Justin Sun Summoned By US Court Over Alleged Securities Violations, Wash Trading Scheme

Justin Sun, the founder of cryptocurrency firms Tron Foundation and BitTorrent Foundation, has reportedly received a summons from a U.S. court in the Southern District of New York on Thursday.

What Happened: The summons came after the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) brought enforcement action against Sun for allegedly trading Tronix TRX/USD and BitTorrent BTT/USD without registering them as securities, as well as failing to disclose payments made to celebrities including Lindsay Lohan and Austin Malone for their endorsements of crypto assets and products, according to a report in The Straits Times.

The document seen by The Straits Times revealed that the summons went to two addresses in Singapore. It gave Sun 21 days to respond.

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It is also alleged that Sun had manipulated the market for TRX to "create the artificial appearance of legitimate investor interest and keep (its) price afloat," as quoted in the report.

In addition to these charges, Sun is also accused of participating in wash trading, similar to a pump-and-dump scheme, where securities are traded in transactions that foster the appearance of heavy trading activity while there is no change in beneficial ownership. 

The SEC claims that Sun directed his employees to engage in more than 600,000 wash trades of TRX between two crypto asset trading accounts he controlled, with between 4.5 million and 7.4 million TRX wash traded daily for almost a year.

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