Forbes selects three signals from Sun Yuchen: Web3 is becoming a new battleground between China and the United States.

From the shores of Yunqi Lake to the crypto empire, how the new generation of Chinese entrepreneurs conquers global authority

In March 2025, Sun Yuchen graced the cover of the English edition of Forbes, with the headline boldly stating “The Crypto Billionaire Who Helped the Trump Family Make $400 Million.” He became the second Chinese entrepreneur to appear on the cover of Forbes after Jack Ma, and the fourth exchange leader globally to receive this honor—previously, only Binance's Zhao Changpeng (CZ), FTX's Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), and Coinbase's Brian Armstrong had held this position.

As the Forbes cover shifted from Jack Ma's “Sword Fighting at West Lake” to Sun Yuchen's “Crypto Evangelism,” a metaphor about the generational shift in business power began to emerge: traditional internet giants are giving way to crypto newcomers, and Chinese entrepreneurs are transforming from “followers” to “rule makers.”

The Code of the Forbes Cover: Who is Defining the New Era of Business Standards?

The selection of cover figures by Forbes has never been random. From Bill Gates to Elon Musk, from Jack Ma to Sun Yuchen, there are always two ironclad rules behind the scenes: “Quantifiable Business Dominance” and “Irreplaceable Rule-Defining Authority.”

In the traditional business era, Jack Ma became the first Chinese entrepreneur to appear on the cover of the English edition of Forbes, thanks to Alibaba's GMV myth and the vision of “making it easy to do business anywhere.” The logic for selection at that time was clear and singular: whoever could represent the explosive growth of the Chinese market would gain the spotlight of the global media.

However, in the crypto era, Forbes' value coordinates are shifting. When Sun Yuchen appeared alongside TRON and Huobi HTX on the cover, the judges valued not only trading volume or user numbers but also the potential for “technological reconstruction of the global financial order.”

Sun Yuchen's "Three Polar Advantages": Technology, Capital, and Brand Power

1. Technological Infrastructure: The Invisible Dominator of Global Payment Chains

“More than half of USDT was issued on TRON because the transaction fees on TRON are much cheaper,” Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino commented on TRON in a news interview.

According to the latest data from the TRON chain, its total locked value (TVL) has surpassed $19.7 billion, with a user base nearing 300 million, and USDT liquidity exceeding $66.6 billion, processing over 14 million USDT transactions weekly, accounting for more than half of global USDT activity. This means tens of millions of users are unknowingly using the payment network built by Sun Yuchen.

2. Breaking into Business: When Crypto Meets Traditional Power

In 2024, Sun Yuchen added a new title as an advisor to the Trump family's cryptocurrency project WLFI (World Liberty Financial), investing $75 million in WLFI, becoming the largest investor in the project. These collaborations showcase a textbook-level “monetization of political resources”: cryptocurrency has become a fundraising tool and a public opinion battleground in the U.S. election year for the first time.

“This proves that crypto assets are no longer just geek toys, but strategic weapons capable of leveraging real power,” Forbes wrote in its cover story.

3. Brand Power Building: Huobi HTX's Counter-Cyclical Growth

During the darkest moments of the industry trust crisis triggered by the FTX collapse, the Huobi HTX that Sun Yuchen took over completed an “extreme transformation”:

Safety First: As of March 2025, it has released proof of over 100% reserves for 29 consecutive months, promoting the normalization of “safety monthly reports”; built a million-level blacklist, collaborated with authoritative organizations to create an anti-money laundering information database, established thousands of real-time rules and nearly a hundred risk models to prevent the inflow of suspicious assets and loss of user funds;
Wealth Creation: Launched 47 new assets in Q1, covering multiple popular sectors such as Meme, AI, and public chains, with the popular token $TRUMP seeing a daily increase of over 400%; the first Launchpool event attracted over 150,000 users;
Ecosystem Development: The HTX DAO governance token $HTX has nearly 760,000 holders, and the TRON ecosystem trading competition saw daily trading volume exceed $14 million.

According to an industry report released by CoinDesk Data on February 27, Huobi HTX has achieved remarkable results in its global layout, successfully ranking among the top three in global euro stablecoin trading volume, with its competitiveness in international markets continuously increasing. At the same time, Huobi HTX was successfully selected as one of “Forbes' 25 Most Trusted Cryptocurrency Exchanges in 2025.”

The Ecological Landscape Behind the Cover: What Kind of Business Leaders Does China Need?

In 2015, when Jack Ma appeared on the Forbes cover, Chinese internet companies were still striving to prove the validity of the “Copy to China” model; today, Sun Yuchen and others are practicing the global ambition of “Copy from China.”

The deeper driving force behind this transformation stems from the secret resonance between the crypto industry and Chinese business genes:

Technological Pragmatism: Compared to the West's obsession with “decentralized fundamentalism,” Sun Yuchen is more adept at embedding blockchain technology into real-world needs. Whether it’s the compliance cooperation between the TRON chain and Huawei Cloud or the “strict selection of tokens” strategy of Huobi HTX, it reflects a typical Chinese pragmatic philosophy.
Scale Warfare: From TRON launching a $10 million Meme ecosystem incentive plan to the innovative decentralized governance model of HTX DAO, Sun Yuchen understands the Web 3.0 concept that “the community is core, and users are the foundation.”
Policy Game Wisdom: As U.S. exchanges retract their lines due to regulatory pressure, Sun Yuchen has established a base in the Eurasian market through actions such as being elected Prime Minister of the Liberland Republic and applying for compliance licenses in multiple countries.

At the moment Sun Yuchen graced the cover of Forbes globally, he was only 35 years old, and everything was just beginning. As a young leader in the crypto industry, he represents not only the vast development potential of the crypto field but also the mainstream society's curiosity and expectations for crypto. Sun Yuchen once said in a live broadcast, “We can prove to the outside world that the crypto industry can represent the image and interests of the Chinese people internationally.” He has demonstrated that Chinese entrepreneurs can still hold industry discourse power without relying on the domestic market.

When the Cover Becomes a New Starting Point: The Encoder of New Rules

The true significance of the Forbes cover may lie in its unveiling of a new script for the globalization of Chinese entrepreneurs:

The Jack Ma Era: Leveraging local market dividends to export the “Made in China” business model to the world;
The Sun Yuchen Era: Bypassing geopolitical barriers to build a business empire “born in globalization, raised in globalization” using crypto technology.

Sun Yuchen's challenges have only just begun—he needs to prove that the crypto empire is not a fleeting capital game but a next-generation infrastructure that can stand alongside Alibaba and Tencent. As Sun Yuchen mentioned in a live broadcast, “This is indeed a milestone progress, but it is just the beginning.”

At this moment, we may be witnessing history: as the entrepreneurial legend by West Lake gradually fades, a new generation of Chinese entrepreneurs is writing the prologue to a new order across the ocean.

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