What TRON is, where to buy it, sell it, and how to store it.
TRON aims to create a fully decentralized Internet by facilitating a fully functional user-centric ecosystem.
It was built in response to the perception of users losing control of the Internet, under arguments that social media giants, advertisers and other large sites have taken control and that content creation is motivated purely by profit rather than artistry or real entertainment.
Its prices shot up at the start of 2018 to reach a market cap of almost $5 billion. Ironically, this enormous increase was mostly due to its announcement of new corporate partnerships.
TRON’s dream of a decentralized Internet, free of pure profit motivations, might be a long way off, but there’s no denying that the value of the coin is skyrocketing.
How to buy TRON (TRX)
If you live in the United States, you won’t find a cryptocurrency exchange offering TRON for direct purchase.
Instead, the easiest way to buy TRON is through a two-step process that requires an exchange with another cryptocurrency.
1. Buy some bitcoin or Ether.
Buy bitcoin (BTC) or Ether (ETH) through a cryptocurrency exchange. One of the leaders, Coinbase makes it easy for aspiring crypto chasers to purchase coins.
2. Exchange your bitcoin or Ether for TRON.
After your bitcoin or Ether hits your digital wallet, transfer them to an exchange offering TRON. Among your options is Binance, which charges some of the lowest fees available in the US.
Where to buy or sell TRON in the US
Exchanges where you can buy or sell crypto with USD
How does TRON work and what’s it all about?
TRON is all about creating a social-user ecosystem centered around content creation and having creators interact directly with consumers.
The idea is to cut out expensive intermediaries who just take profits and sites that treat their users as fodder for advertisers.
It also uses the blockchain to add transparency to the idea of popularity. Rather than having manufactured superstars, it lets everyone see what’s actually popular rather than just being pushed forward by record labels or other brands that manufacture celebrities.
It does this by putting a direct line between creators and consumers, while taking steps to ensure a lively and healthy ecosystem.
To this end, TRON developers have created a formula that determines creator rewards. This reward system takes into account the following:
- Creation. Simply creating content and thereby contributing to a healthy ecosystem is enough to earn rewards. More regular contributors will earn more rewards.
- Popularity and engagement metrics. Likes, shares, comments and other signals of user engagement or enjoyment will increase the rewards for content creators.
It also plans to offer tools to facilitate content creation. One example is by letting developers use the platform to create games specially designed for TRON or offering a range of new communication channels between users.
The TRX token is the native currency of the TRON ecosystem. It will essentially be mined by content creators, with their mining rewards being based on the quality of content they produce.
TRON’s stated goals include becoming the following:
- A high-quality content hosting platform
- A social network that provides a link among all users
- A digital currency to bridge users
- A payment network
- An autonomous ecosystem
TRX owners will also get voting rights on the platform’s management and decision-making. The goal is to encourage people to hold TRX for the long run, which should help shore up the currency’s value against inflation.
TRON developers expect that the entire process will take about 8-10 years to achieve.
What to know if you're already a TRON holder
TRON (TRX) is switching to a new blockchain and swapping out its tokens in June 2018.
So if you’re a TRON holder, here’s what you need to know.
Should I buy TRON?
As an idealistic project, TRON will inherently fail. Despite the promises of the blockchain, bringing the Internet’s content under the TRON umbrella will only centralize it, rather than decentralize it.
And even if TRON does manage to accomplish its ambitious goals, advertisers and existing media giants will simply migrate over to TRON in order to keep capturing an audience. In practical terms, there’s nothing inherently decentralized about TRON, despite its aspirations.
Some aspects of the reward algorithm are geared toward penalizing click-farming or other manipulation, but there’s no actual way to prevent native advertising, crowd manipulation or ugly mob mentality in the TRON ecosystem.
At a glance, the entire project might have little to recommend it, but looking at it from a more mercenary angle shows a different view.
Despite all its talk of decentralization, TRON aims to become a centralized content creation tool, hosting platform, social media giant and payment network all in one. This is an exceptionally lucrative and challenging business plan.
TRON’s idealism and talk of decentralization can be considered a branding exercise and a way of cushioning the impact from its ongoing development of corporate partnerships.
But is it enough? Functionally, TRON has little to offer other than a unique reward algorithm for content creation. Almost any cryptocurrency can offer similar transparency and be used by consumers to directly reward content creators.
If TRON succeeds, it will be based on the strength of its business chops and on its ability to disrupt the giant social media and online content platforms.
If it succeeds, an investment in TRON today might be like buying cheap Facebook shares. If it doesn’t succeed, then it will be about as useful as buying Dogecoin.
How to sell or trade TRON
- Find out which exchange platform you have your TRON in and visit that site. If your TRON is in a digital wallet, sell it by picking a platform from the list above.
- Transfer your TRON to bitcoin or Ether within the platform.
- Go on to follow the steps to sell or trade your bitcoin or Ether.