Podcast Notes | Conversation with Justin Sun: Extreme Loneliness is Also a Kind of Freedom

Compiled by: Deep Tide TechFlow

Guest: Justin Sun (Founder of TRON)

Host: Bonnie / Bonnie Blockchain

Podcast Source: YouTube (https://youtu.be/ZQrxbd-r_MM)

Original Title: Justin Sun: Extreme Loneliness is Also a Kind of Freedom! | About Quantum Threat Day, Buying Bananas for 200 Million, and Those Crazy Decisions You Can't Understand! Justin Sun [Bonnie Blockchain]

Broadcast Date: October 14, 2026

1. A Life-Changing Childhood Story

Host: You mentioned at the beginning that there is a story that changed your life?

Guest: One of the stories changed my life. When I was young, my parents sent me to a boarding school. They originally wanted me to play golf, but later my parents... After I went home, I had to go back to boarding school. The result is that you are always alone. My parents later separated, so I had no family when I went home. When you are young and need to talk to someone, where do you go? No one. My life changed completely, and I had to rely on myself. But we also gained something from it, which is freedom. As you said, extreme loneliness is also a kind of freedom.

Host: At the highest level, is it very lonely?

Guest: Most people have the opportunity to make their own life decisions at eighteen, twenty-five, or even thirty; but I got that opportunity at nine. Just like I used to.

2. The Million Dollar "Justin Sun Award": Redesigning Academic Awards for the AI Era

Host: You offered a million-dollar prize for solving mathematical problems. Why mathematics?

Guest: First of all, I believe mathematics is the foundation of cryptocurrency. Today, the vast majority of cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, TRON, and Ethereum, are built on mathematical theories, so it is very important to provide incentives to the mathematics community, and advancements in mathematics can also help crypto grow. Secondly, in the internet age, mathematics has begun to become a "project"; it used to be anthropological mathematics, then machine learning mathematics, and today most results are starting to be proven by AI, which has a formal verification system that can basically provide verifiable results directly. I think traditional awards like the Olympics and the Nobel Prize are too slow for the entire industry; we can't spend a year or even four years rewarding someone. So the "Justin Sun Award" is designed entirely for the AI era, just like crypto, which is awarded instantly: we publish all important open problems in science, and as long as you prove a mathematical breakthrough using systems like Lean, you get the award immediately. It is not like the lifetime achievement award given for a lifetime of work in the Olympics, but more like an agile bounty. We don't care whether the problem solver is a person or an AI agent; as long as it can be solved, we pay. Many people joke that this annual award might be the last mathematics award for humanity, so what? Why not give the award to AI?

Host: OpenAI has already won an award, right?

Guest: Yes. In fact, today OpenAI released some new things, so I shared the problem repository with them to see if OpenAI can solve more. If OpenAI wins every year, we will award them every year; it's very interesting.

Host: Is mathematics your favorite project?

Guest: Yes, it is for me. I think it is important, and it can also help our business. Because today everyone is studying quantum attacks, we are also developing NIST's post-quantum cryptography standards, which can help resist quantum attacks and promote its implementation. We are developing these and hope to validate our commitments on the test network next year.

3. Quantum Threat Day (Q-Day): An Underestimated Black Swan by the Entire Industry

Host: I remember last time we were on stage, you mentioned Q-Day and TRON's hedging plan.

Guest: Yes. I still think Quantum Threat Day (Q-Day) is underestimated by the entire Bitcoin industry. I'm not saying I'm moving fast, but the Bitcoin community as a whole is moving very slowly. We've been in this since 2012, and the entire community's upgrades are extremely slow; even within two years, it is almost impossible to get the Bitcoin community to pass a protocol upgrade. The worst-case scenario is that a top AI or a mysterious cracker violently cracks Satoshi's early public key cryptography, and the approximately one million Bitcoins he holds could be compromised. Just think about how much impact that would have on Bitcoin's value.

Host: How big is this risk?

Guest: Wall Street and BlackRock managers, they are not using Bitcoin and do not understand the technological progress of Bitcoin. They think enough time has been spent on these matters, just like Apple released a problematic update, and two minutes later a new update is pushed up, and everyone updates, and that's it. But they have invested so much money without understanding the technology; it's crazy. In fact, not every Apple stock manager is studying the iOS system, but Q-Day will be a big problem; it's just that no one knows when it will come, and everyone is predicting what impact Q-Day will have on Bitcoin's value.

4. TRON's USDT Moat, Network Effects, and Tokenization of US Stocks

Host: Congratulations to TRON. You now hold over 94 billion USDT, which is half of the entire USDT. With so many different blockchains wanting to compete with you, how have you managed to win so much?

Guest: First of all, cryptocurrency has a strong network effect, just like Facebook. When it first came out, you could use other social software, but Facebook is different and hard to switch. Today we have over 400 million real users, and transactions are still being made on it every day. Just like Facebook, if you are not on Facebook and use other software, you can't send messages to others. TRON is the same; if you don't use the TRON network and use other public chains, the money won't reach that network, and the money already on the network is also hard to transfer to other networks. This is a user choice; today on WhatsApp, tomorrow on X, but that is just communication, and once the money comes onto the chain, it is hard to leave. We have 400 million users, and we are adding about 500,000 new users every day. I think it is very hard to change the network someone uses; once they enter this network, the network effect of cryptocurrency is very large.

Host: What about the second point?

Guest: Secondly, our team has been doing our best to provide products that users really need. In Q4 of this year, we will launch tokenized stocks on the TRON network, ensuring that all users can access large indices and stocks like QQQ and S&P 500, allowing stablecoin users to invest directly in core US stock assets without leaving the chain, connecting on-chain funds with the entrance to traditional financial markets.

5. WLFI Investment: Helpless at the Time

Host: Speaking of the US, knowing what you know today, if you could go back in time, would you still invest in World Liberty Financial (WLFI)?

Guest: I think I would still invest because at that time it was "helpless." I only saw all the information after I invested; they didn't give me enough commitments, so I couldn't make my own decisions and had no reservations. If some things are helpless, it's hard to say whether you regret it later.

6. Lonely Childhood: Nine Years Old in a Go Boarding School, Parents Divorced

Host: I want to ask you about your childhood stories or growing-up experiences. Is there anything that shaped who you are today? For example, what your parents did.

Guest: Absolutely. One story that changed my life is that my parents sent me to a boarding school when I was only nine years old. At that time, they wanted me to learn Go, which is the last board game to be cracked by AI. Before me, many other games were cracked, but the last one was Go. Today, learning it is meaningless because the strongest players can't beat AI; it's like you have to send two people to deal with one AI. At that time, there was a strong atmosphere for Go in China, with many young players, and all the good players were in Beijing and Wuhan, so I went to Wuhan to learn Go.

Host: Could you only learn Go?

Guest: Yes, because all the Go players were in Beijing and Wuhan. And it was very urgent because the rule was that you had to become a professional player before the age of 13. If you didn't qualify before 13, even if you had been very successful, you could never become a professional. So I went to boarding school and practiced Go 100% of the time, starting from a young age.

Host: Was it a lonely journey when you practiced?

Guest: Yes, at first, I might only know how to play Go, but later it became everything in my life. Because I went to Wuhan, my parents divorced, and when I came back, I had to go back to the training school. You know, it was just me, always alone. Just like the soldiers who retreated to Taiwan during the international war, the commander said you would only stay for a while and then return to southern China. They believed it, but in fact, they lived in Taiwan forever, and their wives and children back home never had a chance to return; they had to find a new life in Taiwan. For me, the reason for going to boarding school is no longer important because my life changed completely, and after that, I relied entirely on myself, and we also gained something from it, which is freedom.

7. Extreme Loneliness is Also Freedom

Host: In a recent article, you wrote, "Extreme loneliness is also a kind of freedom." Will the world become very lonely?

Guest: In fact, we still have many people competing; it's a large group, not lonely at all. But for me, perhaps these experiences made me feel the truth of life earlier. Most people leave home at eighteen, twenty-five, or even thirty to have the opportunity to decide their own lives, while I got that opportunity at nine. So you leave home at nine and never return; boarding school became my home, and then my parents left, and I never went back home.

Host: When you were young and needed to talk to someone, where would you go?

Guest: No one. My home is in Guangdong, over a thousand kilometers from Wuhan, and even the classmates in the boarding school have families and live in Wuhan. I couldn't trouble anyone; I had to decide everything myself. But I think this gave me a lot of courage to decide to go to space, to participate in the moon landing in the future, and even possibly go to Mars, as long as Musk says it's safe, I will go.

8. Crazy Decisions are for Experience, Not Marketing

Host: People say you have done many crazy things, like buying bananas and bidding for lunch with Buffett. Is this an investment or marketing?

Guest: For me, it is an experience. My motivation for extending my experiences is different from most people; what others find important is not important to me. For example, I decided to meet Musk, and I believe that will also make big news, but the reason is not for marketing; going to space is the same, buying bananas is the same. Because I think bananas are cute. You spent 6.2 million dollars; yes, actually that was mine, the auction bottom line was 7 million dollars, and I only wanted the ultimate life experience that money can't buy.

Host: People think many of the things you do are brave actions or that you are doing marketing?

Guest: But in the end, for me, I just want these experiences, and these experiences are very important to me. As I become more famous, people start to assign a lot of meaning to what I do. But for me, this is my life, this is my experience; we decide and then just go, it's that simple.

Host: Aren't you excited?

Guest: I am excited. I just think about everything I do while also considering going to the training school at night. If you say you are going to the training school at night, it must be a promotional move. Why? It's quite interesting, right? So I think it's the same.

Host: I really enjoyed this discussion; it was very touching and engaging.

Guest: Thank you.

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