An Introduction to TRON--The Future of the Global Entertainment and Content Industry

I believe that TRON is one of the best “Buy and Holds” in the crypto market today. Tron aims to create an entertainment system of free content using blockchain technology. TRON’s open, decentralized platform and distributed storage technology will allow creators of digital content to cut out middlemen such as the Apple store and Google Play store. Thus, content producers will be able to obtain funds directly from consumers. Today, most user data and traffic is controlled by a few corporations like Google and Facebook. TRON wants to place ownership of the data back into the creator’s hands.

This article, which is intended to be an introduction to TRON, will be divided into six key areas of focus:
Part 1: What is TRON?
Part 2: Founder and CEO
Part 3: The Tronix Token
Part 4: Features and Roadmap
Part 5: TRON Cons
Part 6: TRON Pros
Part 7: How to Buy TRON
Part 8: Conclusion

I would like to make two things known before I proceed with this article:

1. I own a stake in TRON.
2. This article should not be taken as investment advice. I am simply trying to inform readers and provide some of my personal opinions. Invest at your own discretion.

Let’s get to it.

Part 1: What is TRON?

From TRON’s whitepaper: “TRON protocol is the blockchain’s entertainment system of free content, in which TRX, TRON’s coin, is circulated. Its native economic system enables an unprecedented one-on-one interaction between providers of digital entertainment content and ordinary users. Therefore, content providers will no longer need to pay high channel fees to centralized platforms like Google Play and Apple’s App Store. Also, providers of content such as texts, pictures, videos, and broadcasts, will break the curse that popularity and hits cannot create cash.

With the strengths of social network and value network, TRON is committed to ecological prosperity. In relation to any community and free market economy, an incentive system that fairly and reasonably reflects the contributions made by participants is fundamental. TRON will attempt to accurately and transparently measure and motivate relevant participants and contributors using digital assets for the first time, thus enabling this content ecosystem.”

Part 2: Tron’s Founder and CEO

Justin Sun, founder and CEO of the Tron Foundation, hailed as “The Next Jack Ma,” has already led a very successful career in the consumer technology sector. Sun, who has appeared among the ranks of the Forbes China "30 under 30" in both 2015 and 2017 plus Forbes Asia "30 under 30" this year, was personally invited to become one of the first students of Hupan University. The university was founded by Chinese business magnate Jack Ma who has net worth of around $36.4bn. There were less than forty students lucky enough to be enrolled in this course, where Jack Ma himself is a lecturer.

Justin Sun became part of the cryptocurrency community back in 2012 with his first purchases of Bitcoin. A year later he joined Ripple and worked as the chief representative of Greater China. He helped Ripple with the successful completion of their first-round financing, which totaled $30m, and subsequently helped them become one of the world's top three virtual currency systems.

In 2015, Sun started a project called Peiwo, an app that is now one of the largest audio-based live show platforms in China, with over 10m registered users and around 1m monthly active users. In September the Peiwo app became the first TRON-compatible entertainment app and the first live show software in the world to support a ‘smart contract protocol’ of virtual currency, allowing those 10m registered users to benefit from the additional functions of virtual currency.

Commenting on developments, Sun said: “This is only the first move of TRON. Next, we will provide the infrastructure construction for entertainment systems around the world, including online casino and games. Additionally, API access will be provided to facilitate robust settlement services. Our first move, though, is for TRON to make the Peiwo app benefit from its blockchain network.”

Part 3: The Tronix Token

TRON’s official currency is TRONIX. TRON will own the following categories of assets extended from TRONIX:

1. TRONIX: TRONIX is the basic unit of accounts in TRON’s blockchain. The value of all other tokens is derived from the value of TRON. Those who wish to enter or exit TRON must buy or sell TRONIX. TRONIX’s total distribution is 100 billion.

2. TRON Power (TP): TP is locked TRON. Users can acquire TP by locking their TRONIX. TRON Power is TRONIX with voting rights, which means TP holders have more privileges in the ecosystem. As time passes, we’ll give TP holders more TPs as a reward, and the reward will be dynamically allocated. This means that those who hold and lock TP for the long term will be rewarded.
   Long-term investment in TRON’s direction is critical for the ecosystem to make long-term plan and not give up the pursuit of its ideal for short-term interests. Meanwhile, stakeholders enjoy the sustainable growth. Long-term holders can be the benchmark in the ecosystem and better lead the ecology’s development.

3. TRON 20 Token: The Tron 20 Token will hold value and allow individual content owners to make custom tokens on the platform, similar to the cryptocurrency Waves. It should be noted that the TRON 20 Token is not the same as Tronix, which is the medium of exchange on the platform.

While TRON will support all kinds of virtual currencies, TRX will be the official one. With this, all other currencies will have to be converted through TRX.

Part 4: Features and Roadmap

TRON seeks to provide relevant participants with the following infrastructures:

1. A High-quality content platform
2. Social network that provides a link among all people
3. Digital currency as a bridge
4. Payment network; and
5. Autonomous ecosystem

TRON wants to “Heal the Internet” through the following features:

1. Data liberation: free and uncontrolled data
2. Enabling content ecosystem where users can obtain digital assets from content spreading
3. Personal ICO with the ability to distribute digital assets
4. Infrastructure to allow distributed digital assets exchange (such as games) and market forecasting.

Roadmap
The 6 Different Phases of TRON:

1. Exodus--The first stage which is peer-to-peer storage and distribution. This is where users and creators can publicise and disseminate their data.
2. Odyssey--Economic incentives put in place to encourage content creation and empowerment.
3. Great Voyage--Individual ICO capabilities. This is where content creators can introduce their own cryptocoin on the network.
4. Apollo--Ability for content producers to issue personal tokens (TRON 20 Token). This again will be used to sell and buy digital entertainment on the network.
5. Star Trek (Monetizing)--This will be similar to Augur, with a decentralized forecasting and gaming platform.
6. Eternity (Conversion)--Developers will be able to achieve crowd funding for game development. Community investors can contribute to the game content creation.

Tron’s plan is essentially to consolidate the work of different projects and mutually exclusive entities into one encompassing platform.

Phase 1, Exodus, is scheduled to be released on December 29th, 2017.

Part 5: TRON Cons and Concerns

An important area of concern to be mindful of is that the TRON development team has a massive endeavor ahead of them. In particular, with the third and fourth stage of their road map, TRON will have to develop its own blockchain application platform similar to that of Ethereum with a Turing complete language for smart contracts. However, TRON admits it may face some of the same problems Ethereum, such as network congestion as a result of ICO launches.

A side effect could be that the network will not be able to properly vet/validate the trustworthiness of each of the vast number of unique tokens. Additionally, Tron’s whitepaper does not give detail to how Sybil attacks or exchange account hacks may be prevented on the network. It only briefly mentions the need for and planned implementation of a decentralized exchange for these tokens as an effort to mitigate some of these potential threats.

Ultimately TRON’s core technology will be based largely on the adaptation of IPFS and the Ethereum platform.

Part 6: TRON Pros

1. The Founder and CEO, Justin Sun, appears to be a capable visionary (See Part 1).

2. It is backed by some big names in China. The list of big names backing TRON include Tang Binsen, the founder of Clash of Kings; Dai Wei, the founder and CEO of OFO Bike, one of the largest sharing economy companies in China; Chaoyong Wang, founder of China Equity Group, one of the largest investment groups in China; Yin Mingshan, LiFan group founder and one of the largest motor manufacturers in China; and Yang Linke, the founder of BTCC.com. They are joined by Xue Manzi, one of the most famous Angel Investors in China, Huobi.com and Jubi.com amongst others.

3. The development team seems equally capable. In fact, on Dec. 26th TRON announced that a senior developer from the Alibaba team is joining the TRON team. (https://www.financemagnates.com/cryptocurrency/news/tron-includes-senior-developer-alibaba-team/)

4. TRON already has a large and strong community, thanks in large part of CEO Justin Sun’s previous ventures. In addition, some recent news came out on Christmas Eve:
   Singapore bike-sharing operator oBike will introduce its own cryptocurrency next year called oCoins which users can use to pay for their rides. oBike said in a statement that it will partner with blockchain platform Tron to officially launch oCoins in the first quarter of 2018, reported The Straits Times. “In a world’s first of its kind, users will soon be able to ride and earn thanks to the new partnership,” it said. oBike has operations in more than 20 countries including Malaysia, Australia and Switzerland and over 10 million users. oCoins can also be used to buy online content or on any applications that are on Tron’s platform, which is a decentralised online content entertainment ecosystem.

5. TRON has an advantage over its competitors, such as Steem, OmiseGo, Augur, etc. The reason for its advantage is because TRON can do what its competitors can do, but its competitors cannot do what TRON can do. TRON is the only crypto I am aware of that is ambitious enough to build such a comprehensive and reaching entertainment and content platform.

Part 7: How to Buy TRON

If you wish to buy TRON, I recommend you buy it on either Binance or Liqui.io. My personal opinion is that Binance is the better of these two. At of the time of this article being posted, TRX/BTC price is at about .00000233 on Binance.

Part 8: Conclusion

The global market for digital entertainment products has been estimated according to various sources to be worth approximately $1 trillion, split between lifestyle ($200bn), online betting ($500bn), online gaming (c.$100bn) and information sharing ($100bn). TRON has the potential to be a major disruptor in this market. They have been aggressively growing (its market cap is around $2.3 billion), but I believe that this could be much, much higher in the coming years. There’s a large number of influential members in the Chinese business community backing the TRON team. In addition, TRON also has a strong development team to support their endeavors. With a clear, long-term vision for TRX and the TRON platform, and with what seems like unlimited funding from investors, I believe TRON is one of the best “buy and hold” cryptos in the market today. However, this is in no way financial advice. Remember to invest responsibly.

Link to Whitepaper: https://dn-peiwo-web.qbox.me/Tron-Whitepaper-1031-V18-EN.pdf