Tron founder Justin Sun, 8 celebrities hit with market manipulation and illegal securities charges

U.S. regulators continue down the warpath against digital assets it regards as illegal securities and their founders. The latest targets for the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) are entrepreneur Justin Sun, founder of the Tron (TRX) network, and eight celebrities the SEC says were paid to promote assets without disclosing their compensation.

The SEC charged Sun with the unregistered offer and sale of “crypto asset securities” Tronix (TRX) and BitTorrent (BTT), as well as “fraudulently manipulating the secondary market for TRX through extensive wash trading” (i.e., fake buy/sell orders that make it appear actively traded, without change in beneficial ownership). The charge list also included Sun’s companies Tron Foundation Limited, BitTorrent Foundation Ltd., and Rainberry Inc. (formerly BitTorrent). Sun purchased the company that produces the popular filesharing software BitTorrent for US$140 million in June 2018.