On November 20, the most expensive banana in history was born!
At Sotheby's auction house in Hong Kong, a banana labeled as a work of art sold for a sky-high price of $5.2 million, with the total cost including fees reaching $6.24 million, equivalent to 45.17 million yuan.
Eight days later, the rich man who bought this banana ate it.
Who is this rich man? He is the well-known scammer in the cryptocurrency circle - Sun Yuchen.
01.
The road to Sun Yuchen's wealth.
Sun Yuchen, born in 1990, is from Xining, Qinghai.
However, this Xining origin may be due to his high school immigration.
In 2007, Sun Yuchen scored 650 points in the college entrance examination in Xining, Qinghai, and was admitted to the Chinese department of Peking University; the following year, due to mediocre performance in the Chinese department, he transferred to the history department.
In the history department, Sun Yuchen's GPA became the first in the major, successfully obtaining the opportunity to exchange studies at the University of Hong Kong's history department.
In 2010, he obtained the opportunity to intern at (Southern Weekend).
Sun Yuchen at Peking University
Note that Sun Yuchen is a person who is extremely good at packaging himself.
During his time at school, he tried hard to package himself as a top student, founded the Peking University Western Study Society, and vigorously promoted campus democracy movements; during his internship, he utilized the influence of Southern Weekend to add a line at the end of every article he participated in - 'Commentator of Southern Weekend: Sun Yuchen.'
With the influence of resisting the school system and media, he successfully got featured in the Western-dominated (Asia Weekly) and became one of the cover figures, greatly increasing his influence. In fact, this is a way of giving a token of loyalty to the West.
In 2011, Sun Yuchen obtained the opportunity to study at the University of Pennsylvania in the United States for a master's degree.
University of Pennsylvania, USA
This study abroad experience brought about a huge change in Sun Yuchen's fate, transforming him from someone who superficially packaged himself into a highly specialized investment scammer.
Since Sun Yuchen's mentor is a big shot in the investment stock market, Sun Yuchen also started to learn about the stock market, cryptocurrencies, and industry trends.
In 2012, he asked his family for some funds and made his first investment, purchasing Tesla stock. Unsurprisingly, Tesla's stock soared, and he directly earned a return of four times.
After cashing out his profits, he began to target virtual currencies and bought all Bitcoin. In 2014, with Bitcoin soaring, Sun Yuchen's investment gained more than 20 times, making him a millionaire.
After returning to the country, Sun Yuchen joined Ripple Technology, a blockchain company engaged in virtual currencies. The rise of Ripple (XRP) was not inferior to Bitcoin and once surged into the third position in virtual currency market value.
Ripple XRP
In the stock market, he has invested in many companies such as Tesla, 360, and Vipshop. In the virtual currency market, he has invested in Bitcoin, Ripple, Ethereum, etc., and has made a fortune.
This is how Sun Yuchen accumulated his first pot of gold.
However, after witnessing the astonishing rise of virtual currencies, Sun Yuchen was unwilling to invest behind the scenes; he began to step into the spotlight.
In 2017, Sun Yuchen founded TRON in China, intending to raise the price of TRON and then cash out for profit.
This battle for TRON made Sun Yuchen's name as a scammer known throughout the cryptocurrency circle.
02.
The hype journey of Sun Yuchen.
Sun Yuchen is a liberal arts student and is not familiar with blockchain technology. Without technology, what should he do?
Simply put, directly copying the code of TRON is enough; the promotional copy can be directly copied from others.
When TRON was founded, there were only five people, all holding large amounts of TRON.
In order to promote TRON, Sun Yuchen increased his packaging efforts. With connections in the investment industry, he successfully met Jack Ma and was recommended as a student of the first session of Lakeview University. At that time, Sun Yuchen was tagged with Jack Ma and Lakeview University in various media.
Jack Ma awarded Sun Yuchen a certificate.
With the support of numerous celebrities, entrepreneurs, and media, Sun Yuchen's marketing was very successful.
From December 2017 to January 2018, the first batch of 100 billion TRON coins surged from 1-2 cents to 2 yuan, skyrocketing by hundreds of times. Sun Yuchen also sold a large number of coins during this round, cashing out over 300 million dollars.
A single cash-out of TRON made him a billionaire!
But this is not the end. Since then, Sun Yuchen has frequently appeared in the cryptocurrency circle, making high-profile news. Once a person has money, more people will listen to what they say.
Every time he promoted TRON, it would stimulate a price increase, and his team would take the opportunity to cash out.
The most outstanding operation was in 2019 when Sun Yuchen spent 31 million yuan to successfully bid for Buffett's lunch, and that day TRON surged by 13%.
During lunch with Buffett, Sun Yuchen disregarded Buffett's investment theories and wholeheartedly recommended TRON to him. Buffett helplessly stated, 'I will pay attention to it.'
As a result, Sun Yuchen turned around and told the media that Buffett would invest in cryptocurrencies, causing TRON's price to soar significantly. Unsurprisingly, Sun Yuchen's team cashed out again.
Based on the timeline, Sun Yuchen completely replicated the scene of inviting the investment guru to dinner from (The Richest Man in Xihong City).
Sun Yuchen profoundly interpreted the idea that by replicating others' successful experiences, one can also achieve success. Everyone saw (The Richest Man in Xihong City), but only he really invited it.
However, after this, Buffett refused to sell 'Buffett's lunch' to Chinese people, as the investment guru was also scared off.
This time, the auction of the banana for 41 million yuan is also the same hype routine.
In the virtual currency market, there is a meme coin named BAN, which features Cattelan's banana and is listed on Binance futures.
BAN trend.
At 9:16 a.m. on November 20, it was the critical moment of the auction. Just before 16 minutes, the price of BAN suddenly surged, skyrocketing by about 26%. This scene made everyone shout, 'Brother Sun is amazing.'
However, after the auction was successfully completed at 26 minutes, BAN not only retraced its gains but also plummeted by 21%. This scene felt familiar; Sun still cuts leeks just like before.
The 45 million banana, how much leek it cut, is still unknown.
Sun Yuchen has cut countless leeks, yet the leeks still yearn for him like first love!
It is worth mentioning that domestic trading of virtual currencies has been banned since 2017. At that time, many domestic virtual currency companies all fled to Hong Kong, which became the forefront of cryptocurrency speculation in China.
In the second half of 2022, Sun Yuchen spent $1 billion to acquire control of Huobi and took control of one of the three major cryptocurrency websites.
Now, Sun Yuchen's net worth has exceeded $2.4 billion, equivalent to 17 billion yuan, making him the second richest Chinese in the overseas cryptocurrency circle, second only to Zhao Changpeng.
As the saying goes, people fear fame and pigs fear becoming fat. In Hong Kong and overseas, Sun Yuchen cannot be touched by Chinese regulatory authorities, but the Americans are different.
03. The U.S. is about to take action against Sun Yuchen.
In 2022, U.S. media reported that U.S. regulatory authorities simultaneously launched investigations into two major cryptocurrency platforms, Huobi and Binance. Sun Yuchen was suspected of money laundering, cashing out, and enticing celebrities to invest in the virtual currency exchange, and was investigated by the FBI.
In March 2023, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission sued Sun Yuchen, accusing him of illegal sale of securities, fraud, and market manipulation, and made separate allegations regarding the violations of his celebrity supporters in the cryptocurrency assets.
Sun Yuchen was sued.
Whether Sun Yuchen manipulated the market and defrauded investors, those who understand know.
However, just at this critical moment, the U.S. SEC suddenly withdrew its lawsuit against Sun Yuchen.
This is not because Sun Yuchen is so powerful, but because the U.S. SEC is focusing its attention on Zhao Changpeng of Binance.
Zhao Changpeng ultimately paid a fine of 53.1 billion yuan to get out of U.S. prison.
This 53.1 billion yuan gave the U.S. government the impression that overseas Chinese tycoons are all top-notch cash cows, and slaughtering one will yield rich rewards.
Zhao Changpeng
After Zhao Changpeng, who will be next? Undoubtedly, it will be Sun Yuchen, the second richest Chinese in the cryptocurrency circle, who is also being investigated and prosecuted.
Moreover, in order to avoid regulation, Sun Yuchen became a citizen of Grenada in 2021, a small island nation in the Caribbean. According to regulations, he has voluntarily given up his Chinese citizenship, and the Chinese government will not protect him.
Old Guan believes that Zhao Changpeng was directly caught for illegal trading, and the Americans acted swiftly; however, Sun Yuchen is often active on the Chinese internet, primarily harvesting leeks from Hong Kong investors, so the U.S. is temporarily not suitable to take action against him.
What is the best solution for America?
It allows Sun Yuchen to continue harvesting Hong Kong investors while financially profiting from the cryptocurrency products he controls. Wall Street can achieve this.
In simple terms, Sun Yuchen cuts the leeks of Chinese investors, while Americans cut the leeks of Sun Yuchen, creating a perfect closed loop.
Now is not the time to net Sun Yuchen. Without him, there would be fewer generals to cut down the Chinese leeks!