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Justin Sun said the SEC has agreed to drop all claims against him, the Tron Foundation, and the BitTorrent Foundation after a $10 million settlement, bringing an end to a case that had hung over one of crypto’s best-known founders since 2023.
In a post on X, Justin said, “I am very pleased to confirm that the SEC has moved to dismiss all claims against me, Tron Foundation, and BitTorrent Foundation.” He added, “Today’s resolution brings closure, but I never stopped building.”
Justin used the same post to say he plans to keep working on crypto growth in the United States and abroad. He also said he wants to work with the SEC on future rules for the industry.
“I will continue to focus on accelerating innovation in the United States and around the world and look forward to working with the SEC to develop guidance and regulations for crypto going forward. The future is bright.”
SEC had accused Justin Sun of using fake trades to lift TRON activity and price
The case against Justin stands out because the SEC accused him of serious securities law violations tied to self-trading. Regulators said Justin arranged hundreds of thousands of fraudulent trades to manipulate the price of a cryptocurrency created on his TRON platform.
The SEC said Justin and his employees deliberately inflated trading volume for a cryptocurrency so they could stir more interest in it. Regulators said Justin and one of his companies made nearly $32 million in profit from sales of that token in 2018 and 2019.
The lawsuit said the trades came through different accounts, but Justin controlled the transactions. It also said ownership of the tokens did not actually change, meaning the trading volume looked real on the screen while the assets stayed under the same control.
The SEC said that over an eight-month period, Justin and his team carried out an average of nearly 2,500 fake trades a day.
The agency also accused Justin of misleading investors through celebrity promotions. Regulators said he paid celebrities to promote the cryptocurrency while making those endorsements look unbiased and unpaid.
That became another major part of the case because it tied marketing tactics directly to investor deception claims. A group of celebrities, including Akon, Jake Paul, Ne-Yo, and Lindsay Lohan, later agreed to pay a total of $400,000 to settle those charges.
Justin and his companies fought back in court. They said the lawsuit was “yet another salvo in the S.E.C.’s ever-widening campaign seeking dominion over digital assets whenever created, in whatever form, for whatever purpose, and wherever they may be found.”
Trump-era ties surrounded Justin Sun as the SEC pulled back from crypto cases
Since President Donald Trump returned to the White House, the SEC has dramatically reduced many of its crypto cases.
Even so, agency leaders have kept saying they would still pursue fraud cases. That is why the end of Justin’s case drew so much attention. It was a fraud case, and it still ended in a settlement that clears the claims.
A New York Times investigation from December alleges that the SEC had eased up on more than 60 percent of the crypto cases it inherited from the Biden administration and from Trump’s first term.
The report said the agency had frozen litigation, reduced penalties, or dismissed cases across much of that docket. It also found that the rollback helped firms with financial ties to Trump more than others.
That included Justin. His case was paused only weeks after Trump’s inauguration so the sides could pursue a settlement. After Trump’s re-election, Justin spent $75 million on a cryptocurrency developed by World Liberty Financial, the crypto firm co-founded by Trump and his sons.
That investment made Justin one of the Trump family’s biggest crypto backers. It also gave the company fresh money at a time when it was struggling.
The links kept growing. In May, Justin attended a private dinner for buyers of the president’s memecoin, a separate cryptocurrency that Trump launched shortly before he was sworn in for a second term. That same month, Justin appeared onstage with Eric Trump at a crypto conference in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
At that event, Zach Witkoff, a co-founder of World Liberty and the son of senior presidential adviser Steve Witkoff, called out Justin by name.
Zach said, “I just got to thank you for the support, Justin.” He added, “TRON is just an incredible technology, and we’re lucky to be partners with you.”
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