Justin Sun - Altruism or Greed?

GB Market Commentary 11/07/2022

by Marcus Sotiriou

Bitcoin dropped around 5% over the weekend as it starts the week at around $20,500 at time of writing. The downtrend in the crypto market persists as we have increased fears of a recession – the google search volume of recession has skyrocketed in recent weeks.

The June jobs report which was released last week, which showed that employment is strong with high wage growth, increased the chance of a recession. This is because it results in a more aggressive Federal Reserve, who has to fight to help minimise domestic inflation. A recession typically means that P/E multiples (which is what investors are willing to pay for a stock, given its earnings) would be compressed, resulting in a potential decrease in stock prices, and therefore impacting crypto due to the currently high correlation.

Within the crypto ecosystem, concerns around a liquidity crisis have decreased. Justin Sun, the founder of the TRON protocol which is one of the largest blockchain networks, said he's ready to join Sam Bankman-Fried in offering financial support to crypto firms that are struggling with liquidity issues. Sun said he could spend up to $5 billion on acquisitions after several companies have reached out to him for help.

Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX has already provided support to Voyager Digital and BlockFi, with Binance CEO CZ claiming that 50-100 crypto firms are asking for help from the exchange due to its "largest cash reserve in the industry." Sun claimed a similar number have reached out to TRON too.

According to TRON’s website, their DAO has $2.3 billion in reserves. Sun said, "our interest is platforms with a large user base, both CeFi and DeFi platforms." Sun said he thinks the worst of the current market downturn is behind us. He claimed, "I think currently the de-leverage process is passed the worst time. So we just need to clean it up and move forward. I don't think [the] market will be super bullish, of course." The macro-economic environment may mean that the liquidity crisis persists for longer though, due to the Federal Reserve being forced to respond to persistently high inflation and continue to withdraw liquidity.