Justin Sun donated $4.57 million via an auction for the Charity Lunch with Warren Buffett organized by Glide Foundation. Many are seeing Sun’s moves as an effort to bridge the distance between crypto space and skeptical Buffett.
Next month is pretty much anticipated as “THE” month, or “the month when one of the richest people on the planet will, or will not, accept the fact that cryptocurrencies are the future”. Of course, we are talking of a much-awaited Justin Sun‘s lunch with a billionaire Warren Buffett.
Just for a reminder, every year, Warren Buffett, the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, auctions off a three-hour lunch date to benefit Glide, a San Francisco charity that fights homelessness and addiction. At the beginning of June, after he won a charity lunch with Buffett, young tech entrepreneur and the founder of the cryptocurrency platform TRON and current CEO of BitTorrent, Justin Sun decided to play hard.
Some thought that he would organize this lunch somewhere in Asia, however, Sun decided it’s time for Sillicon Valley “capital” San Francisco to take the wheel. He tweeted:
I'm pleased to announce that this years eBay #PowerOfOneLunch with @WarrenBuffett will be held July 25 at @quincesf, a three-Michelin starred restaurant in San Francisco's historic Jackson Square. #TRON #TRX https://t.co/XZCt3lY8oI
— H.E. Justin Sun 孙宇晨 (@justinsuntron) June 27, 2019
In his blog he explained that he chose Quince because its food represents the traditional and the upstart — much like the participants in the lunch itself. Chef Michael Tusk agreed to create a custom, five-course menu that takes into consideration all parties’ interests (including ordering in cherry Coke).
Sun’s winning bid for lunch with the “Oracle of Omaha” was $4,567,888 – a new record by a wide margin. Last year’s lunch cost around $3.3 million. The question remains: Will the lunch be worth its price?
Sun is obviously committed to Bitcoin and the cryptocurrency industry, for which Buffett has shown nothing but derision. Just last month he called Bitcoin “a gambling device”. He said:
“There’s been a lot of frauds connected with it. There’s been disappearances, so there’s a lot lost on it. Bitcoin hasn’t produced anything.”
On the other hand, Buffett is pretty much pro-blockchain. Recently he said:
“People get their hopes up that something like that is going to change their lives, and it’s a very ingenious thing to figure out how to have a limited supply and make it harder and more expensive to create them as you go along and all that sort of thing but it doesn’t, the function … blockchain does not depend on Bitcoin.”
However, it seems that Sun has some Aces in his sleeve because he has planned a strategy. First, he plans to start a discussion by pointing out that some of the world’s biggest companies including Facebook, JPMorgan, and IBM each have their own respective blockchain and cryptocurrency projects. Facebook will probably be one of the good examples because most people, and Buffett himself, can relate to it. Second, he plans to focus on Tron and BitTorrent.
Sun said:
“I’ll talk to Buffett and other attendees about how we’re integrating blockchain into BitTorrent, with its 100 million monthly active users and what we’re doing to expand and nurture the TRON blockchain.”
Sun invited seven more guests to the famous lunch among which is Litecoin creator Charlie Lee.
I'm thrilled to invite my good friend @SatoshiLite, creator of Litecoin, to be the 1st guest to join my lunch with @WarrenBuffett. More friends to be announced!
— H.E. Justin Sun 孙宇晨 (@justinsuntron) June 16, 2019
Thanks Justin! I'm excited about this opportunity to meet a legend. https://t.co/L8uUv0yrXb
— Charlie Lee Ⓜ️🕸️ (@SatoshiLite) June 16, 2019
However this ends up, let’s just remind Justin of that old English saying that says :
“The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.”
We surely hope the food will meet expectations and maybe give Buffett some ease in changing his mind. Good luck.
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