| | | Justin Sun's planned Tron debut marks dramatic turn of events under President Trump
Jun. 17, 2025 4:28 PM ET
By: Anuron Mitra, SA News Editor
Over two years ago, entrepreneur Justin Sun was sued by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for fraud. Fast-forward to the present, and one of the billionaire's crypto companies is set to go public via a reverse merger with SRM Entertainment (NASDAQ: SRM).
The dramatic reversal in Sun's fortunes highlights the overall crypto-friendly nature of U.S. President Donald Trump's administration. Sun also happens to be the top investor in the meme coin launched by Trump earlier this year.
The SEC in March 2023 sued Sun and his companies Tron, BitTorrent and Rainberry for the unregistered offer and sale of crypto assets Tronix and BitTorrent. The Commission also brought charges of "wash trading" and paying celebrities to tout the crypto assets. In February this year, media reports said the SEC had halted the lawsuit.
SRM Entertainment (NASDAQ: SRM), a Winter Park, Fla-.based, Nasdaq-listed merchandise retailer, on Monday said it had reached a deal with a private party for a $100M equity investment that it will use to buy Tron tokens. SRM will also be renamed Tron Inc and will have Sun join the company as an advisor.
"With over 310M international user accounts and average daily transactions YTD exceeding $20B, TRON strives to be the protocol of choice for onchain settlement serving the mass populations worldwide," Sun said in SRM's statement.
The cryptocurrency industry received a major shot in the arm this year with Trump's election as President. Trump last year embraced crypto during his election campaign by taking donations in bitcoin ( BTC-USD), and promised to turn the U.S. into the "crypto capital of the planet and the bitcoin superpower of the world."
Just a few days ahead of his inauguration in January, Trump launched his own token with the symbol "$TRUMP" which, according to CoinMarketCap, currently has a market capitalization of $1.9B.
Sun in May this year said he was the top holder of Trump's meme coin. Sun had also attended a gala dinner where he had met Trump.
SRM ( SRM) said New York-based boutique investment bank Dominari Securities had acted as the exclusive placement agent for the offering. The investment bank's parent, Dominari Holdings, in February said that President Trump's sons Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump had joined the company board.
Eric Trump on Monday said on X (formerly Twitter) that he had no public involvement in SRM ( SRM) and Tron's arrangement. |
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