There are few coins more polarizing than TRON. It’s a coin defined by its founder’s exaggerated claims, scandals and an ambitious idea lacking a product. The first proof of concept should be finished by March 31st, will TRON succeed or will it turn out to be all hype?
TRON is one of those coins that people love to talk about. Whether they’re angrily declaring it an audacious ponzi scheme or praising its merits to the moon, everybody has an opinion on TRON. This controversial coin aims to put multimedia and entertainment services on the blockchain
The coin is famous for its founder’s exaggerated claims and his been involved in a number of scandals over the past few months. The first release of any TRON software will be coming on March 31st. This date will finally prove to the world whether it was worth all the hype. The question is why is TRON so controversial and is it likely to live up to the hype?
A Plagiarized White Paper Has Caused Countless Problems
Tron’s biggest problem by far was the recent accusations that much of its white paper had been plagiarized. Users became angry when the realized that the TRON white paper had been copied almost word for word from a number of other cryptocurrency white papers, such as BitSwap.
Our original version of the whitepaper is in Chinese and we have a very detailed reference to the latest Chinese version. The English, Korea, Japanese and Spanish versions are translated by the volunteers. The translation missed numerous important details not just reference.
— H.E. Justin Sun 孙宇晨 (@justinsuntron) January 8, 2018
Tron founder, Justin Sun, didn’t deny the claims but instead pointed out that the original white paper was in Chinese. He claimed that the volunteer translators had simply missed the extensive referencing that had taken place in the Chinese version. The main problem with this explanation was that even in Chinese a lot of Tron’s white paper appeared remarkably similar to BitSwap’s.
The white paper debacle aptly demonstrated two major problems with TRON. The first is that even if this was not outright plagiarism TRON’s reliance on information created by other projects casts doubt upon their credibility as a truly new project. It also implies that much of what made TRON special might not actually be that unique.
The second is that the cryptocurrency’s founder, Justin Sun, completely mishandled a delicate PR situation. In fact many of the problems and criticisms of TRON seem to stem for its founders somewhat controversial marketing techniques
Justin Sun Has Been Accused Of Overselling Tron
While it’s true that most cryptocurrency projects oversell themselves TRON marketing takes this to a whole new level. Once again, much of the blame can be laid upon the shoulders of TRON’s founder, Justin Sun.
We #TRON are proud to announce the partnership with Baofeng group. Baofeng, aka Chinese @netflix, boasts more than 200 million users as a video portal giant and has achieved 8 billion CNY listing in Shenzhen stock exchange (300431.SZ). https://t.co/f9MJZcmSDD #TRX $trx pic.twitter.com/jZJF32mmvi
— H.E. Justin Sun 孙宇晨 (@justinsuntron) January 10, 2018
In January Sun announced a deal with Baefeng, often dubbed the “Chinese Netflix”. While it is true that this company is very important in China the deal announced by Sun is very misleading. The implication is that those 200 million users will be exposed to the TRON network as part of the deal.
As Inverse pointed out the deal wasn’t with Baefeng per se but specifically with their hardware unit. While this isn’t insignificant it doesn’t get TRON any closer to Baefeng’s video users, as Sun’s tweet implied.
Justin Sun’s habit of announcing and overblowing new partnerships and deals has led a series of unflattering memes and has undoubtedly played a role in the damage to the controversial coins reputation.
TRON’s Development Team Offer A Ray Of Hope
Many of TRON’s ardent supporters, and there are a lot of them, will implore critics to ignore the noise of social media and the action of the coins founders and just look at the tech. The problem with this is that there is still no product available for anybody to scrutinize. The White Paper debacle has created doubts as to whether the tech behind TRON is even that revolutionary.
Before we dive into specifics of what TRON is and how it works it’s worth noting that their developer team keeps the community well updated on their progress, and in multiple languages. This is good news, projects that communicate are far more likely to succeed than ones that have relative radio-silence. It also shows that TRON’s developers seem to have a better grasp of how to effectively use PR than their own CEO.
Generally we at AllCrypto are very skeptical of ICO projects that attempt to raise money without a project. Early investment in these projects requires a huge amount of faith and trust in the development team and are often little better than gambling. That being said TRON has finally begun to develop a product that they plan to release on March 31st. This beta release will largely determine the success or failure of TRON as a platform.
What can we expect to see on March 31st?
The Testnet was originally pegged to be released on June 1st but the TRON team stepped up the timetable and the release is now scheduled to go out on March 31st.
The launch date of the main net will be advanced from July 1st to May 31st. The date of #TRON test net will remain the same as March 31st. #TRON accelerates the launch of the main net — exclusive interview from technical team https://t.co/5qTLmc5ocY
— H.E. Justin Sun 孙宇晨 (@justinsuntron) March 2, 2018
The test net sets the foundations for TRON’s ambitious release. It will have all of the functions of a basic blockchain including running a full node, deployment of customized digital assets, sending/receiving a transaction, voting and checking data. This will be the base upon which the main net is launched in May. They will continue to roll out more features in version upgrades further down the line.
TRON developer, Lucien Chen, has compared the features of the new network to EOS. With the notable difference that while EOS is taking a broad OS approach TRON is hoping to specialize and create a better platform with a tighter focus.
The key thing to remember with the test-net is that this will allow TRON to migrate away from the ECR-20 platform it is current built on. It will essentially act as the first tangible proof that the TRON platform is fully viable. This is likely to have a major effect on the price of TRON.
TRON will probably see a bull-run over the next week
TRON has struggled to regain any momentum after a brief spike followed by a long slow decline in value. The hype surrounding TRON’s release was pretty intense even by cryptocurrency standards so it should not be surprising that the coi has dropped in value since then. Even so it has been a depressing time for TRX enthusiasts.
Tron has experienced a long slow decline since January 2018The run-up to release is likely to reignite interest in the coin which will likely see it increase in value. Whether TRON will be able to hold this value will largely depend upon the success of the test-net. It should also be noticed that TRON will be transitioning away from ERC-20 with the launch of the main-net and this could cause unexpected technical teething problems. This could potentially have a negative long term impact on the price of TRON but only time will tell.
One thing is certain, the success or failure of TRON truly turns on how well the launch on March 31st goes. If it works perfectly then the coin is likely to see a significant boost in its value as it will finally have a physical product to show. If there are any major teething problems then it could be enough to sink the cryptocurrency.
Whether you love TRON or hate it, March 31st is certain to be judgment day for the controversial cryptocurrency.