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Allegations made by Chinese journalist and entrepreneur Zeng Ying have sparked new controversies surrounding TRON’s early days and its founder, Justin Sun.
Zeng claimed in statements made on social media that Sun engaged in organized price manipulation on Binance during the early days of the $TRX token. However, these claims have not yet been independently verified.
Zeng Ying is known as a journalist and entrepreneur with a background in finance and a degree from Waseda University in Japan. She worked as a television presenter in Japan, was included in Forbes’ “30 Under 30” list in 2019, and is known as one of the early bloggers of the cryptocurrency sector. It is reported that her account on the Chinese social media platform Weibo was later shut down.
Zeng had also publicly shared that she had been struggling with depression since 2018 and experienced serious mental health problems in 2022.
Zeng Ying announced in her latest post that all her Ethereum (ETH) positions and two Solana (SOL) positions have been liquidated. Stating that she had been using leverage since October, Zeng described her loss as “an amount of money I can’t bear.” In her statement, Zeng admitted to greed and the use of leverage, and also mentioned that she had requested loans from former crypto contacts.
Approximately 5.5 hours after his initial post about the purge, Zeng targeted TRON founder Justin Sun. According to Zeng’s claims:
Sun opened numerous accounts on Binance using the personal and phone information of multiple employees. Through these accounts, coordinated buying and selling of $TRX tokens was carried out. The price of $TRX was artificially inflated. Then, the tokens were sold to individual investors, generating a large amount of illicit profit.
Zeng argued that this process was an organized market manipulation.
Zeng Ying claims to possess WeChat chat records, employee statements, and internal company evidence. She stated her willingness to cooperate with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and requested that US authorities contact her directly.
Zeng also claimed to have had a romantic relationship with Justin Sun during TRON’s early entrepreneurial days. However, there is no publicly available evidence that she was involved in TRON operations during the 2017–2018 period. While she has been referred to as his “ex-girlfriend” in some recent tabloid articles, these claims remain unconfirmed.
The US SEC had accused Justin Sun of wash trading in 2023. The case was dropped in 2025. However, the SEC documents did not include any details about accounts being opened using employee identities.
Justin Sun has not commented on the allegations in the news report. While the accusations are serious, there is currently no proven evidence that manipulation occurred.
*This is not investment advice.
coindesk.com
cryptopolitan.com
