Thoughts tagged "Sun v. Bloomberg"

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Justin Sun has hired Baker & Hostetler lawyer Teresa Goody Guillén to represent him in his lawsuit against Bloomberg. Goody Guillén has previously represented the Trump family’s World Liberty Financial, and she has lobbied for a presidential pardon for Binance’s Changpeng Zhao.

From an August issue of my newsletter:

Former Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao is still hard at work trying to secure a pardon for his 2023 money laundering conviction [I79, 83]. Zhao has personally spent $30,000 in the last few months on lobbying the president for “executive relief”, hiring BakerHostetler partner Teresa Goody Guillén (a former SEC lawyer from 2009–2011).31 Since March 24, Binance has also spent another $190,000 on Goody Guillén’s and other BakerHostetler lobbyists’ services to lobby Congress, the SEC, and the CFTC on “financial services policy issues relating to digital assets and cryptocurrency”.32 Goody Guillén simultaneously represents the Trump family’s World Liberty Financial project; she wrote the brief May retort from the company in response to Senator Blumenthal’s questions about Trump’s conflicts of interest [I83, 84].33

Bloomberg has responded to Justin Sun’s renewed motion for a temporary restraining order.

“This is a case involving a crypto billionaire who is upset because a news report said he had more of a certain cryptocurrency than he wanted the public to know — based on information that his own representatives provided on the record.”

preliminary injunction hearing in the ordinary course. There are several reasons apparent on the face of the Motion that show Plaintiff cannot possibly prevail on his Motion. First, the injunctive relief Plaintiff seeks is a clear prior restraint prohibited by the First Amendment. Temporary restraining orders and preliminary injunctions are almost never granted against journalists for what they have published or may publish; such prior restraints are permitted only in truly “exceptional cases,” such as where the speech at issue would reveal the movements of troop ships in war time. Near v. Minnesota ex rel. Olson, 283 U.S. 697, 716 (1931).2 But this is a case involving a crypto billionaire who is upset because a news report said he had more of a certain cryptocurrency than he wanted the public to know – based on information that his own representatives provided on the record. There is no colorable argument that a prior restraint could be supported here. 

Letter

Crypto billionaire Justin Sun’s renewed motion for a temporary restraining order in his lawsuit against Bloomberg seems to confirm my view that the lawsuit was sparked by the disclosure that he controls 63% of the supply of TRX.

1. Requiring Defendants, preliminarily until the hearing, and thereafter indefinitely, to remove the amounts of any specific cryptocurrency owned by Mr. Sun from any of its online publications; 2. Requiring Defendants, preliminarily until the hearing, and thereafter indefinitely, to retract its claim that Mr. Sun owns 60 billion Tronix and controls the majority of its supply; and 3. Enjoining Defendants, preliminarily until the hearing, and thereafter indefinitely, Defendants from publishing the amounts of any specific cryptocurrency owned by Mr. Sun in any future publication.

Sun and Bloomberg had been “engaged in discussions that may moot the emergency relief”, but it sounds like Sun wanted more than they were willing to agree to.

Justin Sun v. Bloomberg

Justin Sun has just filed a lawsuit against Bloomberg, claiming they plan to “recklessly and improperly disclos[e] his highly confidential, sensitive, private, and proprietary financial information,” which he gave to them while they were verifying his assets for inclusion in the Bloomberg “Billionaires Index”.

Sun claims this will cause him “significant and irreparable harm—both financially and physically.” He says they plan to use the information in an article unrelated to the Billionaires Index. He also claims they plan to publish “granular details about his cryptocurrency assets, including a breakdown of his cryptocurrency holdings,” in the Billionaires Index, and that he wouldn’t have agreed to share the information had he known.

Sun sent a cease and desist to Bloomberg, and was informed they still intend to publish. He now seeks an injunction against the company.

The “agreement” Justin Sun says should prevent Bloomberg from publishing the amounts and types of crypto assets he holds seems extremely shaky to me (caveat: I’m not a lawyer, some images are missing).

It looks like Justin Sun and his team sent the information he now claims is confidential on or around February 28.

A month later, on March 27, Justin Sun posted terms including: “The data is solely for verification and may not be used for any other purpose (including reporting) ... Bloomberg must also agree to use the data strictly in accordance with our requirements — for example, to provide only a general assessment or overall valuation based on the data, without making any specific references or detailed reporting on the figures.”

Bloomberg’s Tom Maloney: “Nobody at Bloomberg agreed to the terms sent by Justin, weeks after the data was shared with us.”

Bloomberg says they will oppose a temporary restraining order, but also that a TRO is moot because Bloomberg already published.

It seems Sun is objecting to VERY rough estimates of his crypto holdings (~60 billion TRX, heavily discounted; 17k BTC; 224K ETH; 700K Tether).

Confidence rating: 1 star
The majority of Sun's net worth comes from cryptocurrency he owns.
Sun owns more than 60 billion Tronix (also referred to as TRON or TRX), the cryptocurrency native to Tron, according to an analysis of financial information provided by representatives of Sun in February 2025. A 75% liquidity discount is applied to the value of the token because Sun controls the majority of its supply. Tron has more than 300 million user accounts as of June 2025, according to the Tronscan website.
Sun also owns about 17,000 Bitcoin, 224,000 Ether, and 700,000 Tether, according to the same analysis. No discount is applied to these because his holdings represent less than 1% of the total supply.
The analysis only includes tokens that are on-chain. Tokens that are held on exchanges such as HTX and Binance are not included in the analysis because the holdings could not be verified.
Sun owns the cryptocurrency exchange HTX. It's calculated to have had revenue of about $1.3 billion in 2024, based on its spot and derivative trading volumes and fee schedules. It's valued using the average price-to-sales multiple of Coinbase Global Inc., Galaxy Digital Inc. and Riot Platforms Inc. Sun is credited with about 90% of the company, based on information provided by his representatives in May 2025. A 50% liquidity discount is applied.
Confidence rating: 1 star
The majority of Sun's net worth comes from cryptocurrency he owns.
Sun owns more than 60 billion Tronix (also referred to as TRON or TRX), the cryptocurrency native to Tron, according to an analysis of financial information provided by representatives of Sun in February 2025. A 75% liquidity discount is applied to the value of the token because Sun controls the majority of its supply. Tron has more than 300 million user accounts as of June 2025, according to the Tronscan website.
Sun also owns about 17,000 Bitcoin, 224,000 Ether, and 700,000 Tether, according to the same analysis. No discount is applied to these because his holdings represent less than 1% of the total supply.
The analysis only includes tokens that are on-chain. Tokens that are held on exchanges such as HTX and Binance are not included in the analysis because the holdings could not be verified.
Sun owns the cryptocurrency exchange HTX. It's calculated to have had revenue of about $1.3 billion in 2024, based on its spot and derivative trading volumes and fee schedules. It's valued using the average price-to-sales multiple of Coinbase Global Inc., Galaxy Digital Inc. and Riot Platforms Inc. Sun is credited with about 90% of the company, based on information provided by his representatives in May 2025. A 50% liquidity discount is applied.

My guess is that his fury here is at the revelation that he controls 60 billion TRX (63% of the total supply, and it’s not clear to what extent they’re counting TRX held by companies he owns). It’s always been known he owns a lot, but estimates I’ve seen are lower than that.

The other explanations that I’ve brainstormed don’t really make sense. The estimates likely aren’t specific enough to be identifying, as he claims. And I doubt it’s an ego thing at having his net worth shown to be lower than he wants — Bloomberg puts him at $12.4B, higher than Forbes’ $8.5B. (Though maybe he wants them to say his 60B TRX are worth $21.6B, idk)