While recently going through the history of the crypto world, I suddenly remembered that once-famous star project and its founder behind it. I have to say, this case is a textbook example of “Sun Ge” — from elite education to business operations, and finally to capital harvesting, every step was carefully designed.

First, let’s talk about the project itself. Tron, as a blockchain platform, is essentially a blockchain-based application ecosystem, similar to the concept of a traditional app store. But the key issue is that the project’s code logic is almost copy-pasted, and control is entirely in the hands of the founder. What does this mean? Imagine that all transaction records are openly and transparently visible, but there is only one person who can operate the “money-printing machine”—he can issue as many tokens as he wants. This is just like the idea in the stock market where a super major shareholder holds 90% of the shares.

Next, let’s look at how it operates. In the early stage, it attracted attention through various marketing tactics, with gimmicks like promising luxury cars for people who hold tokens. In the middle stage, it developed a large number of DAPP applications—sounds like it has an ecosystem, but in reality, most of these apps are related to gambling. In the late stage, it’s the harvesting phase. The famous cash-out in early 2018 says it all: in a single day, it dumped 6 billion tokens and cashed out $300 million. Every step in the process was very “professional,” and very methodical.

What’s interesting is that this founder’s growth path itself is full of operational traces. Titles such as being a student at Peking University, an editor with Southern Weekend, a student at Hupan University, and a disciple of Jack Ma—each of these was fully leveraged to build credibility and attract attention. These backgrounds do provide convenience for later project financing and promotion. But at their core, these are just packaging—the real business logic is to transfer wealth by controlling the token supply.

From a market perspective, this case reflects a common phenomenon in the early crypto scene: a lack of regulation, information asymmetry, and investors’ insufficient understanding. Compared with other projects that just run away, at least this one continued to develop applications and keep generating trending topics, so it seems “not too bad.” But in essence, this is a carefully designed harvesting mechanism. For anyone who wants to enter this space, this case is worth deep reflection—impressive credentials and grand narratives are sometimes exactly the best cover.