Tron founder Justin Sun is one of the richest figures in crypto, and a good chunk of his bitcoin (BTC) is stored in one place: U.S.-based Valkyrie Investments.

The altcoin kingpin had more than $580 million of BTC stashed with the crypto asset manager at one point in August, according to a private financial document that CoinDesk reviewed. That amounted to over 90% of money at Valkyrie’s largest division, Valkyrie Digital Assets LLC, the document shows.

In other words, Valkyrie Investments, a money manager that pitches crypto products to Wall Street investors, mostly relied on Justin Sun, a controversial Chinese crypto billionaire. (The current state of Valkyrie’s assets is unknown.) Sun has also said he’s one of Valkyrie’s biggest shareholders.

It’s yet another example of centralization in crypto, an industry rife with whales carrying outsize clout, in spite of its decentralized ideals.

Sun’s relationship with Valkyrie popped up in ways that benefitted his empire. For example, Valkyrie built investment products for “Justin tokens” such as Tron’s TRX and BitTorrent BTT that other crypto asset managers say they avoid. It promoted Tron using the blockchain network’s developers’ own marketing materials. It even let Tron share its spotlight on Wall Street – literally – with someone wearing a T-shirt bearing the Tron logo joining Valkyrie’s bell-ringing at Nasdaq in September.

(by Danny Nelson)