TRX(Tron) is an ERC20 token built on top of the Ethereum platform, has been the centre of the Cryptocurrency world in the last week after an exponential rise in the price.
According to the white paper, Tron is a multilayered platform containing the following:
1. Social Media Platform
2. Blockchain Platform
3. P2P based distributed storage system(aka Filecoin I guess)
It’s basically a blockchain based content entertainment system which allows you to distribute and publish data in the decentralized and autonomous form. As you see, too many keywords with no real product to see and yet it’s the 8th largest cryptocurrency in the world by market cap.
With a $13 billion market cap and no real product, one can not help but wonder if it’s a typical pump and dump scheme. Because based on the description in the white paper and on the website, it just looks like a Torrent on the blockchain, I am not sure if there’s anything else unique.
The current market cap also raises questions about the actual product like,
1. How would one exchange the TRX tokens for entertainment when there’s no product and users?
2. How does the platform handle pirated content?
As I understand the price rise is because of the following three reasons -> Marketing, Speculation and FOMO.
Marketing
Tron Network, the developer of the TRX token did very smart marketing by keeping the overall token very large and thereby bringing down the price of the individual token.
Speculation
There’s a lot of speculation in the cryptocurrency markets where everyone is betting on the next big thing and a cheaper token price helps in making exponential prices.
FOMO
As with any ICO or token, people who missed out on the Ripple train have been trying to find the next Ripple, something which can give them the massive 56,000% increase like Ripple did and the marketing helped to attract these users.
While the idea seems to be nice to have a distributed Netflix or a better torrent system where people pay each other in TRX tokens to access content from the user, the implementation and adoption would be a nightmare.
The Tron team seems to be aggressively dismissing any news of FUD and establishing a new San Fransisco office to help with the development, the idea that a decentralized content platform just with a white paper and $13 billion market cap sounds scary.
Time will tell if it’s a scam or a great idea people missed out on.