TRON, the blockchain platform that was developed using Ethereum and then announced itself a competitor, has opened a new investment fund – this time for video games.
TRON Arcade
The fund is called TRON Arcade, and its owners plan for it to receive $100 million over the next three years, according to CoinTelegraph. Reportedly, the aim of the fund is to “empower developers”.
CEO Justin Sun said: “TRON strives to tackle existing issues faced by the gaming industry by leveraging the open, transparent, and immutability of blockchain technology. TRON Arcade will play a crucial role in encouraging developers to join in our mission and provide the best blockchain gaming experience to users around the world.”
Usurper
TRON is a “global broadcast platform” developed on the Ethereum blockchain by Chinese national Justin Sun, who once worked as the chief representative of Ripple in China. TRON raised $70 million in its ICO, despite the fact that large sections of the TRON whitepaper had been copied from other projects. Sun has been very vocal about TRON’s superiority to Ethereum, and did not miss the opportunity afforded by the recent market downturn to stick the boot in:
In bear market, #Ethereum developers should migrate your token to #TRON immediately. 1. 0 transaction fee, no gas in #TRX. 2. Compatible to #ETH, 0 migration cost. 3. 2000 TPS. 4. #TRON dex listing. You can easily increase your token value 100% with High liquidity. $TRX
— Justin Sun🌞 (@justinsuntron) November 26, 2018
It moved to its own blockchain in June, an occasion that it dubbed “Independence Day“.
It differs from Ethereum in that it uses a delegated proof of stake consensus system, that is, that transactions are verified by a small number of nodes which are voted into that position by users. Justin Sun put himself up for election for one of these positions.
The TRON token (TRX) has a market capitalisation of $1.04 billion according to coinmarketcap.com and $1.5 billion according to its own website, where TRON also claims to be handling 2,000 transactions per second (a statistic prominently displayed next to Ethereum’s 25 tps).
In June, the token was accepted onto Indonesia’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange, Indodax.
Partnerships and acquisitions
In June, TRON purchased file-sharing platform BitTorrent for a reported $126 million, hoping to benefit from the site’s estimated 100 million users. The BitTorrent office was moved to TRON’s premises in San Francisco, and Sun said that he intends to improve BitTorrent by financially rewarding users that allow others to download files. According to its LinkedIn page, Sun intends a hiring spree.
In August, employees of BitTorrent reported a negative turn in the working environment, with several members of senior management resigning or being fired. One of the departures was the creator of BitTorrent, Bram Cohen.
Interestingly, BitTorrent was also elected to be a representative node.
Our team just got elected as one of the 27 #TRON Super Representatives! We are looking forward to playing our role in the network stability and reliability. Thanks for your support! @tronfoundation @justinsuntron $TRX pic.twitter.com/2v9qLubR7y
— BitTorrent Inc. (@BitTorrent) August 14, 2018
In October, Tron confirmed the signing of a partnership with Baidu, China’s answer to Google. Reportedly, the terms of the deal concern a “basic cloud business”, with the two entities using Baidu Cloud to develop blockchain products. This is a massive coup for TRON, because Baidu is an enormous company. It announced back in June that it was beginning a “blockchain transformation” with its own “super chain“.
In November, Tron launched an accelerator programme that will provide support for blockchain startups. It opened with a development competition, promising $1 million in prizes for the winners, who are to be announced at its first international conference (niTROn) in San Fransisco in January.
(Photo: Tron)
