Justin Sun Announces Launch of the TRON Testnet ๐จ This article is 7 years old...
Justin Sun Announces Launch of the TRON Testnet
4 min read
Updated: Apr. 9, 2020 at 6:43 pm UTC
Photo by Raj Eiamworakul on Unsplash
On Friday evening, the outspoken CEO of TRON, Justin Sun, surprised his 400,000+ followers and went live on Twitter and Periscope to announce the launch of TRON’s testnet.
TRON is a cryptocurrency based out of Beijing, China, that is attempting to disrupt the entertainment industry.
The company plans to offer content creators a direct channel to consumers, free of intermediaries, while simultaneously protecting user data.
In its 2017 ICO, TRON was able to raise $70 million and is currently valued at $2.4 billion by market capitalization.
Until now TRON has been using the Ethereum platform as its primary blockchain in the form of the ERC20 TRONix token; TRON relied on its whitepaper to demonstrate the technical value of the project, which was embroiled in a plagiarism scandal.
Users and investors can feel a little more at ease as of today. In a Twitter address to the public, Sun announced that TRON’s testnet is officially live.
#TRON testnet is launched! #TRX $TRX https://t.co/0GHSLqnOhj
— Justin Sun (@justinsuntron) March 31, 2018
Beginning with the launch of TRON’s testnet, TRON is no longer dependent on the ERC20 TRONix token or the Ethereum network.
For the next quarter, Justin Sun’s primary objective is to migrate the 100 million users currently on TRON’s Ethereum-based network to TRON’s central system once it’s launched in June.
The testnet is an essential milestone in this transition, giving the project the necessary data to implement such a transfer.
The launch signals Justin Sun’s push to “become the largest blockchain dApp platform by [number of] users.” TRON claims that its upcoming scalable, easy-to-use, high throughput blockchain can contend with incumbent blockchain projects.
A more detailed plan for the transition to the primary network will be released in April.
TRON’s Grand Vision
In addition to the announcement, Sun went over the grand strategy of the project. In his Twitter stream, he said that:
“In the big picture, TRON’s vision is to decentralize the web itself.”
And covered reasons why decentralizing the internet is important in an era of Google, Facebook, Alibaba, and Amazon. His reasoning ranged from protecting user privacy to empowering users to commercialize their creative content.
TRON Plans to Oust Bitcoin and Ethereum
Following his grand vision, Sun went over a list of reasons why TRON would be able to out-maneuver both Bitcoin and Ethereum, claiming that Bitcoin is just “P2P money,” and that Ethereum is limited to smart contracts. This short-coming, Sun claims, would cause users to migrate to TRON en mass.
“We will persuade all of the dapplications right now built on ERC20 to migrate from the Ethereum protocol to the TRON protocol.”
Sun listed some reasons why TRON would surpass Ethereum, including:
- TRON’s alleged 10,000 transaction speed vs. Ethereum’s 25.
- TRON’s zero transaction fees vs. Ethereum’s average of $0.02 fee per transaction.
- TRON’s willingness “support and reward its community, unlike Ethereum”.
“We are confident we will build a much bigger ecosystem than Ethereum”.
However, after criticizing the Ethereum community in his live video address, Justin Sun sent mixed messages by announcing an airdrop for Ethereum holders.
Sun promised to airdrop TRX tokens to Ethereum holders in the coming quarter.ย Please note that this is airdrop is not to be confused with all of the fake Justin Sun Twitter accounts claiming to be giving away free Ethereum.
Other Key Features for TRON
Another key feature the TRON community is pushing for is “coinburn,” a process where the project organization regularly schedules to destroy its supply of that cryptocurrency.
Justin Sun confirmed that they would be regularly burning TRX tokens, a relief to investors considering that the TRON organization holds over 34 billion TRX tokens with a value of $1.2 billion at today’s prices.
TRON also had another important announcement โ users will be able to issue their tokens on the TRON platform, similar to an ERC20, at the cost of 1024 TRX. The tokens used in the process would be burned, further limiting the supply of the token.
Finally, Justin Sun went over mining and elections for the protocol. Because TRON was pre-mined and all of the tokens were created simultaneously, there is no mechanism for mining the cryptocurrency. Therefore, TRON needed other tools to incentivize running TRON’s consensus protocol.
Sun’s solution is to hold elections which select nodes to run the protocol and manage the underlying consensus mechanisms. These nodes would be paid out of TRON’s reserves.
TRON foundation will be responsible for the reward of the [consensus] block.
Overall, Sun announced a grand vision to the cryptocurrency community. He has continuously said that he plans to usurp Bitcoin and Ethereum from their position as the most valued cryptocurrencies.
“…we have a much bigger picture than Ethereum and Bitcoin.”
However, after today’s address, the market response was lukewarm. In the run-up to the announcement.
It appears that investors were expecting more.
For more information on TRON, including real-time price, market cap, and social media links, check out our TRON coin profile.
