TRON is an ambitious project trying to “heal” the internet by implementing the infrastructures for a genuinely decentralized Internet. It is a high throughput blockchain based decentralized app (dApp) and smart contract platform that is highly scalable and widely available. TRON aims to build a free, global content entertainment ecosystem that bridges the content creators and consumers.

TRON has positioned itself to compete with major content publishing and sharing site like Netflix, Youtube, and Spotify where content creators have to deal with the “middle man” and are forced to comply with the rules they set. Those sites have the full control of how much they would pay the creators or even if they would pay you at all. The “Youtube Adpocalypse” that took place in 2017 is an excellent example of what can potentially happen to content creators when such platforms decide to alter the rules without consulting the community.

Unlike those centralized platforms, the ultimate goal of TRON is to build a distributed digital content sharing ecosystem that is self-sufficient, accessible by everyone, low cost, and free of censorship. By leveraging both blockchain and peer-to-peer technologies, TRON enables every content creators to publish and monetize their contents on the blockchain. Consumers will be able to pay content creators directly via TRON’s token, Tronix (TRX), to promote fast and low-cost settlement.

Industry Outlook

TRON has aimed to disrupt the digital entertainment industry which will see significant growth in the coming years. By the year 2022, the forecasted market size of the global media and entertainment industry will reach US$2.4 trillion, a stunning growth from US$1.9 trillion in 2017. Notably, the digital revenue, where TRON focuses on, is projected to make up more than 50% of the industry’s income in 2018, and the percentage will continue to grow.

Considered TRON’s competitors, Youtube, Netflix, and Spotify are taking full advantage of such a lucrative industry. They are valued at US$160 billion, US$141 billion, and US$26.9 billion, respectively. However, those platforms do not pay the creators well. For example, Spotify only pays an average of $0.00397 per stream to its artists. This pay rate means if an artist’s contents were streamed a million times in a year, he or she would only receive $3,970 that year, or just $330 a month. As for the video platform Youtube, it takes away 45% of creators’ advertisement revenue. Youtube will even refuse to let creators monetize their videos if their channels are too small by the website’s standards. Similarly, Netflix will only put your content on their platform only when they believe it will benefit them financially, and they only work with major studios most of the time. Put it simply, those platforms have the power to decide who can publish, and how much they will pay the content creators if they choose to pay at all.

As opposed to reaching into content creators’ wallet and censoring contents, TRON has a no “middle man” ideology which is undoubtedly much more preferable by content creators. For that reason, TRON has the potential to take away a large chunk of business from industry giants like Youtube and Spotify. With a current market cap of merely US$3.2 billion, TRON still has a lot of room left to grow. Upon completion, with the possibility of 10,000 TPS, TRON will be a blockchain ecosystem that is highly functional, scalable, self-sufficient, and most importantly, it will be operating in an industry that will continue to grow in the foreseeable future.

Consensus Algorithm

TRON’s mainnet was launched on May 31st, 2018 and it is currently undergoing a series of testing to assure a smooth “Independence Day” on June 25th when the Genesis block will be produced. TRON utilizes Delegated Proof of Stake as its consensus algorithm and requires 27 Super Representatives (SR) to secure the network. The first 27 SRs named Genesis Representatives will be determined by a set of predetermined criteria set by TRON Foundation. TRON Foundation will invite all SR candidates to participate in a rehearsal and measure the performance of all candidates. The top 27 ranked candidates will be appointed as the Genesis Representatives to produce the Genesis Block.

Once the Genesis Block has been created, the community will take over the election process, a day later on June 26th, and vote for SRs using their locked TRX. The locked TRX are referred to as TRON Power (TP), and only TP has the voting power in the system. Also, it is not transferable nor tradeable. Voters can vote for as many candidates as they like, and as many votes as they desire to each candidate; the number of votes is only limited to the amount of TP in their account. Elections will be held every 6 hours to ensure stability as well as flexibility. As elected guardians of the network, SRs play a crucial role in TRON’s governance structure.

To encourage SRs to stay active and retaining such important role, the network rewards each of the SRs when they produce a block. On DPoS blockchains, due to lack of mining, block rewards usually come from the inflation of tokens in the system. However, there will is no inflation on TRON blockchain before January 1st, 2021. Instead, the block rewards are distributed from the 34,251,888,355 TRX locked in the TRON Foundation. The amount of reward in US dollar, as of June 18th, 2018, is calculated as follows:

Block rewards: 32 TRX

Block time: 1 second

Time for each round of blocks (27 SRs): 27 Seconds

Seconds per year: 60 * 60 * 24 * 365 = 31,536,000

Round of blocks per year: 31,536,000 / 27 = 1,168,000

TRX per year: 1,168,000 * 32 = 37,376,000

Value in US dollar (as of June 18th, 2018): $ 0.0454 * 37,376,000 = $1,696,870

As calculated, each active SR is stand to make roughly $1,696,870 per year at the current market price of TRX. As the price of TRX fluctuates, so will the return. With such high reward, SRs are expected to rally more business and developers to the TRON blockchain, as well as consistently showing the community what they have done to improve the network further. SRs are not just income generation server rooms but groups of tech-savvy entities that are committed to the betterment of the TRON community.

Voting Guide for Super Representatives

It is time to walk you through the voting process. Please follow the following steps once the voting starts on June 26th on the mainnet.

Step 1

Visit https://TRONscan.org/ and click on OPEN WALLET on the top right, then click on CREATE WALLET. If you already have an account, please sign in to your account and skip to step 6.

Step 2

Use a strong password for your wallet then click NEXT.

Step 3

Click DOWNLOAD ENCRYPTED KEY and save the file in a secure location. DO NOT lose this file. Once the file has been saved, click NEXT.

Step 4

Save the private key for your wallet in a secure location. Print it out if necessary. DO NOT lose this key, DO NOT reveal this key to anyone else, and DO NOT share it with anyone else. Once the private key has been saved, click NEXT.

Step 5

Click on GO TO ACCOUNT PAGE button.

Step 6

In your account, please check that you have enough balance of TRX. If you don’t have any, you can transfer your TRX from exchanges using your wallet’s address. However, TRX itself does not have voting power; you will have to freeze it, thus obtain Tron Power, to vote for SRs.

If you already have Tron Power, please click VOTES at the top of the web page and proceed to step 10.

If you would like to freeze more TRX for voting, please proceed to step 9.

If this is your first time to freeze TRX, please proceed to step 7 when you have at least 1 TRX in your account.

Step 7

To obtain Tron Power, click FREEZE in the Tron Power section. Tron Power section is located at the second section from the bottom of your wallet account page.

Step 8

Confirm the amount of TRX you want to lock in the pop-up dialog box and click FREEZE BALANCE. Freeze TRX will lock it for three days, and it will not consume any TRX. You can unfreeze the locked TRX after three days and trade it on exchanges.

Step 9

In the Tron Power section, you now have an option to freeze more TRX or unfreeze TRX tokens that have been locked. To freeze more TRX, click FREEZE and repeat step 8. Once done, you can vote for SRs by clicking “vote for Super Representatives” link.

Step 10

On the voting page, you will see the time until the next round of voting in blue text. Your votes will be counted once the countdown reaches zero, and you can change your votes as many times as you want before that. To vote, click on the CLICK HERE TO START VOTING button.

Step 11

Click the green “+” button of each SR to add votes for those you want to vote. Once you have cast all your votes, click on the green SUBMIT VOTES button to finish voting.

InfStones’ cloud management platform and cyber security services can help secure the TRON network, and we are running for the SR. Please support InfStones, support the future of TRON.

Step 12

You will be notified if your votes are recorded in the system. Please remember, your votes will not come into effect immediately as they are intended for the next round of the election.

Conclusion

TRON has come a long way since its launch in less than a year ago. Its mainnet is still in its early days, but there is indeed a lot to expect in the coming days. It sets out to be a fast, scalable, and developer friendly blockchain that can benefit both the content creator and the consumers. With TRON’s goal of developing a platform that can be utilized for individual ICOs and easy conversions between tokens that are issued on its network but by different parties, we should see a much broader application of the TRON blockchain. With a clear road plan laid, the bold visions of TRON could come true in time. As we are approaching the independence day of TRON, we should remain optimistic about the future of the TRON blockchain.

Reference

http://www.businessinsider.com/morgan-stanley-values-youtube-160-billion-dollars-2018-5

https://medium.com/TRON-foundation/how-to-vote-for-super-representatives-d81d14d9743d

https://medium.com/tron-foundation/letter-to-the-tron-community-on-super-representative-elections-96f7ae205c00

https://www.statista.com/chart/13407/music-streaming_-who-pays-best/