Justin Sun’s Tron plans to go public via a reverse merger with SRM Entertainment

Tron, the blockchain network founded by crypto billionaire Justin Sun, aims to go public with Nasdaq-listed SRM Entertainment via a reverse merger, according to a Financial Times’ report, which included that Eric Trump is expected to take a role in the firm, though Trump himself later denied he would be involved on X.

SRM Entertainment itself announced early Monday its strategic investment to jumpstart a Tron treasury strategy. The firm entered into a securities purchase agreement with a private investor for $100 million to “acquire up to an aggregate of 220 million shares of common stock at an exercise price of $0.50 per share,” the press release said. 

It continued, “The strategic investment, valued at $210,000,000 upon full exercise of the warrants, enables SRM to build a substantial TRON Treasury Strategy.”

The price of TRX, the native cryptocurrency for the Tron blockchain, has increased 3.2% in the last 24 hours, while shares of SRM Entertainment have skyrocketed, jumping nearly 300%. SRM Entertainment will change its name to Tron Inc., and Sun has been named as an adviser to the company.  

The announcements come almost one month after Sun said he was the top holder of the $TRUMP meme coin, getting him an invite to President Trump’s gala dinner. On top of his meme coin holdings, Sun owns a substantial amount of the native token from World Liberty Financial, a crypto venture that sends 75% of its net protocol revenue to DT Marks DEFI LLC, an entity connected to the sitting US president.

In February, roughly one month after the Tron founder announced he was purchasing an additional $45 million worth of World Liberty Financial’s WLFI token, bringing his total investment to $75 million, the SEC and Sun jointly asked a federal judge to pause the agency’s enforcement action on its civil fraud case against him, requesting the court to consider the interest of both parties as well as the public’s interest. 

In 2023, the SEC, tasked with regulating financial markets in the US, charged Sun and three of his companies — Tron Foundation Limited, BitTorrent Foundation Ltd., and Rainberry Inc. — for the unregistered sales of crypto asset securities and the fraudulent manipulation of TRX in secondary markets through wash trading.