In less than two weeks, Justin Sun, the 32-year-old crypto celebrity and founder of the Tron blockchain, has experienced multiple blows: a lawsuit from the Securities and Exchange Commission and now the end of his stint as Grenada's representative to the World Trade Organization.
The Grenada Broadcasting Network recently reported that his term as ambassador ended after the Caribbean island nation saw the current ruling party lose the general election last June. Early Friday morning, Sun told Fortune over Telegram that he was still serving as the ambassador and “any reports stating otherwise are inaccurate.”
But later on Friday, he partially corroborated the report on Twitter, announcing that his term as representative to WTO ended effective that day.
“In the coming months, I will be focusing on the smooth transition of my duties to my successor,” he wrote. “Afterwards, I plan to take some time to rest before continuing my career as a public servant, with a particular focus on digital economy and crypto regulation.”
As my term as the Ambassador of Grenada to the World Trade Organization (@wto) comes to a close, effective 31 March 2023, I want to express my gratitude for the wonderful experiences and the amazing support that I have received during my time here.
— H.E. Justin Sun 孙宇晨 (@justinsuntron) March 31, 2023
The close of Sun’s two-year term as a Grenada diplomat comes after the SEC sued him and a slew of celebrities, including Lindsay Lohan, Jake Paul, and Soulja Boy, for their role in the release and sale of the cryptocurrencies Tronix (TRX) and BitTorrent (BTT).
In the lawsuit, filed in the Southern District of New York, the federal regulator argued that TRX and BTT were securities. It alleged that Sun and his two companies—the TRON Foundation and BitTorrent (now Rainberry)—had illegally released the digital assets without registering their sale with the agency and claimed that Sun had engaged in wash trading—or falsely inflating an asset’s trading volume.
The regulator charged eight celebrities in the lawsuit, alleging that they had not publicly disclosed Sun had paid them to publicize the cryptocurrencies. Six of the celebrities, excluding Soulja Boy and Austin Mahone, have already settled with the SEC and agreed to pay more than $400,000 in associated fines.
“We believe the complaint lacks merit, and in the meantime will continue building the most decentralized financial system,” Sun said in a statement posted on Twitter last week.
The SEC’s civil complaint earlier today is just the latest example of actions it has taken against well known players in the blockchain and crypto space. We believe the complaint lacks merit, and in the meantime will continue building the most decentralized financial system.
— H.E. Justin Sun 孙宇晨 (@justinsuntron) March 23, 2023
Sun assumed his role as Grenada's ambassador to the WTO in November 2021, per his Twitter post on Friday. Since then, he has referred to himself as “his excellency,” changing his Twitter profile’s name to “H.E. Justin Sun.”
Shortly after he was named ambassador, one of his senior employees sent out guidance on Slack that his workers should properly refer to him as “his excellency” from then on, according to The Verge.
As of Friday, an employee for TRON DAO (the foundation has been a decentralized autonomous organization since December 2021, according to Sun) still referred to him as “H.E.” in a group chat on Telegram with Fortune.
