Justin Sun, CEO of blockchain platform Tron and peer-to-peer file sharing platform BitTorrent, just won the winning bid in a charity auction for the GLIDE Foundation to help the homeless in the Bay Area. His record-breaking donation of $4.56 million comes with a big perk: lunch with billionaire investor and Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett — along with seven of Sun’s colleagues.
Sun plans to invite high-profile leaders from the blockchain and crypto industry.
Now long-time crypto skeptic, Warren Buffett, the host of the 20th annual eBay Power Lunch with Warren Buffett Auction, will find himself having a steak with Sun, surrounded by entrepreneurs from the industry he has scorned and ridiculed. America’s third richest billionaire – after Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates – hasn’t minced words. He has called the world’s number one cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, “rat poison” and has branded its investors as “charlatans”.
Sun intends to cut through the criticism and make a pitch to the influential billionaire about the merits and potential of blockchain and cryptocurrencies, and their impact on the future of finance and business.
Appearing on CNBC’s Squawk Box, Sun says he made the winning bid and donated millions to the charity in order to pay back Warren Buffett for his inspiration as an investor and business titan. He says his companies Tron and BitTorrent, which are based in San Francisco, are committed to helping the GLIDE Foundation in their efforts to address homelessness and poverty in the local community.
Sun also says he wants to position Tron for institutional investors and have an open dialog with the country’s most influential investor.
“I want to become the bridge between the institutional investor – and also financial institutions and traditional investors like Warren Buffett – and the crypto community and also the blockchain industry. So that’s why I also want to bring seven leaders from the blockchain industry and communicate with Warren Buffett about blockchain technology and the opportunity behind it.”
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“I’m thinking Warren Buffett doesn’t have the right source for blockchain industry news, and he is misled by the media most of the time. So that’s why we want to have lunch with him, communicate with him about these 10 years, since 2009, how much progress we have made. And also, right now the blockchain industry is really big. Even Facebook and JP Morgan are starting to look at the opportunity to start a stablecoin on their blockchains as well.”
Sun doesn’t think he and his colleagues will be able to change Buffett’s mind about Bitcoin in the course of a three-hour meal.
“But definitely we will offer him a different opinion on Bitcoin and the blockchain technology.”
Sun says he and his team are still figuring out who to invite to the lunch with Buffett.
“Definitely we will have lots of people representing the whole industry. I have some people on the list but I haven’t talked to them yet. For example, Vitalik Buterin [co-creator, Ethereum], Charlie Lee, which is the founder of Litecoin; and also CZ, the founder of Binance. And others that will exchange opinions and also mining leaders.”
Meet the #Crypto entrepreneur who won the $4.6 million charity lunch with Warren Buffett@justinsuntron tells @BeckyQuick whether he thinks he can change Buffett's mind about #Bitcoin pic.twitter.com/xalmiapzYu
— Squawk Box (@SquawkCNBC) June 4, 2019
Leon Li, founder of Singapore-based cryptocurrency exchange Huobi, has reportedly thanked Sun for an invitation to the lunch.
According to a report on Coinness.com, via WeChat, Li writes,
“Thanks for Justin Sun’s invitation. This is a rare and ‘expensive’ opportunity for learning and communication, and I will appoint the senior executive of Huobi to attend the lunch on behalf of me. Thanks again!”
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