We want to be the bridge between all the financial assets around the world. The USDT on Tron has way more value than the TRX on the Tron network. In the future, we want to collaborate with BlackRock, to collaborate with New York Stock Exchange, NASDAQ to bring trillions of dollars onto the TRON network.
Is an hour of Elon Musk's time really worth $30 million to you?
For me, definitely. I think so.
I want to ask you about 2025. You did some really cool things. One of them I'm very jealous of. I've always had a big fascination with space. You went to space in August last year on Blue Origin. It cost you $28 million to do. Was it worth it?
Yeah, totally. I think it's worth it. And we are just getting started, right? So I think the Virgin Galactic journey is just the first step. Right now I think the US is working on a moon mission and I also invested in a space company focused on building space stations in the future. So basically I think in the future we'll have a bunch of space hotels. So everyone can not only go into space but they can also live in some place in space. And then further, people will go to the moon more, go to Mars, step by step. So that's why I think space, especially private space exploration, I think it just started. When I first won the Virgin Galactic auction, I think around 2021, there were less than 10 private astronauts. But right now, I'm the 712th astronaut in space and I think there are already like 200 private astronauts. And eventually I believe there will definitely be more private astronauts than government astronauts. So that's why I think this has just started and we will keep monitoring and thinking about how we can develop more in the future in space.
Look, you mentioned Mars. I think it was a couple of weeks ago you said that you were willing to pay Elon Musk $30 million to spend an hour talking to him. What would you want to chat to him about? I'm sure it's probably about space. I'm sure it's about AI. But yeah, I mean, is an hour of Elon Musk's time really worth $30 million to you?
For me, definitely I think so, right? I think some people posted comments below my Twitter saying Elon is actually making $40 million an hour for the company. So is he going to lose like $10 million if he spends an hour talking to me? So that's why I think first of all it definitely worth it. And of course I think Elon will teach me more than Warren Buffett because Warren Buffett is more focused on the past, the financial industry, but Elon is focused on the future. He is working on really cool companies and really cool new things. So that's why I always want to learn from him. And I think also I will be a very good friend and a very good agent, I will say, to Elon Musk because I think Elon is focusing on making rockets, but Elon himself won't be able to reach Mars or the moon in the future. He's just focusing on building those transportation infrastructure. So I'm the person who is willing to go to Mars, go to the moon. If I have the chance, I already see some people start a poll on Polymarket about whether Justin Sun is going to meet Elon Musk in 2025 and we will see the results.
Yeah, we'll have to see. Maybe someone will make a good bet and they'll make some money. I think it's around like 60% or something. From the sounds of what you're saying, it seems like it's pretty likely. I want to bring the attention back to Tron and some big news coming out this week, an integration with WalletConnect. And Cointelegraph's audience is very familiar with WalletConnect. This integration is going to bring 600 wallets, 70,000 DApps to Tron. You must be really pleased to get this one over the line.
Yes. So we are actually very lucky we got WalletConnect support and we got MetaMask support as well. So in these two weeks, even though we signed those partnerships last year, we are very pleased we can get all those jobs done in the first month of 2026. We have a lot more integrations and partnerships rolling out like every week. But of course I think WalletConnect is a great milestone and I'm happy to see all the users and developers can now build on Tron way easier than before.
I've got a few more questions that I think I'll just save until the end of the interview that will wrap things up quite nicely. But I want to move it on now to specifically the ecosystem. Tron, the blockchain, how people are using it. If you look at metrics like stablecoin, USDT on Tron hit an all-time high of $83 billion. Why aren't more people talking about this? And how big is that metric?
I think people really underrate it. So basically the USDT on Tron has way more value than the TRX on the Tron network. So I think we can interpret this number in several ways. First of all, TRX is undervalued a little bit, but also I think it's a good indication that TRX is serving all the stablecoins, all the developers and all the issuers in the space in a very humble way. So basically I think we want every developer on our ecosystem to have more valuation than the infrastructure itself. I think Tether, like us, has just started. In the future, we want to collaborate with BlackRock, to collaborate with New York Stock Exchange, NASDAQ to bring trillions of dollars onto the TRON network. We want to be the network that can host tens of trillions of dollars in the future. So that's why I think right now it's just like a beta test.
In your mind, what is Tron's killer use case? Because it seems pretty clear to me that it's one of the best chains for general stablecoin payments and remittances. You've just said that you'd love to see trillions of dollars from big players like BlackRock and big institutional players in the United States like the New York Stock Exchange start operating on Tron. What's your big idea here?
Yes, of course. For us, we want to build the global settlement layer for every developer, every issuer in the world. Recently I saw the news that the New York Stock Exchange, NASDAQ is trying to build 24/7 settlement for the stocks on the exchange and I believe stablecoins will be a big part of it. Because if you want those stocks to be accessed by people in China, people in India, people in Europe, in Africa, I think blockchain is the only way. So people globally have this kind of 24/7 settlement in the future, that's the most powerful way to do it. So that's why we want to be the bridge between all the financial assets around the world. That's something we try to do, we try to collaborate with every player in the space because I think eventually it's going to benefit everyone in the industry.
