Crypto entrepreneur Justin Solar now has a $100,000 Trump-branded watch on his arm, however he is no stranger to the excessive life.
The billionaire was one in all 220 high backers of President Donald Trump’s meme coin, $TRUMP, who have been invited to a particular dinner with the president on Might 22.
On the occasion, Solar mentioned he was gifted a Trump Tourbillon watch, which sells for $100,000 — one other of the Trump household’s non-public enterprise pursuits along with cryptocurrency.
In line with Forbes’ real-time internet price tracker, the 34-year-old founding father of Tron is estimated to be price round $8.5 billion.
Here is all the pieces to learn about Solar — from his authorized troubles to his buy of a duct-taped banana.
Solar’s adolescence and training
Solar grew up in a rural province of China and left residence at a younger age to check the technique recreation “Go” in Wuhan, The Verge reported.
Solar graduated from Peking College with a bachelor’s diploma in historical past in 2011. Two years later, he earned a grasp’s diploma in political financial system from the College of Pennsylvania.
Solar then attended Hupan College — a Chinese language enterprise college began by Alibaba cofounder Jack Ma in 2015 — the place he wrote a thesis on the blockchain business, titled “The Start of a Decentralized Web.”
Solar was the youngest member of Hupan’s inaugural class, which included 30 college students whom Ma recruited as a result of he believed they may revolutionize the Chinese language enterprise world, the South China Morning Publish reported. Solar graduated from Hupan in 2018.
Solar’s oldest Instagram photograph reveals him receiving a certificates from Ma. The caption reads, “Impressed by the perfect to form the longer term for the higher. “
Solar’s rise within the crypto world
Solar labored at San Francisco-based crypto firm, Ripple Labs, a cryptocurrency startup that has obtained backing from Google Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, and different blue-chip buyers.
In 2013, Solar based a social chat room app known as Peiwo. The app matched customers with one another based mostly on their pursuits and 10-second audio clips. Nevertheless, China in the end kicked Peiwo off the Android and Apple app shops and shut it down for disrupting “socialist values,” The Verge reported.
In 2017, Solar based Tron, a blockchain firm with its personal cryptocurrency that’s “devoted to constructing the infrastructure for a very decentralized web.” Tron says its community has over 308 million customers on the blockchain and has had over 10.4 billion transactions.
Lower than a yr later, Tron acquired BitTorrent, a peer-to-peer file-sharing service, for a reported $126 million.
In 2022, Solar joined the International Advisory Board of cryptocurrency alternate HTX, then often called Huobi International.
Private life and Warren Buffett
Solar has amassed greater than 3.8 million followers on X and 240,000 Instagram followers, the place he has posted photos of himself posing with celebrities comparable to Los Angeles Lakers legend Kobe Bryant.
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Forbes included Solar in its 30 below 30 Asia checklist for Shopper Expertise in 2017, and extra just lately, the outlet featured Solar as its digital each day cowl in March of this yr.
In 2019, Solar bid $4.57 million on an eBay-sponsored charity lunch with Warren Buffett. Solar mentioned he deliberate to make use of the meal to transform Buffett, a infamous skeptic of bitcoin and different cryptocurrencies, into a real believer. Buffett has mentioned bitcoin has “no distinctive worth” and can in the end turn out to be nugatory, and derided it as a “delusion” and “in all probability rat poison squared.”
Solar postponed the dinner with Buffett, citing kidney stones, which sparked conspiracy theories that he was being pressured by China. However months later, Solar lastly had his dinner with Buffett in January 2020, inviting eToro founder and CEO Yoni Assia, Litecoin creator Charlie Lee, and different crypto advocates to dine with them.
Authorized troubles and funding in World Liberty Monetary
In 2023, the Securities and Trade Fee filed prices in opposition to Solar and three of his corporations — Tron Basis, BitTorrent Basis, and Rainberry.
The federal company accused Solar of providing and promoting crypto asset securities with out correct registration. Solar can also be going through allegations of fraud for manipulating the market value of his cryptocurrency, TRX.
Solar was moreover charged with not disclosing how a lot he compensated celebrities like Lindsay Lohan, Jake Paul, and Soulja Boy to advertise his cryptocurrency, which might have violated federal securities legal guidelines.
In December 2024, Solar bought $30 million in crypto tokens from World Liberty Monetary, making him the biggest investor within the new enterprise backed by Trump and his household. On February 26, the SEC filed a movement to pause its case in opposition to Solar and allowed a 60-day interval to discover a possible settlement.
Since then, Solar has invested a further $45 million in WLF. On January 22, Solar posted on X that if he “made any cash in cryptocurrency, all credit score goes to President Trump.”
A flashy way of life
In November 2024, Solar bought Maurizio Cattelan’s conceptual paintings titled Comic, which consisted of a banana duct-taped to a wall, for $6.2 million at a Sotheby’s public sale.
The sale of the extremely divisive piece considerably exceeded its estimated worth of $1 to $1.5 million.
Shortly after the acquisition, Solar consumed the banana throughout a press occasion in Hong Kong, stating that “the true worth is the idea itself.” He mentioned that the act was not about destroying the paintings however about highlighting its ephemeral nature.
On the dwell occasion, Solar additionally pledged to buy 100,000 bananas from the New York avenue vendor who offered the unique fruit used within the paintings.
“To thank Mr. Shah Alam, I’ve determined to purchase 100,000 bananas from his stand in New York’s Higher East Aspect,” Solar wrote on X.
This is not the one time Solar splurged on paintings.
In December 2021, he purchased a Joker-themed NFT from the Bored Ape Yacht Membership Tron assortment for $15 million, one of the vital costly NFT purchases.
Solar additionally spent $78.4 million on Giacometti’s solid bronze sculpture Le Nez, including to his assortment of a $20 million Picasso portrait of Marie-Thérese, a triptych of “fright wig” portraits by Andy Warhol for $2 million, and KAWS’ Untitled (Kimpsons) for $323,647, Artnet reported.
Other than artwork, Solar additionally spent $28 million to safe a seat on a Blue Origin flight to area, which he revealed after successful the bid at public sale for the primary crewed mission on the New Shepard rocket.
Samantha Delouya contributed to an earlier model of this publish.
