TRON Founder Justin Sun Sues Actress Jing Tian Over 30 Million Yuan

Lawsuit Over 30 Million Yuan

TRON founder Justin Sun has filed a civil lawsuit against Chinese actress Jing Tian and members of her family in a property dispute valued at more than 30 million yuan — approximately $4.5 million. The filing was confirmed by Sun's own legal representative, while the actress's side has lodged a formal objection; the case has not yet entered substantive merits proceedings, meaning no evidence has been heard and no ruling issued. Sun, 36, is one of the most recognizable figures in crypto: he created the TRON blockchain, a high-throughput network that carries a large share of stablecoin settlement volume and decentralized finance activity, and his public fortunes track the TRX market cap. His account of the dispute centers on marriage plans. Sun says he proposed to Jing Tian in January and then transferred 30 million yuan to her family under the traditional Chinese practice commonly known as bride price — a pre-wedding payment made to the bride's relatives that remains customary in parts of China. When the relationship collapsed, he moved to recover the sum through the courts rather than negotiate privately. The property-dispute framing matters legally: a claim structured as recovery of a conditional transfer is a civil matter, not a criminal complaint, and the burden sits on Sun to show the 30 million yuan was earmarked against a marriage that did not occur. Jing Tian's representatives have not disputed the existence of the case itself; their objection goes to the merits. As of Aug. 28, the docket shows the file has been accepted but the substantive phase has not begun, so both the amount in controversy and any eventual recovery remain open questions for the court.

Claude, a Fiction-Labeled Post and $50 Million

The dispute escalated into a public spectacle on Aug. 27, when Sun published a long personal narrative titled “My Girlfriend, Jing Tian” in a post on X. The text recounted private-jet travel, fertility treatment in the United States, a surrogacy process and payments it described as running into millions of dollars. Its most-discussed detail: Sun wrote that Jing Tian demanded an additional $50 million at the last moment, and that he consulted Claude — Anthropic's AI assistant — about whether to pay, claiming the model advised him against it. The post then undercuts itself: Sun appended a note stating the entire text was “fiction,” with any resemblance to real people coincidental. That means the $50 million demand, the AI consultation and the surrogacy details cannot be treated as verified facts, and no independent source has corroborated them; no verifiable wallet address or transaction record has been produced for the alleged payments either. In a subsequent interview with Chinese media, Sun defended his reliance on AI, saying he uses Claude for business decisions “worth tens of millions of dollars” every day and has the model perform regular audits of his companies. He did not clarify whether such decisions execute without human review or whether the audits meet professional standards, and when asked whether a Chinese AI model would have kept his personal affairs out of his business ones, he offered no answer. Jing Tian, 38, has denied the claims twice — once through her studio and once on her personal Weibo account on Aug. 28 — stating she has not sold, does not sell and will not sell her love for money, and pointing to the courts for resolution. Her studio separately argued that the publicity campaign sought to profit from the actress's reputation. Readers tracking the market in real time can follow live spot and futures prices on Bitget.

What the Docket Actually Establishes

For our desk, the load-bearing document is the filing itself, not the narrative around it. A civil property dispute exceeding 30 million yuan, confirmed by Sun's counsel and now contested by the defendant's side, is the only independently verified element; the case sits at the pre-merits stage, where the court will first decide whether the claim proceeds at all. Every headline-grabbing figure beyond that — the $50 million demand, the Claude intervention — originates in a first-person text its own author labeled fiction. Until evidence is entered on the docket, the verified number in this story is 30 million yuan, and nothing more.