Ever since Vitalik Buterin brought online the first blockchain-based smart contracts platform in the world, there’s been competition between decentralized application systems to become the cryptosphere’s leader in the area.
We’re still nowhere near mass adoption of blockchain platforms. The cryptoverse remains something of an arcane realm that interests mainly people with at least some degree of expertise in computer technology. That means that crypto projects which feature dApps and smart contracts (Ethereum, Tron, EOS, Cardano, and many others) still have plenty of time to fight it out.
The prestige is Ethereum’s. It’s the consequence of being the first one (very much like Bitcoin’s prestige is also, but not only, due to its pioneering status) in a new industry. But as Ethereum’s network has grown, it’s been plagued with problems that put doubts into the developer’s minds.
The network is slow, it lacks scalability, and the gas prices are relatively high. As Ethereum shows its weaknesses, the one project that has exhibited the potential to compete with it is Tron. That’s why some observers call Tron “the Ethereum killer.”
Last year, just as the crypto winter was getting colder, the Tron Foundation made one intrepid move. It bought BitTorrent, the file-sharing protocol which has been the world’s largest decentralized network for years now. Then Tron issued a Tron-based token (BTT) to power the BitTorrent environment and, sometime soon, the P2P service will merge into Tron’s blockchain.
Tron’s transaction volume is way higher than Ethereum, and it’s giving it a serious run for its money when it comes to adoption. Several projects initially deployed at Ethereum are moving to Tron because it’s faster, scalable and so cheap that it’s almost free.
Meaningful partnerships also make a big difference in any project’s success (just ask IBM and Microsoft, or Google and Linux) and Tron’s leadership (commanded by Justin Sun, the project’s CEO and founder) has worked very hard to secure many of those.
While several new strategic partnerships have been announced during Q1, 2019 (which still has about a week and a half to run) the highlights are surely those with CoinGate, Oracle, and Tether which will use Tron’s token technology and network to keep issuing its USDT stablecoin thus taking advantage of Tron’s token technology (TRC20), superior performance, and almost non-existent costs.
What is Tron anyway?
We’re glad you asked. Tron is a third-generation blockchain network. That means that it’s a decentralized network based on blockchain technology that is not solely focused on producing and supporting a digital asset’s existence, the way Bitcoin or Litecoin do. It’s also a programmable platform capable of deploying decentralized applications as well as smart contracts.
Tron has a very clear aim in mind. It’s lemma “decentralize the web,” says everything you need to know. Tron wants to disrupt the world wide web by turning it into a decentralized blockchain network.
Should it succeed, the web would radically change because central authorities such as Facebook, Google, YouTube, Microsoft, or any other of the big boys would become utterly irrelevant. Thus the web’s power would be back in the user’s hands, more or less as it was in the beginning when the web -was a tool for researchers and commercial interests had not discovered the internet’s potential.
And since we’ve talked about a prospective rivalry between Ethereum and Tron, know this: Tron came online at first as an Ethereum-based project. Then it became independent last June 25, when it launched its very own Main Net.
The Tron network is managed and operated by the Tron Foundation, which is a non-profit organization based in Singapore.
Tron has been snowballing in terms of the number of apps it supports, money (digital, of course) flow, daily transactions. Over the last few weeks, it’s become the world’s premier decentralized application platform by the number of dApp users. Dappradar recognizes 195 decentralized apps deployed over the Tron network, and about twelve of them serve at least a thousand users every day.
Last February 28, Tron deployed a hard fork to upgrade the network. New features include multi-signature addresses and a better account management system and interface which is designed to be friendly for prospective institutional investors.
The Q1 partnerships
Within the cryptoverse, partnerships with prominent players can go a long way. It brings attention and interest to a project, and it motivates users and developers to join the project in some way. Tron is successfully offering dApps that need a high transaction volume. The platform is exceedingly cheap for users. It’s scalable. It’s fast. And those are all things that Ethereum is lacking.
Earlier this year, Coingate let the world know that it would be supporting Tron’s coin (called Tronix or TRX). So now you can use your TRX tokens to have fun within the Tron network, but also to make payments to merchants through Coingate’s services.
Because Coingate is somehow more of a payments system that a crypto exchange (though it is an exchange indeed), this partnership is very relevant as it promotes TRX adoption in the real world.
Then, the ABCC exchange announced that it would support tokens based on Tron’s TRC10 technology. Here’s the tweet they issued:
Also this year, Tron held a summit in San Francisco. It was called niTRON, and it featured plenty of exciting announcements. Partnerships with Aurora, Pantera, and Steemit were on the agenda. And the cherry on top of the cake was naming none other than Oracle as a Tron partner. This is quite relevant because of two reasons.
Firstly, Oracle is one of the world’s most outstanding players in the software industry. Secondly, Larry Ellison (Oracle’s founder) is known to be very skeptic about anything and everything.
Except for Justin Sun and Larry Ellison, nobody really knows what this partnership is all about as no goals were stated at all. But it’s still an exciting prospect, and it could very well render some fantastic fruits in the future. The Oracle deal was in the works since last October, when Mr. Sun announced that a team from Oracle had visited Tron’s headquarters.
But Tron’s partnership with Tether could turn out to be even more relevant. Tether is the blockchain project that issues the USDT stable coin (a cryptocurrency which is backed by actual dollars, and not only its blockchain network). This partnership will see USDT launched as a Tron-based TRC-20 token, which means that it will be fully integrated and compatible with all things Tron. The new stable token is expected to come online by next quarter.
Final thoughts
Tron’s blockchain can manage a whopping transaction speed of 2,000 transactions every second. But Ethereum’s prestige is still, and many of their users remain in that network in spite of the problems it has. But many other users (former Ethereum users and developers as well as new ones) are opting for Tron because it’s just too good.
Tron is Ethereum’s worst nightmare as things stand. It can really compete against it and, possibly, beat it, and it already has more than two million users in its relatively new Main Net. At the same time, Ethereum remains slow, expensive, and lacking in scalability.
A hard fork was scheduled for Ethereum earlier this year, but it wasn’t deployed because the developer’s community realized in time that it didn’t work. So while Tron keeps growing, Ethereum’s leadership is seemingly doing nothing to face and overcome all the challenges it’s suffering.
If Ethereum doesn’t do something about this quickly, it could be in serious trouble. Prestige matters indeed. But even the greatest prestige can’t support a deficient product for very long.
Tron is more advanced in almost every regard: technology, speed, costs, and now, partnerships. So it has everything it needs to beat Ethereum once and for all. And when BitTorrent finally merges into Tron’s blockchain, Tron will be, by far, the world’s largest blockchain network, with more than a hundred million users.
So don’t be fooled if Tron’s price isn’t hunky dory right now. The project’s fundamentals are, and that will drive the price up sooner or later. Remember, Tron is not about the token, but about decentralizing the web.
Image courtesy of PixaBay.
Disclaimer: The presented information is subjected to market condition and may include the very own opinion of the author. Please do your ‘very own’ market research before making any investment in cryptocurrencies. Neither the writer nor the publication (TronWeekly.com) holds any responsibility for your financial loss.