protos.com
Justin Sun recently took to X (formerly Twitter) to brag about how much of his personal wealth he stores on his cryptocurrency exchange, HTX. The image he provided seems to claim that he currently has 28,613 bitcoin on the platform, worth about $1.7 billion.
However, the HTX ‘proof of reserves’ dated February 1 appears to show that HTX had a total of 21,651 bitcoin, approximately three-quarters of the amount that Sun claims to hold on the exchange.
HTX provides a tool that can be used to verify the results of the proof of reserves process. The ‘snapshot’ included lists the addresses considered for this analysis. The addresses that exist on Bitcoin that are disclosed in this snapshot are:
- 143gLvWYUojXaWZRrxquRKpVNTkhmr415B, which has a balance of approximately 1,094 bitcoin.
- 12qTdZHx6f77aQ74CPCZGSY47VaRwYjVD8, which has a balance of approximately 8,970 bitcoin.
- 1HckjUpRGcrrRAtFaaCAUaGjsPx9oYmLaZ, which has a balance of approximately 15 bitcoin.
- 1LXzGrDQqKqVBqxfGDUyhC6rTRBN5s8Sbj, which has a balance of approximately 830 bitcoin.
These addresses in total hold only approximately 10,909 bitcoins — around 38% of the amount of bitcoin that Sun claims to hold on the exchange.
The remainder of the bitcoin held at HTX is a wrapped Bitcoin product on Tron offered by Sun-owned Poloniex. Unfortunately, Poloniex refuses to disclose where it holds the collateral for these wrapped coins.
Poloniex proof-of-reserves and WBTC backing missing
Read more: Is USDC preparing for a Justin Sun sanction?
Taken at his word, Sun is claiming that he is by far the largest trader still willing to use HTX. However, claiming he controls more currency than the entire exchange disclosed at its last proof of reserves raises additional concerns about the quantity and encumbrance of assets at HTX.
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