Tron Founder Justin Sun Thinks Crypto Could Learn Something From TradFi

PARIS — Justin Sun, founder of the blockchain network Tron, said he traded in his T-shirts and flip-flops for crisp suits in an effort to look more responsible, just like the folks from traditional finance.

“We need to learn from traditional finance,” Sun said during a recent interview with CoinDesk in Paris, where he was attending the Binance Blockchain Week conference. “We want our 100 million customers to know that we really take their money and their data seriously.”

After a market crash where crypto prices have fallen and some big industry players filed for bankruptcy, TradFi now has reason to boast of the merits of legal safeguards that don’t exist in crypto.

In this environment, Sun has been arguing over the last few months that his algorithmic stablecoin, USDD, is safe. An algorithmic stablecoin is a cryptocurrency that has its price pegged to another asset like the U.S. dollar by a pre-programmed mechanism or “algorithm” that balances supply with demand. Sun launched USDD just days before a similar U.S. dollar-pegged algorithmic stablecoin, terraUSD (UST), collapsed.

Stablecoin strategy

Sun brushed aside fears that a UST-like collapse could hit Tron’s stablecoin. He cited to CoinDesk USDD’s slower-growth model as a reason for it being comparatively secure. He also pointed out the stablecoin is more transparent because the website USDD.io allows users to check the stated reserves and collateralized rates backing USDD.

“At the time, UST had an $18 billion market cap and a trading volume of only $100 million, which is very fragile,” Sun said, referring to the Terra collapse in May. USDD is “very healthy” by comparison, he said.

And unlike Terra, Sun said he can also act as a backstop for USDD, ensuring the peg remains stable with his own funds if need be. “We only have a $700 million market cap but right now our daily trading volume is already above $100 million,” Sun said. “In the future we will gradually increase the market cap of USDD based on volume and adoption.”

USDD had a market cap of around $739 million and a 24-hour trading volume of around $76.5 million, according to CoinMarketCap data at press time.

Sun told CoinDesk he is a big believer in the adoption of stablecoins.

“Most talk about cryptocurrency as full of volatility and its only use case is trading,” Sun said. “But stablecoins offer lots of use cases like payment settlements, and so I want to spend a lot of my time pushing the stablecoin agenda.”

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