Buffett Lunch Winner’s Crypto Coin Drops After Meeting Delay
Cryptocurrency entrepreneur Justin Sun proved volatility is one of the few things you can count on in the digital-asset market.
(Bloomberg) -- Cryptocurrency entrepreneur Justin Sun proved that volatility is one of the few things you can count on in the digital-asset market after postponing his charity lunch meeting with Warren Buffett while citing a bout of kidney stones.
The announcement helped send the price of digital token known as Tron that Sun founded down as much as 21% amid a frenzy of speculation on Twitter and in Chinese social media. Various posts and articles claimed that Sun has been denied an exit visa from China, and that the 29-year-old is the subject of investigations for everything from illegal fundraising to money laundering.
The coin trimmed its losses to about 12%, according to prices on data provider CoinMarketCap.com, after Sun livestreamed a video Tuesday to prove that he was in San Francisco, saying that he wasn’t feeling quite well and planned to postpone the lunch.
Sun bid a record $4.57 million this year to win the chance to dine with Buffett as part of his annual charity lunch auction. Sun, who launched Tronix in 2017, said in June that he was hoping to educate Buffett, a self-professed cryptocurrency critic, on the benefits of crypto and the underlying technology, blockchain. A spokeswoman for Glide confirmed that the charity had received the full donation.
The postponement came only hours after Sun tweeted invitations to other crypto boosters. Sun denied media reports that he was involved in illegal fundraising and money laundering, according to China’s state-run Global Times.
“It’s pretty comfortable in San Francisco,” Sun said Tuesday in his livestream, batting down rumors that he was stuck in China, with a view of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge in the background.
--With assistance from Belinda Cao.
To contact the reporters on this story: Olga Kharif in Portland at okharif@bloomberg.net;Katherine Chiglinsky in New York at kchiglinsky@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Michael J. Moore at mmoore55@bloomberg.net, ;Jeremy Herron at jherron8@bloomberg.net, Dave Liedtka, Rita Nazareth
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