A Call for Independence
The time has finally come. May 31, 2018 (GMT+8) — TRON Mainnet Launch.
Today, I announce with confidence that development for TRON Mainnet, Odyssey 2.0 is complete and all materials have been submitted to Github. From this day forth, the TRON community will be able to download and run TRON’s official mainnet Odyssey 2.0 on the TRON Github page.
Link: https://github.com/tronprotocol/java-tron/releases
This is a milestone for TRON and heralds a new stage of development for the foundation.
It wasn’t easy to get to where we are today. It took the tireless efforts of the global TRON team and our community developers, working 12 hours a day, 6 days a week in a development sprint towards this goal. This was an outstanding demonstration of global teamwork and a pursuit of excellence. It was a sprint to overtake Ethereum’s 30-month development project in just 3 months.
TRON Odyssey 2.0 has accumulated 2,153 commits, merged 547 forks, released 15 software iterations, and added 102 new features. After 384 unit tests that ensure code security, 461 function tests, and a stringent code review, Odyssey 2.0 is now complete and available online.
TRON takes the crown for commits in Q2, totaling more than any other blockchain project in the world.
Compared to Ethereum, Odyssey 2.0’s TPS is on a whole other level, ensuring that protocol governance is democratic and decentralized. Providing a high TPS tackles performance issues at their source — issues that have long plagued the industry. It taps into the disruptive power of blockchain technology and lays a solid foundation for large-scale dApps in Q3.
Odyssey 2.0 launch is one small step for TRON, one giant leap for blockchain.
A successful mainnet launch opens the door to an independent TRON Protocol. On June 25, 2018 (GMT+8), TRON will complete mainnet token migration and shed our identity as an ERC20 token, becoming one of the most competitive mainstream public blockchains in the world.
June 25 will be TRON’s Independence Day.
Looking back on our journey, our hearts are filled with gratitude. It has been 276 days since we created our ERC20 TRON Token smart contract on Ethereum on August 28, 2017. In those 276 days, and with Ethereum’s help, we completed TRON’s first distributed financing round, set the foundation for our community, and cemented partnerships with mainstream exchanges around the world. Ethereum helped TRON take that first step.
At the same time, developing on Ethereum made the shortcomings of the platform very clear. Network issues have been a longstanding, rendering Ethereum incapable of supporting the newest generation of dApps. Ethereum is unable to effectively resolve community governance issues, limited by an authoritarian system dominated by the foundation and developer team. Ethereum users cannot leverage their tokens to vote and have a voice within the community. Ethereum’s archaic gas burn mechanism and high gas fees pose a significant obstacle for dApp developers, leaving them out in the cold. With TRON, every user can initiate 25 transfers a day for free. Creating a new account requires coin burn of only 0.1TRX, and transfers cost 0.001TRX. If you lock in a set amount of TRX in your account, both account creation and transfers are free! Developers can help users shoulder account lock-in costs.
Thus, we came to a realization.
We must detach from the Ethereum platform and become an independent protocol. We must, in real terms, support dApps with solid infrastructure. This is the only way to propel the industry into a stage of large-scale, rapid growth.
We must be independent. We must achieve an equal, democratic system, with democratic elections as an integral part of community governance. This is the only way to uphold the popular sovereignty and the natural rights of the token, a cornerstone of our value system around decentralization.
We must be strong. We must leverage the TRON ecosystem to support each and every DApp developer to achieve the TRON vision of a truly decentralized Internet.
Independence from Ethereum is our answer to the calling of the blockchain era. The time has come. We are ready.
[Virtual Machine] The first version of our virtual machine version was launched on May 25, 2018 (GMT+8). In the initial stages, we will be fully compatible with the Ethereum VM. Ethereum developers will be able to use Solidity and other programming languages to develop, debug, and compile smart contracts in a familiar Remix environment. We will launch the official TVM version on July 31, at which time developers will be able to fully utilize the VM to build applications that are on a whole other level than Ethereum. This will mark the start of a high-performance, decentralized ecosystem.
[Community] With 1.08M tokenholders, TRON is now the #1 token on Ethereum, leaving EOS with 360k in the dust, and far ahead of any other cryptocurrency. TRON’s mentions on Twitter and YouTube are ranked at #1, ahead of Bitcoin’s and Ethereum’s. My personal Twitter account has 448k followers, while Tron Foundation has 300k, with over 50M total monthly impressions. There are more than 3.82M TRON-related videos on YouTube, with an average of 1,500 new videos uploaded per day. TRON is also ahead of the pack on recently established platforms like Reddit (70k), Weibo (~1M), WeChat (100k), and Telegram (300k). We will continue our efforts on Facebook and Instagram, and strive to become the hottest crypto in the world.
[Developers] We have a variety of reward programs for our developers that include Tron Accelerator, Bug Bounty, hackathons, and programming competitions, totaling up to USD 2B in rewards. This is unprecedented in the industry, both in terms of reward pool and program features. These programs have attracted 42 teams from 14 countries/regions and hundreds of developers to participate in TRON’s Programming Competition, which had a reward pool in the millions. Together, they developed 16 blockchain explorers and 43 wallets for different platforms. Our community developers are the most active in the industry. Since launching Project Genesis, active users in the TRON developer community have been growing at an average of 30% per week, with 11k messages sent per month, 80% development-related.
On June 5, we will announce outstanding blockchain explorers, wallets, and other infrastructure apps from the TRON community. These apps will be ready to be tested by the community! We welcome all TRON supporters to download and use.
[Apps] DApps on the Tron Protocol are coming to fruition. We laid a solid foundation for system infrastructure with blockchain explorers and wallets for different platforms. We will also rally our 100M+ user base in Q3 and begin migrating from the traditional Internet environment to Tron Protocol. Notably, the top 3 decentralized exchanges on Ethereum, along with their top 3 game developers have all announced their intent to participate in the Tron Protocol developer community. We expect to integrate an additional 100M MAU into the TRON ecosystem in Q3/Q4, so stay tuned! We plan to complete basic infrastructure for a decentralized ecosystem in Q3 and are positioned to become the world’s largest decentralized protocol in Q4.
[Trade Volume] With a consistent trade volume of between USD 500M — USD 1B, we have stabilized in the top 5 of most traded cryptos. We are listed on 50 mainstream exchanges worldwide, activated 100+ trading pairs, covering 30 countries and regions. TRON’s independence from Ethereum has garnered the support of all major exchanges around the globe (see list in attachments), which allows users to enjoy a seamless migration experience. Even if you forget to migrate your TRX, there is no need to worry. Mainstream exchanges will provide permanent migration support for TRX, so your TRX is always safe. After mainnet launch and independence, TRX will be listed on major exchanges, boosting TRON’s status to the most traded and widely distributed crypto in the world.
[Team] TRON is hiring top talent from around the world. We started at less than 20 in 2017, and have now expanded to a global team of 200, with an average of 1 hire per day. Not only do our employees come from mainstream Internet companies like Alibaba, Tencent, and Facebook, they are also incredibly diverse, hailing from 7 countries distributed across 4 continents, with different language, cultural, and creative backgrounds, forming an incredible synergy within the foundation. We will continue growing in Q3 and expect to exceed 500 by yearend and 1,000 in 2019. TRON will be the fastest growing blockchain team in the world, and more importantly, one of the largest, most diverse teams out there today.
[Community Governance] We have received Super Representative candidate applications from over 60 teams, including leading computing service providers, exchanges with daily transaction volume in the billions, TRON DApp development partners, and self-organized Tronics teams, with great representation from all categories. I believe the TRON Super Representative Election on June 26 will become a gold standard for industry governance as one of the few blockchain communities with a legitimate governance system.
Blockchain to the power of TRON! We can’t wait to celebrate TRON’s Independence Day with you on June 25. Please participate in the June 26 Super Representative Election and help TRON become the first decentralized protocol governed by democracy, free election, and overarching legitimacy!
Every vote counts.
Justin Sun
