Poloniex and the $1.3B bitcoin question

0:00headline, Poloniex, and the $1.3 billion bitcoin question, published at 8.41 pm March 17th, 2026. Justin's son owned Poloniex, has announced fee-free trading for any user who enrolls in its Poloniex super membership, which currently offers 30 days worth of fee-free, spot, margin, and futures trading. Poloniex has yet to announce what this membership will cost once the 30-day period has elapsed, though it does mention that after the trial period ends, you will be automatically enrolled in the basic super plan by default. This product announcement has led users to ask how Poloniex will make money without fees. Son quickly explained that Poloniex has no need to make more money because we already made enough from the bitcoin, BTC, we bought in 2012. Poloniex was founded in 2014,

1:06and therefore couldn't possibly purchase any BTC in 2012, so presumably son is referring to BTC, he purchased. This statement that Poloniex can continue to operate based only on these profits, brings to the forefront concerns about how Poloniex has managed the BTC in its reserves. In 2020, Poloniex offered a new product, which it described at different times as BTC on Tron, and BTC-T-R-O-N. This initial announcement described BTC-T-R-O-N as a type of wrapped BTC token that exists on the Tron blockchain. Poloniex's Help Center provides us the contract address for this token, TN3W, 4H6R, K2CE, 4VX9, YNFQHW, KENNH, J-O-XB3M9.

2:16Reviewing this contract address reveals that this token currently has a circulating supply of $17,545 BTC worth approximately $1.3 billion. Disturbingly, Poloniex's so-called proof of reserves claims that Poloniex has a balance of only 11,090 BTC in its entire reserves, and 11,082 of those are user balance. This is insufficient to reserve this tokenized BTC product. Proto's has previously repeatedly reached out to Poloniex during our past reporting on this product, and it has never been willing to provide the addresses that hold the BTC for this tokenized product. We attempted to reach out to Poloniex again, however, it didn't provide these addresses before publication. Read more. FTX estates as Justin Sun still owes it millions. Increasing the concern about this product is how deeply it has

3:21been integrated into another Sun-owned exchange, H-T-X. At H-T-X, typically there is more of this mysterious BTC-T-R-O-N product, which provides no transparency than real BTC. As of the most recent H-T-X snapshot dated March 1st, there were a total of 21,362 BTC on H-T-X. BTC-T-R-O-N accounted for 10,291 of those. There are also an additional 1,212 BTC that are in the form of Sun-Advised wrapped Bitcoin. As of March 1st, there were a total of 21,362 BTC on H-T-X. What this means, taken as a whole, is that Poloniex will not disclose where the $1.3 billion in BTC that is supposed

4:23to collateralize this product is located. Yet, despite that fact, H-T-X is willing to make it a massive portion of its reserves, all while Sun claims that Poloniex can afford to offer fee-free trading because of the appreciation in the price of Bitcoin. Perhaps instead of making grandiose claims about the value of his BTC, Sun should instead work on solving the apparent BTC shortfall at the exchanges he owns. This recording is AI-generated. Got a tip? Send us an email securely via Proto's leaks. For more informed news and investigations, follow us on X, Blue Sky, and Google News or subscribe to our YouTube channel.