I see you doing similar things, you’re getting people’s attention and sometimes they get the wrong impression, but I think you’re trying to bring them along your journey, which is ultimately about decentralization and blockchain. So I just want to say I appreciate what you do, and I appreciate you spending the time, wishing you all the best with TRON, it’s an exciting project with a lot of really interesting things happening, and super pumped.

1:48:32 How can people do more with TRON, learn more about TRON, follow you, etc.? What’s the best way? Yes, just follow me on Justin Sun TRON, this is my Twitter, I posted news about TRON every day, follow me there. All right, nice, and website is tron.network to get into where you guys are? Yes, yeah, exactly, network.

1:48:54 All right, good. I’m in on the TRON as well, so I’ll be going deep into this later for the next couple weeks. Justin, really appreciate what you’re doing. I’m gonna wrap up the show, stay with me just a second here, but there you go, folks, follow this man, some really great knowledge here. Appreciate what you’re doing, Justin, and we’ll see everybody next time on London Real.

1:49:09 Take care. Thanks, Justin. Bye. Thank you.