"Sun vs. Li: $30M Feud Erupts Over HTX Sale, USDD's 20% Yield Promise"

Justin Sun, the founder of Tron, has reignited a long-standing feud with HTC co-founder Leon Li, accusing him of fraud. Sun alleged that Li concealed critical due diligence materials during the sale of HTX, previously known as Huobi, leaving a $30 million hole in the exchange's balance sheet. Sun claimed that he personally lent $30 million to cover the shortfall but the money has yet to be repaid. Li disputes Sun's version of events, attributing the missing funds to margin calls triggered by the exchange's high-risk leverage trading operations.

Huobi was acquired by Hong Kong-based About Capital Management in October 2022. Sun has denied being the real buyer behind the curtains despite widespread skepticism. He is listed as an "adviser" to the exchange and often acts as the public face of the brand to promote and announce key business developments.

The public spat between the two crypto businessmen has been escalating for some time. In 2023, Sun accused Li's brother, Wei Li, of illegally acquiring millions of Huobi's native tokens at zero cost. Li fired back, calling for HTX to provide evidence and vowing to repay ten times the amount if wrongdoing was proven.

The feud reignited on Feb. 4 courtesy of Sun's X post promoting the launch of the second version of his USDD stablecoin and its 20% annual yield. Sun provoked Li in the post by claiming that he guarantees the yield payments to anyone, even Li.

USDD is an algorithmic stablecoin that has been controversial. It debuted in May 2022 in the wake of Terra's catastrophic UST collapse, which wiped out tens of billions of crypto investors' funds. Like UST, USDD is an algorithmic stablecoin and was initially designed around an arbitrage mechanism using Tron's TRX token, though it has since pivoted to a collateralized model. Tron DAO claims that USDD is overcollateralized, with Tether's centralized stablecoin USDT acting as its primary reserve asset.

The 20% APY Sun is promoting has drawn sharp comparisons to Anchor Protocol's ill-fated high-yield scheme, which proved to be unsustainable. The crypto community has questioned the authenticity of such an offer, demanding to know where the yield comes from. TRON DAO insists it is