What is Tron (TRX)?

Introduction to Tron (TRX)

With more than 50 million accounts as of August 2021, TRON allows content producers to own their own data and to obtain funds directly from consumers, cutting out middlemen such as the Apple Store and Google Play Store.

TRON is a decentralized, open-source blockchain-based operating system with smart contract functionality, proof-of-stake principles as its consensus algorithm, and its own cryptocurrency called Tronix or TRX. 

Unlike Bitcoin which uses proof-of-work, TRON ​​uses peer-to-peer (P2P) technology and delegated proof-of-stake (DPoS) as its consensus mechanism. Consequently, it is not possible to mine TRON, which has a total supply of 101 Billion. New Tron tokens are created as block rewards for elected Super Representatives who maintain the network. 

Who is behind Tron and what problems does it aim to solve?

Justin Sun (sometimes referred to as the “the next Jack Ma”) formed the Tron Foundation (a non-profit Singapore-based foundation) in 2017. Justin Sun is also the CEO of a file-sharing platform called BitTorrent.

The Tron Foundation set out to revolutionize the $1 trillion global entertainment industry but has since expanded its vision greatly to the entire Decentralized Applications (DApps) market. 

TRON seeks to “fix the internet” by liberating user data, and it could help bring about ‘Web 3.0‘ i.e. an internet without middlemen, where creators have complete ownership over what they produce.

More about Tron 

During 2021 TRON’s CEO Justin Sun will serve as an advisor to the National Development and Reform Commission of the People’s Republic of China and promote the development of China’s information industry from the blockchain field.

TRON appears to have the support of influential Chinese business people such as Hitters Xu (founder of Nebulas), Tang Binsen (founder of mobile game Clash of Kings), Xue Manzi, Chaoyong Wang (founder of China Equity Group), Dai Wei. 

TRON’s Chief Technology Officer (CTO) is Alibaba alumnus Lucien Chen, and

Where to Buy TRX

You can trade TRX on exchanges such as Liquid & Binance.

Buy the TRX ETN

You can get exposure to the performance of the native cryptocurrency of the Tron foundation by buying the Deutsche Boerse listed VanEck Vectors TRON exchange-traded note (ETN) here.

Where to Store TRX

The Tron Foundation recommends you store TRX on TronLink and TronWallet.  As TRX is an ERC-20 token so you can store it on hardware wallets that support the Ethereum blockchain such as Trezor or Ledger Nano S, or even on MyEtherWallet (MEW).  

The Future of Tron

In November 2019 the Tron Foundation entered a partnership with Samsung allowing the Samsung Galaxy S10 users to access TRON DApps from their phones.

By the end of 2020 TRON had over 1,400 dApps with over 100,000 daily active users generating a daily transaction volume of over $12 million. 

TRON has ‘gasless’ Dapps for the decentralized finance (DeFi) space (although some question whether the Dapps are truly decentralized)  like Justlend and JustSwap that allows the ‘instant exchange between TRC-20 tokens for traders. 

The former co-founder and former CTO left the project citing the excessive centralization of TRON. 

TRON is a work in progress with many phases of the project planned. The TRON developers hub is here

Where to find out more about Tron

You can find out more about Tron and the TRX token on their website.