Justin Sun is a controversial but highly successful entrepreneur. The billionaire founded the cryptocurrency Tron (TRX) which became highly popular in 2017 and is still one of the biggest smart contract platforms in the world. Despite his success, not everybody is happy with Sun and this is especially the case with his social media appearance. He is well-known for his over-the-top marketing stunts and it looks like that not only the audience on Twitter got annoyed by him.

Why is the SEC suing Justin Sun and what are they charging him with?

Unregistered securities and wash trading

The SEC alleges that Sun and his companies violated several U.S. securities laws. According to the official press release, the sale of Tron (TRX) and BitTorrent (BTT) were unregistered securities. Both started with an ICO and the accusations that the SEC alleges are in this regard pretty much the same as with Ripple and the sale of XRP.

What is more astonishing is that the SEC alleges that Sun and his companies engaged in wash trading. They allege that Sun, the Tron Foundation Limited as well as the BitTorrent Foundation Ltd have manipulated the price for TRX and BTT by making them appear to be more attractive to investors. Allegedly, Sun has made $31 million in proceeds with more than 600,000 wash trades by directing his employees to conduct the transactions between April 2018 and February 2019.

The SEC also charged 8 celebrities among them Jake Paul, Akon, and Lindsay Lohan. Six of them agreed to pay $400,000 without denying or admitting the charges to settle the matter with the SEC.

The market is busy with other things

The news hasn’t had much of an impact on the price of BTT and TRX. When the FOMC meeting concluded, both assets reacted to the FED’s decision along with the rest of the market. It remains to be seen if these allegations will impact both tokens in the future.

Sun is also busy with other things. According to him, the allegations are part of a bigger attack against crypto and lack merit. Sun emphasized that the Tron and BTT community will continue to build a better future despite the civil complaint.

It appears that the SEC is indeed targeting crypto. Yesterday, Coinbase received a Wells notice which indicates that the SEC could press charges against the exchange: