Justin Sun’s Hyperliquid Clone on Tron to Feature Private ‘Dark Pools’

As Hyperliquid and Aster jockey for DeFi supremacy, Tron founder Justin Sun unveiled his own decentralized perpetual contracts exchange on Wednesday called SunPerp.

The platform is designed to subsidize users’ transaction fees, conceal order books and permission data through “dark pools,” and eventually connect to other ecosystems, including Ethereum and Solana, according to a press release.

Onstage at crypto confab in Singapore, the Chinese-born billionaire said the service, which is already in its public beta phase, offers Tron’s global users the ability to trade crypto derivatives that don’t feature an expiration date for the first time.

“We have synthesized the best practices of the industry, standing on the shoulders of giants,” he said, noting that the SunPerp’s introduction is a “direct response to the irreversible trend of capital migration from centralized to decentralized platforms.”

This year, Hyperliquid has notched strong user growth, while letting users speculate on price fluctuations with degenerate levels of leverage. Aster, which exists on BNB Smart Chain, has emerged as a recent challenger, and is backed by Binance founder Changpeng Zhao.

SunPerp features a similar name to SunPump, which debuted last alongside Pump.fun’s rise. The name is a riff on mythological character Sun Wukong, also known as the Monkey King, according to the press release, which highlights its Chinese roots.

“The audience erupted as Justin Sun announced the name,” it added.

SunPerp plans on offering users’ USDT, the stablecoin offered by Tether. As part of its initial phase, the platform plans on integrating with Ethereum, BNB Smart Chain, and Arbitrum, an Ethereum layer-2 network used to move funds to Hyperliquid’s layer-1 network.

Sun has warmed to other industry trends this year, including crypto treasury firms. He was brought on as an advisor to Tron Inc., a former purveyor of theme park goods that was headquartered in a communal working space in a Florida suburb. The firm’s shares have collapsed more than 80% from their peak in June, according to Yahoo Finance. 

Sun owns more than 63% of Tron’s supply, according to Bloomberg. Sun filed a federal lawsuit against Bloomberg to prevent the media giant from allegedly breaking a confidentiality agreement. The request was denied last month.

In a statement, Tron DAO, which has managed its associated ecosystem since Sun resigned as CEO in 2021, said the information that it gave to the publication was “inaccurate,” arguing that the matter will influence whether the industry will “be constantly smeared by outlets for clicks.”

The SEC started retreating from its securities fraud and market manipulation against Sun in February, while ending other legal battles as part of a broader shift.

Sun is a major backer of World Liberty Financial, the Trump family’s DeFi project. He was also recognized this year as a major supporter of the president’s meme coin. Still, the bond has frayed in some ways, considering WLFI tokens linked to Sun were frozen last month.