Is TRON (TRX) a Scam Coin?

I have received quite a few requests from the community to do an in-depth analysis of the fake news and misinformation floating around the Web about TRON/TRX. So here it is!

Full disclosure: I do have investment in TRON, however my articles and perspective are NOT INTENDED to be seen as investing advice or guidance.

Invest at your own risk!

There’s a lot to cover, so I’m just gonna jump into it…
FUD #1: TRON has no product.
They do have a product. The source code has been released and is currently on GitHub.com being improved and updated frequently.

Tron Introduction Wiki can be found here.

Image from TRON GitHub Wiki.
According to the Wiki:

The consensus of TRON adopts a three-step strategy.

The first step is to adopt a Kafka-based technology system to implement a centralized consensus algorithm. The purpose of TRON is to achieve system joint debugging and functional integration.
The second step is to use Raft-based distributed consensus mechanism to realize the centralized and distributed leapfrogging. This step gradually improves the functions of network and distribution and lays the foundation for the eventual realization of a wide distribution with no logical center.
The third step is to realize the Consensus mechanism of PoS and realize the Byzantine Fault Tolerant Consensus based on the “Margin Mechanism + Epoch Confirmation” and the compatibility consensus between PoS and PoW.
TRON is currently open source code to achieve a consensus algorithm for the first phase of the center. The second phase of the distributed consensus algorithm is under development and testing.

The open source code is currently being worked on and improved on daily.

https://github.com/tronprotocol/java-tron

FUD #2: Plagiarized Whitepaper
Recently, reports were written claiming that certain sections of the English translated version of the TRON whitepaper were plagiarized from the IPFS and Filecoin whitepaper without references made to them.

However, copying of code in the crypto world is common. Almost every coin has a section of their whitepaper copied from another coin, with reference provided to avoid plagiarism. While it is not an excuse, it is important to note that plagiarism in China is common, it is not enforced as strictly as it is in the United States. However in the crypto world, it is still a point for concern and a matter that needs addressing.

Shortly after the rumor was spread, Justin Sun addressed the issue via Twitter.

According to Justin, the original Chinese whitepaper was translated by volunteers into different languages, including English. Due to this reason, many important details and references were missed or mistranslated.

In addition, the initial whitepaper that contained the plagiarized code was outdated and did not reflect the current code development being worked on via the open source on GitHub.

Since the initial Chinese whitepaper was the one that was translated, all copies of the old whitepaper were removed, and the newly updated and current Chinese whitepaper was released here.

This updated whitepaper now reflects the current state of development Tron is in, and contains no plagiarized material. English translations of the new whitepaper, along with an English website + TRX Dog game will be released soon.

Things to take away from this drama:

The TRON project is roughly ~4 months old. They are a Chinese team with majority of their investors from Asia. For this reason, their main priority has been updating their Asian investors. As Justin said in his tweet, they did not expect to have so many translated versions this early. With the San Francisco office opening soon, priority into English related PR will become much easier and streamlined.
Justin Sun was, once again, quick to address and dismiss any drama that has involved TRON. He replied in a very humble and sincere way, apologizing about the mishap while also “hoping to learn from it.” He handled the drama with Litecoin creator, Charlie Lee, in an equally graceful manner.

Justin Sun claiming TRON is always open for constructive criticism and advice.
FUD #3: No one in China knows Peiwo, does not have the user-base it claims.
Another FUD rumor that gained traction recently was that Peiwo, the 10 million user company created by Justin Sun, does not really have the user base that it claims. Evidence for this claim was to “Google it” for yourself and see that there was no proof of such a large user base.

The inherent problem that many fail to realize is that China does not use Western app distribution platforms like the Google PlayStore. They have various different platforms of their own. Just to list a few of them:

Platform One : over 1 million users

Platform Two: 2.5 million users

Platform Three: 2.1 million users

Platform Four: 465,000 users

Along with many more, too many smaller individual ones to list off.

People need to realize you can not compare and look up Chinese site analytics on Western search engines.

Some users even claimed that they were Chinese and had never heard of Peiwo. Assuming Peiwo DOES have the claimed 10 million users, that is only 10 M out of a ~1.4 BILLION person population. Crunch some numbers…

10 million users does not even equal .01% of China’s total population. It is not even remotely shocking that some random Chinese person on Reddit has not heard of it.

FUD #4: Justin Sun cashes out TRX shares
A rumor spread about a recently discovered Ethereum wallet selling over 6 billion TRX coins to different exchanges in the past 20 days. Claims were made trying to connect Justin Sun with this wallet account, creating a rumor that he was trying to sell out before TRON was revealed as a “scam”.

Justin responded to these claims via Twitter.

Justin stated that the accused wallet is not his and belongs to a private investor who assists TRON by maintaining market liquidity. During TRON’s private offering, large investors were invited to purchase up to 15%(15 billion) of all TRON coins.

Additionally, investigate deeper into the accused wallet and you will see that not only do they sell TRX, but they are constantly buying TRX as well. This backs up Justin’s claim that the wallet serves to increase liquidation.

The second piece of information that critics used to create the connection between Justin and the accused wallet was the wallets connection to a CryptoKittie account named “justinpets”.

Again, Justin Sun responded via Twitter stating that the name was merely an unfortunate coincidence. He states that it just so happens that the private investors name is also Justin, which the investor used when creating the account.

Finally, the official wallet that TRON owns, which holds 35% of total TRX coins is locked up until 2020. The wallet can be found here, where you can see that none of the TRX have been moved since they were first transferred there.

Remaining low-effort FUD
A few FUDers made low-effort, desperation attempts at creating FUD out of anything they could.

One of these was trying to downplay TRON’s announced soon-to-be opened San Francisco office, by claiming that the office is just a rented Hero City shared work space. An attempt at FUD that makes zero sense, since it is a common practice nowadays for new companies or startups to use shared work spaces.

In fact, Tim Draper, a billionare + crypto enthusiast uses Hero City as his co-working space/incubator.

Opting to save money by using a shared work space is a positive sign of money management, not a point for concern.

Claiming Justin Sun lied about working for Ripple.

A quick search using the Way Back Machine on Ripple’s blog website brings up this.

Justin Sun on Ripple’s 2014 Blog.
AND THAT’S IT!
I’m sure there are some points or critiques on TRON that I may have missed, please feel free to share them with me via Twitter. I am completely in favor of having well-mannered debates and conversations about these topics.
If this topic helped you and you believe it can help others, I encourage you to share it and spread the knowledge.