Sun v. FDT: Behind the $456M TUSD Bailout

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Good Morning.

Market took a dump again, unsurprisingly, after Trump announced new tariffs on his “Liberation day”. As always, crypto is just super levered beta for macro markets at the moment. Maybe that will change in the future, but not anytime soon.

In Today's Email:

• What Matters: Sun v. FDT: Behind the $456M TUSD Bailout 🥊 

• Founders Highlight: Liangchen (David) Zhou of Noise 🔊 

• Deal Flow: HBAR Foundation & OnlyFans Founder Wants TikTok 🎯 

You read and share. We listen and improve. Send us feedback at marco@launchy.app.

TOGETHER WITH

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WHAT MATTERS

Sun v. FDT: Behind the $456M TUSD Bailout

State of play: Justin Sun has called for urgent reform of Hong Kong’s trust laws after alleging that TrueUSD (TUSD) reserves were misappropriated due to regulatory loopholes.

• At a press conference, Sun claimed he was forced to secretly bail out TUSD and warned against using local trust firms until stronger oversight is implemented.

• Sun provided emergency funding to stabilize TUSD after $456M in reserves became trapped in unauthorized and illiquid investments.

• Backing his concerns, Hong Kong lawmaker Johnny Ng acknowledged recent fraud reports and the need for better regulation.

In response, First Digital Trust (FDT) denied all allegations. CEO Vincent Chok said FDT followed fiduciary duties, acted under Techteryx’s instructions, and underwent regular audits.

• He admitted to being unaware of a familial link between two funds involved—one allegedly unauthorized.

• FDT said fund recovery is underway but delayed by KYC/AML issues and rejected claims that its FDUSD stablecoin is insolvent.

• Binance released an update on the FDUSD attestation report on April 3, which confirms full 1:1 backing.

Meanwhile, TUSD also faced unrelated issues, including the collapse of banking partner Prime Trust and an SEC settlement involving its former owners, TrueCoin and TrustToken, over misleading claims about reserve backing.

What’s next: The firm plans to pursue legal action against Sun’s accusations.

For builders and investors: Make sure your products are rock solid.

BUILDER-INVESTOR HIGHLIGHT

Liangchen (David) Zhou of Noise

Intro: Liangchen (David) Zhou is the founder of Noise, a programmatic liquidity platform for people to trade trends and narratives as assets.

Previous background: Before launching Noise, David gained experience across crypto governance, data science, and investing.

• He worked at HyperArc analyzing smart contracts and building dashboards, led governance analytics, and published independent crypto research.

• As Investment Director at 42DAO, he developed theses for DeFi and L2s while driving community growth strategies.

• David holds degrees from UC Berkeley (BA) and USC (MS Analytics).

The big idea: David through Noise aims to combine efficient market mechanisms and real-time data to transform global narratives into new financial instruments.

Take a peek at our referral reward at the bottom of this issue. Share this newsletter and receive our list of 500 crypto VC individuals 👇

INSIGHTS

Paradigm CTO Questions Solidity’s Future

State of play: Paradigm CTO Georgios Konstantopoulos ignited a heated discussion in the Ethereum community by questioning the viability of Solidity, calling it “problematic” and asking whether it should be improved, replaced, or abandoned.

• Some developers, including DeFiLlama’s 0xngmi and former Aptos exec Neil Harounian, supported exploring new languages to reduce costly errors in DeFi.

• Others, however, argue it’s too late to pivot and that improving Solidity’s tooling would be more productive.

• Michael Egorov, a long-time advocate of Vyper, supported moving away from Solidity, highlighting its technical debt and praising Vyper’s stability and safety.

Despite the debate, Solidity remains dominant, securing over $132B in TVL—vastly more than Rust or Vyper, which trail far behind.

DEAL FLOWS

HBAR and OnlyFans Founder Bid to Acquire TikTok

Deal flows slowed down this week - we saw $42M in deals 💼 

The HBAR Foundation and OnlyFans founder Tim Stokely, via his new company Zoop, have submitted a bid to acquire TikTok’s US operations, according to Reuters.

• The proposal, confirmed by the HBAR Foundation, aims to shift value back to creators by challenging Big Tech’s revenue models.

• Amazon is also reportedly interested in acquiring TikTok.

• Despite the news, Hedera’s HBAR token rose only 1.5% in the last 24 hours.

Deal flows in the past week:

• Bloctopus, $1M Seed Round

• Mahojin, $5M Seed Round

• Cambrian Network, $5.9M Seed Round

• Ambient, $7.2M Seed Round

• Beraborrow, $1M Public Token Sale

• Hana, $1.75M Public Token Sale

• bAI Fund, $1M Unknown Round

• The9 Limited, $8M Unknown Round

• Ultra, $12M Unknown Round

QUICK BITES

• Clanker earns $13M in 5 months.

• House FSC votes to advance stablecoin bill.

• Coinbase derivatives prepares XRP futures.

• Babylon to airdrop 600M BABY tokens in TGE.

• EToro and Circle are expected to pursue IPOs by 2025.

• Pitchbook: VC could invest $18B into crypto projects in 2025.

• 0x’s DEX aggregator expands to Solana with cross-chain support.

• Senate banking panel votes to advance Paul Atkins to chair the SEC.

• Spot Bitcoin ETFs see nearly $100M in net outflows as stocks tumble.

• Paradigm CTO sparks debate over ETH's Solidity programming language.

• Ethereum developers aim for the May 7 deployment of the Pectra upgrade.

• Reintroduced anti-CBDC bill passes US House Financial Services Committee.

• PayPal activates native Solana and Chainlink support for users in US territories.

NOTEWORTHY READS

• Donn’s read on demystifying TVL deal.

• Anagram’s read on the programmatic staking layer.

• Abdul’s read on positioning for stablecoin growth in 2025.

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Disclaimer: All the information presented in this publication and its affiliates is strictly for educational purposes only. It should not be construed or taken as financial, legal, investment, or any other form of advice.