TRON (TRX) is a blockchain platform founded by crypto entrepreneur Justin Sun in 2014. It is focused on changing the landscape of the media and content creation industry.
TRON helps media and content creators retain ownership of their work while being rewarded directly by consumers. With TRON, creators do not need to sell their work rights to big corporations to reach a large audience.
The TRON blockchain does not charge any fees for the use of the network. The network still supports as many as 2000 transactions per second despite the lack of gas fees. The blockchain is maintained through a consensus mechanism called Delegated Proof-of-Stake (DPoS).
In TRON's case, 27 Super Representatives are nominated to validate transactions and secure the blockchain. To reduce the possibility of such a small number of people conspiring to take down the blockchain, the Super Representatives are changed every six hours.
The TRX token is the native token of the TRON blockchain and is used to reward media and content creators.
Although it was created as an Ethereum-based ERC-20 token, it is now a purely TRON-based token built according to TRON's TRC-20 token standard.
Consumers use TRX to reward media and content creators on the TRON blockchain for their work.
Since moving TRX from Ethereum and the ERC-20 token standard to TRON's TRC-20 token standard, new wallets have had to be created for storing TRX tokens and interacting with the broader TRON ecosystem.
While the TRON Foundation hasn't released any wallets, several TRX-compatible wallets, such as Tronlink and imToken have been developed by members of the TRON community and third-party organizations.
TRX price and tokenomics
TRX is designed to have a maximum supply of slightly more than 100 billion TRX tokens.
Currently, there are 71.6 billion TRX tokens in circulation, with a little over 28.4 billion TRX tokens set to be released in the coming years, giving TRX an estimated market capitalization of $5.75 billion.
In its initial coin offering (ICO), 40 billion TRX tokens were allocated to investors, 15.75 billion were channeled to private sale buyers, ten bullion to the TRON Foundation, and the remaining 35 billion were distributed to the Peiwo app.
The TRON network burns coins to deflate the currency and rewards its users. However, the maximum limit TRX is not fixed and could be subject to change in the future.
The Super Representatives validate transactions and add blocks of transactions to the TRON blockchain. For each new block added, the validator who added the block is rewarded with 32 TRX tokens. Ultimately TRX is a deflationary token since its supply is capped.
All the remaining TRON tokens are distributed as mining rewards to the representatives securing the blockchain by validating transactions.
A recent addition to TRX's tokenomics is the USDD peg mechanism. The algorithmic stablecoin has shot up in adoption over the past few months after its recent launch.
About the founders
TRON was founded by Justin Sun, a Chinese entrepreneur in the crypto space with a business executive background. Before founding TRON, Justin Sun had worked in the crypto space as a representative of the crypto payments and remittance infrastructure provider Ripple.
TRON was initially known as Tronix and rebranded to TRON in 2017 when the platform became a blockchain, and the TRON foundation was created to oversee the project.
TRON started as an ERC-20 token on the Ethereum network. However, after alleged spats with Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum's founder, the ERC-20 TRON token migrated to its own blockchain after the mainnet launch in 2018.
The TRON Foundation was dissolved in 2021, and the project is now run and maintained by members of the TRON community. Sun continues as the official ambassador of the project.
Before starting with cryptocurrencies, Sun founded Peiwo in 2013, one of the biggest voice apps in China. The app is a mixture of Snapchat and a matchmaking site. It's currently functioning on the TRON network.
TRX developments
Over the years, TRON has been involved in various partnerships. In September 2022, Tron announced a partnership with crypto market maker Wintermute to boost the availability of TRX and other tokens on the TRON blockchain.
The partnership will see Wintermute become a member of TRON's decentralized autonomous organization (DAO), contribute to decisions on the future of the platform, and acquire TRON's stablecoin USDD directly from the blockchain.
In exchange, Wintermute will provide liquidity for TRX and other TRON tokens on decentralized finance (DeFi) services like Uniswap, making it easier for people to access these tokens and the TRON ecosystem.
In September 2022, Tron launched the third season of its 2022 Grand Hackathon, with $1.2 million in prizes up for grabs. The contest is open to all developers and features challenges along six tracks, including DeFi, Game Finance (GameFi), and non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
