The Beginner’s Guide to TRON
If you believe that present-day Internet is as good as it will ever get, you’ve clearly never heard of TRON and its plan to “decentralize the web” and establish the base of “a virtual civilization of the future.”
TRON is a decentralized protocol initially built on the Ethereum blockchain , but which now is a stand-alone platform for smart contracts and DApps. It claims to be the first network in the crypto world to bring together entertainment creators and consumers in a global, open-source environment where they can publish, store and use content free from the control of intermediaries.
Access to TRON also lets you use Tronix (TRX), which is the platform’s digital asset. You can use TRX to pay creators for their content, and in turn, they can exchange them to other cryptos, use them for DApps or store them in wallets.
At the time of this writing, TRON was the second most popular platform for DApps , second only to Ethereum, and a highly promising venture for crypto investors everywhere.
TRON in a Nutshell
- TRON is a decentralized platform for DApps and smart contracts
- TRON was launched in 2017 by Justin Sun
- TRON migrated from Ethereum to its own protocol in 2018
- TRON uses Tronix as the platform’s exchange crypto and native digital asset
- TRON aims to make entertainment content easy to create, cheap to publish and almost free to access for users worldwide
- TRON has established dual headquarters in the Americas and the Asia Pacific
- TRON is the owner of BitTorrent and all of its products
What is TRON?
TRON is a decentralized, blockchain-based platform for free sharing and use of entertainment content. It is a global, open-source protocol that enables users to create, publish and store data without being dependent on centralized authorities.
According to its website , TRON aims to decentralize the internet and make it easier for content creators to monetize their products without having to abide by the regulations of external services.
TRON wants to create a direct bridge between creators and consumers through a peer-to-peer protocol that works through smart contracts and DApps.
By cutting middlemen like Facebook, Amazon, Apple, and Netflix among many others, TRON helps content producers to deliver their work to as many users as possible without creative or publishing constraints. At the other end, the network enables consumers to access a wide palette of entertainment content at a lower price and without the need for an externally imposed subscription.
Tronix (TRX) is the native digital asset of TRON. Users can buy it to gain access to the network, and later to exchange it for a broad range of platform services.
Similarly to how Ether lets Ethereum users create and access smart contracts on the largest blockchain-based platform for DApps, TRX enables users to launch their own ERC-20 tokens, create currencies and invest in decentralized applications.
The TRON network is expected to evolve into a stand-alone ecosystem where users can create and develop their DApps at a low cost, promote their businesses and receive financial remuneration.
On the TRON network, every participant (developers, witnesses and users) gets a share of the spoils. As the ecosystem develops and enhances the winnings grow and become available to those who commit to the TRON cause.
A brief history of TRON
TRON is the brainchild of Justin Sun – the first millennial to graduate Jack Ma’s Hupan University and one of the wunderkind er of the cryptocurrency industry. Sun is also the current CEO of BitTorrent and the former chief representative of Ripple for the Greater China zone. In June 2019, he famously bid $4.5 million just to have lunch with American magnate Warren Buffett.
Justin Sun started working on TRON in early 2014 and established the TRON Foundation in Singapore in July of 2017. In December of the same year, the platform launched its open-source protocol on Ethereum together with an ERC-20 token in the form of TRX.
On May 31 st , 2018, TRON launched MainNet, which was its first step in migrating from the Ethereum blockchain to its own consensus protocol that took place officially on June 25, 2018. At the same time, the transition saw the coinburn of 1 billion TRX.
2018 was a big year for TRON, as Sun completed the acquisition of BitTorrent and all its products in July, and launched the TRON virtual machine (TVM) only a month later. The machine works as an operating system aiming to improve the network in both size and quality.
However, 2018 also cast the shadow of doubt over TRON’s positive evolutions when accusations of plagiarism surfaced regarding the network’s whitepaper , and which came from Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin . TRON and Sun quickly debunked the critics and claimed that it was just a case of unintentional mistakes from volunteering international translators.
In 2019, Justin SUN launched the Sun Network , which is a DAppChain project aimed to operate on TRON with lower energy consumption, faster speed, and enhanced safety, providing unlimited capacity for TRON’s main network.
At the time of this writing, Tronix ranked 11 th in the top of the market capitalization of all cryptocurrencies on coinmarketcap.com . One token was valued at $0.016570, and the market cap was at $1,104,940,456.
How does TRON work?
According to its website , TRON has currently surpassed both Bitcoin and Ethereum in terms of practical daily use. This impressive achievement results from the system’s high-scalability and high-availability, which enable users to create smart contracts and DApps at a remarkable speed while also benefiting from an improved rewards distribution system.
TRON employs a 3-layered architecture for its processes:
The Storage Layer
On this layer, the system hosts its block and state storage. Through a graph database, it enables the processing and updating of all applications at a high speed.
The Core Layer
This layer hosts numerous modules including the TRON’s virtual machine for smart contracts, the consensus module and that for account management.
The Application Layer
On this layer, users can create, publish and host their DApps in exchange for TRX tokens.
TRON uses a rating called TRON Power and Delegated Proof-of-Stake (DPoS) consensus to determine which users vote to elect the witnesses for a transaction. Users can increase their TRON Power by holding as much time as possible to their TRX tokens.
TRON also has a development roadmap that stretches from its inception stage in 2017 and all the way to 2027. The TRON roadmap is divided into six stages:
- Exodus (Aug 2017 – Dec 2018)
- Odyssey (Jan 2019 – Jun 2020)
- Great Voyage (Jul 2020 – Jul 2021)
- Apollo (Aug 2021 – Mar 2023)
- Star Trek (Apr 2023 – Sep 2025)
- Eternity (Sep 2025 – Sep 2027)
By the time the Eternity stage finalizes, users should be able to create their own gaming applications on TRON. Content creators should also be able to publish, manage and sell their products easily on the blockchain-based protocol.
How to buy and own TRON
You can buy TRON and its native digital asset Tronix at cryptocurrency exchanges for other cryptos like Ethereum or Bitcoin. Some of the most popular choices include:
Where to store TRON
If you are keen to purchase TRON, you should first have a TRX-compatible wallet where you can store the tokens. You can have your choice between:
Hard wallets
Software wallets
Mobile wallets
The advantages of using TRON
- TRON enables content creators to publish, save and release entertainment products free of any form of creative control
- TRON uses digital assets to stimulate the enhancement of a creative community where content can be exchanged at a cheap price and free from the control of centralized authorities
- TRON lets users create ICOs by distributing digital assets and receive funds for the development of their products
- TRON suits the gaming creators that will be able to publish and distribute their products on a decentralized platform where their success will be determined solely by the quality of their creations
The risks of investing in TRON
Besides the slight disturbance caused by the plagiarism scandal, TRON does not seem to present any major liabilities. Going forward, there are very few risks of investing in this blockchain-based protocol that has already migrated to its own platform.
With the release of the Sun Network and the easy navigation on the preset roadmap, TRON announces itself as a promising project in the ever-expanding world of cryptocurrency.
Featured image courtesy of Shutterstock.
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