Crypto billionaire Justin Sun is taking his company, TRON, public on the U.S. market, in a deal worth as much as $210 million.
The top Trump investor, who has a $75-million stake in the first family’s crypto bank World Liberty Financial, announced the reverse merger with merchandise supplier SRM Entertainment on Monday.
Sun has been a vocal backer of the Trump administration’s cryptocurrency embrace, and has invested heavily in World Liberty Financial, the Trump family’s crypto venture that lists Barron Trump as one of its ambassadors, alongside Eric and Donald Jr, despite the age difference of almost three decades between the half-brothers.
What To Know
President Donald Trump has long touted Barron, his youngest child, as the family’s cryptocurrency expert, saying: “He knows so much about this” during an interview last year. Barron Trump has reportedly earned nearly $40 million from cryptocurrency ventures and has multiple “wallets,” a kind of portfolio used to manage blockchain transactions.
This would make him the richest of any of Trump’s sons at the age of 19. Barron’s position at World Liberty Financial, where he ranks the same as other members of his family, is his first big foray into the business world.
Barron is currently enrolled in New York University’s Stern School of Business, where fees set students back $99,000 per year, which indicates he intends to follow his father into the same business background which made the Trump name.
The merger appears to be taking formalizing ties between Sun and the Trump family one step further, with the Financial Times reporting that Eric Trump is expected to take up a role in the new company, which will rebrand to Tron Inc.
However, in statement on X, formerly Twitter, Eric Trump rejected the report, saying: “I’m the biggest fan of Tron and love Justin Sun — he is a great friend and an icon in the crypto space. That said, the below is inaccurate — I don’t have public involvement.”
Shortly after the merger was reported, shares in SRM Entertainment, a Nasdaq-listed company, soared by as high as 647 percent. The company’s market cap was $146.24 million at time of writing.
The merger will involve TRON injecting $210 million of crypto assets into the newly-formed Tron Inc, with SRM’s statement on the deal reading: “The strategic investment, valued at $210,000,000 upon full exercise of the warrants, enables SRM to build a substantial TRON Treasury Strategy.
“This transaction aligns with the company’s vision of creating long-term value for shareholders by capitalizing on the global adoption of blockchain and digital innovation. As a part of its TRON Treasury Strategy, the company intends to implement a dividend policy upon the successful implementation of the TRX staking program.”
TRON was founded in 2017 to manage the blockchain of the same name. Sun, the company’s founder, was previously charged with securities fraud by the SEC, before the charges were dropped after Trump entered office in January.
A blockchain is a digital, decentralized, and distributed ledger, like a spreadsheet, that records transactions across a number of computers.
What People Are Saying
Justin Sun, founder of TRON, said in a statement on the merger: “Stablecoins and blockchain are revolutionizing global payments, enabling faster, cheaper, and more transparent transactions.
“With over 310 million international user accounts and average daily transactions YTD [year to date] exceeding $20 billion, TRON strives to be the protocol of choice for onchain settlement serving the mass populations worldwide.”
Rich Miller, SRM Entertainment’s CEO, said: “As blockchain technology gains wider adoption globally, TRON has become the industry leader for cross-border settlement in U.S. dollar stablecoin. We are excited to invest into the future of the world’s next generation financial infrastructure.”
What Happens Next
The reverse merger is set to take place over the next few months.
