Tron founder Justin Sun invested $8 million in DeFi protocol River, the project said Wednesday, positioning the funding as a strategic move to deepen integration across the TRON ecosystem. River focuses on cross-chain stablecoin infrastructure, enabling collateral deposited on one blockchain to mint a unified stablecoin usable across networks.
Following the announcement, River’s RIVER token rose about 24% within a day, significantly outperforming the broader crypto market. The rally pushed the token to new highs and lifted its market capitalization close to $900 million, according to market data.
However, analysts at CoinGlass flagged trading conditions around the move, noting that RIVER futures volume exceeded spot trading by roughly 80 times. Such imbalances, the firm said, suggest price action driven primarily by leverage and liquidation dynamics rather than organic demand, underscoring ongoing volatility risks in smaller-cap DeFi tokens.