The TRON project is known for its strong marketing and scandals around the development. Nevertheless, they’ve been successfully listed on the leading cryptocurrency exchanges, created and launched their own blockchain, wallet and virtual machine.
So what is the TRON cryptocurrency — a mediocre overhyped project or a decentralized Internet of the future?
History of TRON
The creator of the TRON project is Justin Sun, a young Chinese entrepreneur, rated as one of the richest businessmen under 30 years, according to Forbes. Justin started investing in Bitcoin back in 2012, then he worked for a long time with Ripple, promoting their development and cryptocurrency in the Asian market. He is also the owner of the Peiwo app for audio streaming with an audience of 10M people.
But apparently Justin Sun decided not to stop there, and in August 2017, he announced the beginning for the TRON blockchain development which ought to become a decentralized entertainment network for the entire Internet, including social networks, video platforms, online games, virtual casinos, and other types of programs.
100B TRX tokens were issued to create a new cryptocurrency based on the Ethereum blockchain. On September 2, 2017, the public ICO TRON was completed, as a result of which 40% of tokens were sold and 15 000 Bitcoins were raised. There was also a private presale of 15% of TRON tokens, but the information about this funding round was not disclosed.
In the summer of 2018, the main TRON network was launched. Consequently, TRON began moving the tokens from the Ethereum blockchain to their own one. This process was supported by leading cryptocurrency exchanges. Also, at the time of recording this video, the TRON developers released their own cryptocurrency wallet and launched a virtual machine in the main network.
According to the roadmap, its development will continue until 2027, but the basic functionality is already completed. It’s also worth noting the smooth launch and transition to its own network. Justin Sun even promised a $10M reward for finding the critical vulnerabilities in the TRON blockchain, but this jackpot was not ripped off.
Scandals
However, History of TRON features unpleasant moments too. It all started with accusations of plagiarising White Paper, where whole passages were found to be copied from the descriptions of other projects. The blame was put onto translators who allegedly made a mistake in translating the document from Chinese into English.
This was followed by accusations of plagiarising the Ethereum code, from where they copied a number of files and simply renamed them. This time blaming the translators wouldn’t have worked, so TRON preferred to keep the silence.
Then, the TRON tokens fell sharply in price after rumors surfaced about the sale of 6B tokens from Justin Sun's own reserves. Justin denied this information and said that the project team did, in fact, transfer a part of tokens to several traders in an attempt to support liquidity. Well, it ought to be a coincidence then that the trader who sold such a large amount of tokens is also called Justin.
And another obscure story is associated with the Justin Sun’s purchase of BitTorrent. After the deal was officially confirmed, and Justin announced the use of this platform for the TRON development, several leading employees resigned from the company while the others will do so during the year, at the end of the current contract. So the continued existence of BitTorrent is now a big question.
Pros & Cons
The following points should be considered as advantages:
- TRON has planned a various interactivity with platforms such as social networks and video games, which in a long-term can attract a huge audience.
- Most of TRON team members include developers with experience in cryptocurrency companies, while Justin Sun is a well-known businessman and PR-lead.
- TRON can support several executed apps at the same time. Currently, the network can process 2000 transactions per second.
The cons of the project are as follows:
- The Blockchain is centralized. The network uses Proof-Of-Stake algorithm, while transactions are completed by a limited number of validators who can easily conspire together. One of those validators is Justin Sun himself.
- Token distribution is not transparent. During ICO, only 40% were publicly sold, while the other 60% were shared between Justin Sun, secret presale investors and the development team.
- Currently, only the first stage of the roadmap has been realized so far, which implies the launch of its own blockchain. The next plans are focused on turning the TRON blockchain to the decentralized Internet. And this part is gonna take a lot of time.
Prospects
The successful launch of the TRON blockchain has restored confidence in this project, but its further development depends on the successful implementation of the roadmap and the adoption of this platform.
At the time of recording this video, Ethereum and EOS process fewer than 10 decentralized apps that have more than 300 active users. This raises the question of why decentralized app developers should choose the TRON platform, and why would their apps be in demand among users.
All indicates that Internet users are simply not interested in decentralized apps. And until that changes, TRON will be one of those cryptocurrencies that can be traded on the exchanges and used for payments.
As such, the TRON cryptocurrency is likely to keep its place in the top 20 and may just return to the top 10. But to achieve great heights, Justin Sun is obliged to create a small miracle and change the worldview of Internet users. He will definitely try, but only time will tell whether it happens.