Forbes Decryption Criteria: Why Justin Sun?

2025-04-02 22:13

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In March 2025, Justin Sun graced the cover of the English edition of Forbes with the headline reading "Crypto Billionaire Who Just Helped the Trumps Net $400 Million". This marked the second Chinese entrepreneur to appear on the Forbes English cover after Jack Ma and the fourth globally recognized exchange platform leader to receive this honor—previously held only by Binance's CZ, FTX's Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), and Coinbase's Brian Armstrong.

As the Forbes cover shifted from the "West Lake Gathering" of Jack Ma to the "Crypto Evangelism" of Justin Sun, a metaphor about the generational transition of business power is emerging: traditional internet giants are yielding ground to crypto nouveau riche, and Chinese entrepreneurs are transforming from "followers" to "rule-makers."

Forbes Cover Cipher: Who Defines the New Era's Business Standards?

The selection of the Forbes cover figure is never accidental. From Bill Gates to Elon Musk, from Jack Ma to Justin Sun, two immutable rules always underlie: "quantifiable commercial dominance" and "irreplaceable rule-defining authority."

In the era of traditional business, Jack Ma, with Alibaba's GMV myth and the vision of "making it easy to do business anywhere," became the first Chinese entrepreneur to appear on the English cover of Forbes. The logic of selection at that time was clear and singular: whoever could represent the explosive growth of the Chinese market would receive the world media's spotlight.

However, in the age of crypto, Forbes's value coordinates are shifting. When Justin Sun and TRON's TRX, Huobi's HTX grace the cover, the judges value not only trading volume or user counts but also the potential to "technologically reconstruct the global financial order."

Justin Sun's "Tri-polar Advantage": Technology, Capital, and Brand Power

Technological Infrastructure: The Invisible Overlord of the Global Payment Chain

“More than half of USDT's issuance was on TRON because TRON's transaction fees are much cheaper,” Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino once commented on the TRON blockchain in a news interview.

According to the latest data from the TRON blockchain, its total value locked (TVL) has exceeded $19.7 billion, with a user base of nearly 300 million. The USDT circulating supply has surpassed $66.6 billion, processing over 14 million USDT transactions weekly, accounting for more than half of global USDT activity. This means that tens of millions of users are seamlessly using the payment network built by Justin Sun.

Breaking the Circle: When Crypto Meets Traditional Power

In 2024, Justin Sun assumed a new role as an advisor to the Trump family's cryptocurrency project, WLFI (World Liberty Financial), and invested $75 million in WLFI, becoming the project's largest investor. These collaborations showcase a textbook example of “political resource monetization”: Cryptocurrency has become a fundraising tool and a public opinion battleground in a U.S. election year for the first time.

“This demonstrates that crypto assets are no longer just geek toys but strategic weapons that can leverage real-world power,” Forbes wrote on the cover story.

Brand Building: The Contrarian Growth of Huobi HTX

Amid the industry trust crisis triggered by the FTX scandal, Huobi HTX, led by Justin Sun, underwent an “extreme makeover”:

Security Brand: As of March 2025, it has released proof of 100% or more reserves for 29 consecutive months, promoting the normalization of the “Security Monthly Report.” It has established a million-level blacklist, an anti-money laundering information database in collaboration with authoritative organizations, thousands of real-time rules, and nearly a hundred risk models to prevent the inflow of suspicious assets and user fund losses;

Wealth Brand: In Q1, it launched 47 new assets covering various hot tracks like Meme, AI, and public chains. The popular token $TRUMP saw a daily increase of over 400%. The first phase of the Launchpool activity attracted more than 150,000 participants;

Ecosystem Brand: With HTX DAO governance token holders approaching 760,000, the daily trading volume in the TRON ecosystem surpassed $14 million.

According to a CoinDesk Data industry report released on February 27, Huobi HTX has made remarkable achievements in its global layout, ranking among the top three globally in Euro stablecoin trading volume and continuously enhancing its competitiveness in the international market. At the same time, Huobi HTX was successfully selected as one of the “25 Most Trusted Cryptocurrency Exchanges by Forbes in 2025.”

The Ecosystem Behind the Cover: What Kind of Business Leader Does China Need?

When Jack Ma graced the cover of Forbes in 2015, Chinese internet companies were still striving to prove the validity of the "Copy to China" model; today, figures like Justin Sun are pursuing global ambitions through the "Copy from China" practice.

The underlying drive behind this transformation stems from a hidden resonance between the crypto industry and China's business DNA:

Pragmatic Tech Adoption: In contrast to the West's obsession with pure decentralization, Justin Sun excels at integrating blockchain technology into real-world needs. Whether it's TRON's collaboration with Huawei Cloud or Huobi HTX's "Strict Coin Listing" strategy, it showcases a typical Chinese practical philosophy.

Scalable Operations: From TRON launching a $10 million Meme ecosystem incentive plan to HTX DAO's innovative decentralized governance model, Justin Sun deeply understands the "community is core, users are foundational" Web 3.0 concept.

Strategic Policy Maneuvering: While U.S. exchanges were retreating under regulatory pressure, Justin Sun, through actions like becoming the Prime Minister of the Free Republic of Liberia and applying for regulatory licenses in multiple countries, established a foothold in the Eurasian market.

As Justin Sun graces the cover of Forbes Global, at only 35 years old, this is just the beginning. As a young leader in the crypto industry, he represents not only the vast development potential of the crypto field but also mainstream society's curiosity and expectations for crypto. Justin Sun once said in a livestream, "We can prove to the world that the crypto industry can represent the image and interests of Chinese people internationally." He has proven that Chinese entrepreneurs can still hold industry discourse power without relying on the domestic market.

When the Cover Becomes a New Starting Point: The Encoder of New Rules

The true significance of the Forbes cover may lie in unveiling a new script for Chinese entrepreneurs' globalization:

Jack Ma Era: Leveraging the domestic market dividend to export the "Made in China" business model to the world;

Justin Sun Era: Skirting geopolitical barriers to build a business empire born in globalization and bred in globalization through crypto technology.

Justin Sun's challenge has only just begun—he needs to prove that the crypto empire is not a fleeting capital game but the next-generation infrastructure capable of rivalling Alibaba and Tencent. Just as Justin Sun said in a livestream, "This is indeed a milestone progress, but it is only the beginning."

At this moment, we may be witnessing history: as the entrepreneurial legend by West Lake gradually fades, a new generation of Chinese entrepreneurs has already begun to script a new order across the ocean.