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TRON Celebrates 5-Year Anniversary; All Set For Hong Kong Expansion

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TRON [TRX] mainnet celebrated its fifth anniversary with close to 160 million users since its launch in 2018. The leading public chain has so far processed over 5 billion transactions.

It also outshined the altcoin pack with a TVL [Total Value Locked] of $5.76 billion, trailing behind Ethereum.

In addition, it is anticipating the launch of the Hong Kong retail crypto trading platform which is scheduled to be on June 1 in accordance with the press release.

Following TRON’s anniversary, Hong Kong’s Securities and Futures Commission [SFC] will begin accepting applications for crypto trading platform licenses on June 1. As a top-tier public chain with a Chinese background, we promised full support for Hong Kong’s efforts to develop Web 3.0.

The statistics on Tether’s website showed that the amount of TRC20-USDT in circulation has surpassed 46.1 billion, much exceeding the amount of ERC20-USDT [36 billion], and making over 60% of the total supply of USDT.

Meanwhile, the TRON team is also working towards building a diversified stablecoin network and a sounder public chain ecosystem for users through its sustained efforts to grow the business of USDC, TUSD, USDD, and USDJ, among other stablecoins.

The TRON blockchain, led by crypto entrepreneur Justin Sun, seeks to increase its on-chain stablecoin market cap to $100 billion in 2023 and aspires to become the stablecoin users’ first option by promoting itself as “a more accessible and user-friendly version of Ethereum.”

“Against the ever-fiercer competition among public chains around the world, it has stood out with its second-to-none performance, scalability, and security, attracting masses of developers and users worldwide,” it added.

TRON was in the limelight recently after a security flaw was made public by the researchers at dWallet Labs.

TRON’s Major Security Risk Averted

In a tweet, dWallet Labs stated that they spotted a zero-day vulnerability in Tron multisig accounts, allowing an attacker to avoid the multisignature system and sign transactions with a single signature.

If left unfixed, the vulnerability might have risk $500 million worth of funds housed in Tron multisig accounts. This is due to the fact that it enables anyone to “completely overcome the multisig security offered by TRON.”

The solution, according to dWallet Labs CEO Omer Sadika, is straightforward: validate the address rather than the number of signatures. The issue was reported to the blockchain’s team in February and resolved a few days later, the researchers stated.

TRON Founder’s Hong Kong Expansion Plan In Jeopardy?

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The founder of the TRON blockchain, Justin Sun has been recently served legal notice by the US Security and Exchange Commission for illicit sales of the cryptocurrencies TRX and BitTorrent [BTT], respectively.

In response, Sun called the lawsuit lacking in merit and that the foundation would continue to create the most decentralized financial system possible.

A month back, Sun-backed Huobi exchange, announced an expansion of its operations in Hong Kong and planned to apply for a virtual asset service provider [VASP] license in the Chinese territory.

Since then, the crypto entrepreneur has resorted to praising the nation for its crypto-friendly policy.

The TRON founder continues to strike a confident posture saying that Huobi’s commercial plans in Hong Kong will not be affected by the U.S. civil fraud allegations. As per a Huobi official in a Telegram message, there were “no changes [in plans] for us.”

Despite the fact that Huobi was not mentioned in the SEC lawsuit, a local news outlet, Nikkei Asia, said that the U.S. regulator’s move would make it more challenging for Hong Kong’s Securities Futures Commission [SFC] to approve a VASP application by Huobi.

According to Joshua Chu, a crypto lawyer,” an allegation of past market misconduct may torpedo if not exponentially make it harder for a smooth application process, as envisioned as the [SFC] will be under notice to place extreme scrutiny.”

In addition, legal professionals who counsel crypto companies on license issues indicated that when evaluating VASP applicants, the Hong Kong SFC closely watches any enforcement action taken by regulators in other jurisdictions.

TRON Founder-backed Huobi Exchange Embarks On A Difficult Journey

“In the virtual asset service provider licensing framework, the SFC will also consider the regulatory status of a VASP’s operations and virtual assets listed on its platform in other jurisdictions, not just Hong Kong,” said Kristi Swartz, partner at DLA Piper.

“For example, a VASP must consider whether a virtual asset is subject to any pending regulatory or enforcement actions relating to its issuance before listing it for trading.”

That said, the TRON founder who has a majority stake in Huobi said Hong Kong’s heightened attention is a result of its standing as “one of the experiment zones for crypto development in China.” 

Besides the Chinese-controlled territory, Huobi’s other key regions for business are Malaysia and the Caribbean. 

TRON’s Justin Sun Posts Cryptic Tweet After SEC’s Lawsuit

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TRON Founder Justin Sun was served with a legal notice by the US Securities and Exchange Commission [SEC] for illicit sales of the cryptocurrencies TRX and BitTorrent [BTT], respectively.

The Chinese crypto entrepreneur and his firms Tron Foundation, BitTorrent Foundation, and Rainberry were accused of distributing billions of the above-mentioned crypto assets since August 2017.

As per the suit filed by the SEC in the Southern District of New York, Sun also engaged in manipulative wash trading of TRX to create artificial demand and keep TRX’s price afloat.

Sun accomplished this wash trading through his firms, SEC alleged. The regulator also accused the crypto billionaire of misleading investors with false claims on social media, in February 2021.

“To drive public interest in TRX and BTT, the Sun Defendants created a publicity campaign that involved paying celebrities, including Defendants Austin Mahone [“Mahone”] and DeAndre Cortez Way, among others, to promote or tout TRX and BTT on their social media accounts, which had millions of followers”.

Justin Sun responded to the lawsuit on Twitter by claiming that the SEC’s civil complaint is without substance and that the foundation would continue to create the most decentralized financial system possible.

The SEC’s civil complaint earlier today is just the latest example of actions it has taken against well-known players in the blockchain and crypto space. We believe the complaint lacks merit, and in the meantime will continue building the most decentralized financial system.

Apart from a cryptic Chinese tweet that read, “Big Pumps,” Sun had not provided any additional information as of the time of publishing this story.

TRON’s Native Token TRX Plummets By Over 16% In 6 Hours

The TRON founder was among several other individuals that were charged with illegally advertising his crypto holdings by the regulators, along with artist Soulja Boy and actress Lindsay Lohan.

Gary Gensler, the chair of the SEC, underlined in his statement that this case serves as a warning of the possible dangers that holders of unregistered securities may encounter.

The price of TRX has been significantly impacted by the lawsuit news, with the token’s value dropping more than 16% in a span of just 6 hours.

At press time, the 15-ranked token is still down by over 7% in the last 24 hours to trade at $0.06.

Justin Sun’s TRON Retains 2nd Spot On DeFi TVL

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TRON blockchain has maintained its second spot since Jan, ahead of BSC by $100 million in the latest ranking compiled by leading data tracker coinmarketcap.

Ethereum dominated the chart with over $28 billion total value locked, followed by TRON with $4.9 billion and BNB in the third spot at $4.8 billion.

Even though negligible, the margin is still noticeable. Tron has kept its TVL level while BNB Chain’s slight decline has helped it advance.

Justin Sun-led network flipped BNB Chain, which had been steadily declining over the previous few months, on January 2-3. In November 2022, BNB Chain had more than $6 billion in TVL, whereas, in the previous two months, Tron’s TVL fluctuated between $4 and $5 billion.

Interestingly, Binance’s stablecoin, BUSD, has lately been incorporated into Tron. Just one week after integration, the pegged form of BUSD has topped $101 million in TVL.

TRX’s greater TVL ranking could be attributed to higher network demand. Furthermore, it might lead to a long-term rise in demand and a positive perception of the network.

While TRON dominates TVL, BNB continues to lead in terms of protocol count, trailing only Ethereum. According to Defillama statistics, the former is home to 17 protocols, while the latter houses 561.

The BNB Chain, formerly known as the Binance Smart Chain [BSC], is a blockchain-powered by Binance that is community-driven, decentralized, and censorship-resistant.

It is made up of the EVM-compatible BNB Beacon Chain and BNB Smart Chain, which support a multi-chain ecosystem.

Having said that, the digital asset industry was just recuperating from the collapse of the crypto trifecta banks when another top European bank waved the red flag.

TRON Founder Proposes Acquisition Deal

Switzerland-based On March 14, Credit Suisse released its annual report, where it acknowledged “material weaknesses” in internal controls over financial reporting.

The following day, Saudi National Bank, its largest backer, turned down to provide a bailout, resulting in a decline of over 25% in the bank’s share price.

All attempts at preventing investors and clients to pull out money from the bank failed. With the help of Swiss regulators, the UBS group inked a deal of $3.25 billion to pump liquidity into the beleaguered bank.

As reported by TronWeekly, the TRON founder proposed to acquire the bank for $1.5 billion.

TRON Founder Optimistic About Asian Economy Despite SVB Collapse

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Justin Sun, the founder of TRON blockchain, shared his thoughts on Twitter about the effects of the SVB crash on the Asian markets.

Sun expressed confidence in the limited impact on the Asian economy following the collapse of the two main crypto-focused banks, the other being Silvergate Capital.

Previously, the TRON founder emphasized the value of stablecoins to the ecosystem and supported the notion of establishing a banking system to bridge the divide between conventional finance and cryptocurrencies.

During the weekend, the failure of the crypto banking trifecta had an impact on the market for digital assets, particularly stablecoins.

To recall, USDC issuer Circle recently admitted to having $3.3 billion reserves with the beleaguered SVB after the second-most liquid U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoin – lost its peg, dropping below 87 cents at one point.

Given USDC’s domineering influence, major stablecoin ecosystems followed suit in de-pegging from the U.S. dollar.

The supply of TRON’s algorithmic stablecoin USDD decreased as well, practically halving from $1.03 billion at the beginning of March to a little over $530 million as of March 12.

USDD reacted negatively to the USDC sell-off with a nearly 7.5% drop to trade at $0.98 at press time.

On the other hand, as panicked investors sought out alternatives, the other stablecoins surprised everyone by taking over the platform. Tether [USDT], the largest stablecoin in the world, now has a supply of over 40 billion.

According to Tronscan data, the supply of USDT increased significantly after Paxos stopped minting BUSD, the second stablecoin under pressure in the ecosystem.

Notwithstanding the repercussions, Tron published a blog post recently detailing the status of some of the significant projects that were based on the ecosystem.

Upcoming Projects In TRON Ecosystem

Blockbank, a platform for financial services, was one of the significant projects in the pipeline. TRON and Blockbank teamed up to develop credit cards that can be loaded with TRX and used much like Visa cards.

TRON team also talked about the Unifi protocol, a platform for smart contracts created to support the growth of decentralized finance [DeFi].

At the time of publication, TRX’s price had risen by about 12% on CoinMarketCap, with a staggering 116% spike in trading volume.

TRON Founder Sets Up $100M Fund To Backstop Liquidation

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Justin Sun, the founder of the TRON blockchain, has delivered on his pledge to send $100 million USDC at around 11:30 am Hong Kong time, into the Huobi exchange’s newly established liquidity fund.

After recent sharp declines in the price of the exchange’s native token HT, the move is an attempt to increase the HuobiGlobal platform’s multi-currency liquidity.

The trading platform was in the limelight after a research report published by Kaiko revealed that Huobi’s market share dropped dramatically, falling from 22% in 2020 to just 4% in 2022. 

Additionally, digital assets tied to China-born crypto billionaire Justin Sun experienced some of the biggest dips during the market’s major sell-off, raising doubts about what caused the drops.

In particular, TRON’s native token TRX and Huobi’s HT have fallen by over 14 and 20% respectively in the past 24 hours, data from coinmarketcap showed.

Sun tweeted that “leveraged liquidation on the market driven by a few users” was what led to the quick decline and subsequent comeback.

“We will continue to improve the liquidity depth of main cryptocurrencies and HT token, strengthen leverage risk warnings and liquidity capabilities,” Sun tweeted.

Sun’s close ties to Huobi have in the past given rise to numerous rumors, as the founder of Tron remained tightlipped about his precise position there.

As reported by TronWeekly, Sun was just recently publicly acknowledged to be more than merely a member of the Global Advisory Council.

In the latest attempt to broaden the adoption and usage of the TRX token, the team behind the project partnership with the Commonwealth of Dominica.

According to the official statement, the Dominica Digital Identity [DDID] and Dominica Coin [DMC] efforts will be run by TRON’s first Caribbean Digital Identity Initiative, which will also establish the Dominica Metaverse.

Another instance of a comparable pace of growth and greater adoption was also observed in terms of TRON’s network performance.

TRON Hit A New Milestone

In fact, TRON just reached a new milestone by completing 5 billion transactions successfully, demonstrating the network’s dependability and widespread usage.

TRX, however, performed poorly on the price front due to the market’s predominately pessimistic sentiment.

The 14th-ranked token has decreased by more than 12% during the past 24 hours, according to CoinMarketCap. Its price, at the time of writing, was $0.05.

TRON DAO Eyes Expansion In China?

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TRON team is reportedly jubilant over China’s apparent shift in stance towards the crypto sector. Justin Sun, founder of the blockchain shared a post recently where he cited China loosening its tight grip over crypto. He wrote,

China has taken a big step towards cryptocurrency regulation with the implementation of a tax on crypto transactions. The tax on crypto transactions is a clear indication that the Chinese government views cryptocurrencies as a legitimate form of wealth and wants to ensure its proper taxation.

Sun’s tweet came in response to tech journalist Colin Wu’s report on Jan. 25. In it, Wu revealed that Chinese tax authorities were investigating the nation’s ‘crypto whales’ revenue in order to tax their income.

Wu asserted that he had information from an unnamed whale that a local tax office had been in touch with the latter since early 2022, requesting an audit of its personal income tax. There are numerous individuals and a thorough list of the whales that have undergone inspection.

Wu also revealed that the audit process is still underway and that the tax inspectors are looking to apply the basic Chinese income tax rate to their earnings.

“The tax rate of property transfer income in personal income tax is 20% of personal profit/income, in the above specific cases, it should be 20% of the income from the fund.”

This, according to Sun, is an encouraging sign as China has imposed a ban on all kinds of cryptocurrencies since 2021.

TRON DAO has not made any official announcements

The TRON founder also stated that this new approach by tax authorities would boost cryptocurrency adoption in China.

As per him, “it provides a clear regulatory framework for individuals and businesses,” hoping “that the government will further regulate the crypto industry, providing further legitimacy and stability.”

Additionally, Sun emphasized TRON and Huobi’s “significant contributions” to “the growth and development of blockchain technology in China.”

As of now, TRON has not yet made any official announcements about its aspirations for China. However, the fact that it did so in response to China’s cryptocurrency policy shift reflects its desire to venture into a territory known for its anti-crypto stance.

Still, one can treat all of TRON’s potential interests in China within the spectrum of speculation.

TRON: Huobi Comes Clear On Justin Sun’s Role

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Justin Sun, the founder of TRON blockchain, has been revealed to be in charge of Singapore’s Huobi exchange, and not simply as a member of the Global Advisory Board.

In a blog post, the leading crypto platform stated that it was able to set off on a revival path due to “the leadership of Justin Sun.”

It needs to be recalled that the TRON founder was reported to be the core investor of the crypto exchange Huobi.

Shortly after the revelation went public, Sun slammed the reports as “wrong”, denying being the shadow investor, TronWeekly reported.

The series of claims began when Huobi declared that all of the HuobiGlobal shares held by the fund of About Capital Management had been transferred to the controlling shareholder firm.

The principal investor in this M&A fund was “found” to be Justin Sun, as first revealed by WuBlockchain, who cited multiple sources to reach that conclusion.

Although he remains tightlipped on his exact role at Huobi, Sun publically acknowledged that he is “one of the biggest holders” of HT tokens.

The exchange also grabbed the limelight recently for news of staff cuts and the manner in which those were executed.

Huobi defended the move by saying that layoffs were done to protect the interest of the majority of employees and ensure that the company could survive.

“Otherwise, more people’s interests will only be damaged once the company collapses”.

Next, the exchange took on the issue of “Rat Traders”.

Rat trading is a form of front-running in which fund managers exploits personal accounts to buy shares cheaply, then sell them at a profit after purchases from the funds they manage have boosted their value.

TRON’s Huobi To Take Action Against Rat Trading

Huobi claimed that numerous accounts frozen for their unusual behavior are distinguished by their absence of activity during regular hours.

As per the firm, these accounts often exchanged ecology tokens and Huobi’s new tokens while moving money in and out swiftly.

Huobi noted in a statement that it had “zero tolerance for rat trading” and that “under the new management, it will continue to perform in-depth audits, hold accountable responsible individuals, and disseminate information in due time.”

Following recent developments, TRON’s Justin Sun told Reuters that he was ready to spend $1 billion of his own money to buy assets from Digital Currency Group [DCG], the parent firm of ailing crypto lender Genesis. However, he did not specify which assets he would be purchasing

TRON’s USDD Stablecoin Dips Lower Despite Drop In Withdrawals

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TRON’s algorithmic stablecoin USDD de-pegging got no respite despite withdrawals from Huobi slowed down on the weekend, Nansen data showed.

The crypto exchange was in the limelight following the revelation of cutting down its workforce by 20%. As reported by TronWeekly, Justin Sun, the founder of TRON and a Huobi adviser, finally acknowledged Huobi layoffs in a text message to Reuters after days of denying them.

Its native token, TRX slid down by over 10% in a span of just 2 days and is currently trading at $0.054.

Soon Huobi customers began withdrawing to the tune of over $60 million in just 24 hour period and have surpassed $94 million.

After declaring that the exchange was firing staff, TRON founder Justin Sun moved $100 million worth of his stablecoins to his cryptocurrency exchange Huobi as a trust-building measure.

A closer look into data from Nansen revealed that the funds were moved from Binance to Huobi, where Sun owns a controlling share.

The money was distributed using Tether and USD Coin [USDC] [USDT]. Sun stated that he sent the “personal funds” to demonstrate confidence in the Huobi exchange in a later statement.

Martin Lee, a Nansen analyst, commented that the move “might be to help with the increased withdrawals or maintain a level of confidence in the exchange.”

By the middle of January 8, the rate of withdrawals had fallen to a little under $12 million compared to the previous day, according to Nansen data, demonstrating the impact of the steps taken to increase trust. Weekly withdrawals were down to $84 million from Friday’s $94.2 million total.

TRON’s USDD Price Is Still Down By 97 Cents

The price of Tron’s USDD, which is meant to be tethered to the value of the dollar like other stablecoins, has shifted between $0.983 and $0.972 over the course of the last week, though. It cost $0.977 at the time this article was being written.

In contrast to Tether and USD Coin, Tron’s USDD is an algorithmic stablecoin that relies on trading incentives and collateralized storage of crypto assets to maintain its price.

Algorithmic stablecoins came under scrutiny from the general public after Terra’s stablecoin, UST, unexpectedly dropped and lost $40 billion in value last year.

TRON Founder Attempts To Calm Nerves As USDD Drops Below $1

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TRON founder Justin Sun has announced infusing more capital as the stablecoin project USDD is spiraling out of control. The tweet also came with a link showing a wallet addressed to him that transferred nearly $1 million worth of TUSD.

Sun also asserted that USDD is 200% overly collateralized by numerous popular digital assets.

The price of the TRON USDD algorithmic stablecoin has dropped to $0.97, losing even more of its dollar parity. This could potentially put unwanted stress on USDD-paired DeFi pools on Curve.

Currently, USDD consists of over 80% of the USDD/3CRV pool reserves under Curve Pool DeFi protocol, down from a previous figure of 86%. The depeg would have a negative impact on swapping other DeFi assets like DAI or USDC in exchange for USDD.

The token’s prolonged depeg has cast doubts over the project’s sustainability. Some even wondered whether the dollar-pegged asset would go down like Terra’s stablecoin UST.

Last month, the crypto community speculated that USDD might be unsafe to hold with regard to certain unusual activities around the Tron stablecoin.

When USDD lost its $1 peg then, Twitter user Lookonchain on Nov 14 alleged that $548 million of the $990 million in the USDD’s reserve disappeared.

TRON Stablecoin Project Is Doomed like UST?

The tweet was accompanied by transaction trails showing that the USDD founder, Justin Sun, transferred $550 million from the stablecoin reserve to three different addresses for loan repayment.

1/ $USDD is not safe!#USDD has been depegged since Nov 9 and has not returned to the peg!#USDD reserves decreased by 548M $USDCJustin Sun used the 350M $USDC in the reserve to repay the loan in #Justlend.The real Collat. Ratio is only 50%!Here is some evidence.

— Lookonchain (@lookonchain) November 14, 2022

However, drilling deeper, the online sleuth alleged that almost 99% of the TRX tokens in the USDD reserve were unavailable. The implication is that the collateral ratio of the USDD stablecoin reserve is only 50%.

Furthermore, blockchain data showed that the USDD founder withdrew $170 million of a stablecoin token from Binance to the USDC issuer, Circle.

The UST algorithmic stablecoin reportedly lost its peg eight months ago as a result of some malicious actors drastically skewing the liquidity pool that includes the coin and three others.

Later, LUNA, a sibling token of UST, would experience a six-week decline from its all-time high price of $119.18 to $0.00001675.