About

TRON is an EVM-compatible Layer-1 blockchain that uses the TRON Virtual Machine to enable the creation and deployment of smart contracts for decentralized applications. Its architecture features a Delegated Proof-of-Stake (DPoS) election mechanism, whereby a DPoS election occurs every six hours and 27 Super Representatives take turns producing blocks.

History

Justin Sun founded TRON Foundation in Singapore in June 2017 before creating TRON, the independent peer-to-peer network. ERC-20 TRX was launched in August 2017 as a placeholder token on Ethereum, during which the project’s ICO was held.

TRON’s testnet was launched in March 2018, and on June 25, 2018, ERC-20 TRX was officially migrated to TRON with the launch of its mainnet. Following TRON’s mainnet launch, the TRON Virtual Machine went live on Aug. 30, 2018, enabling smart contract capabilities.

On July 25, 2018, TRON Foundation announced the acquisition of BitTorrent, a file-sharing software provider, for $120.00 million. This acquisition further enhanced BitTorrent’s mission of “creating an Internet of options, not rules.”

On April 6, 2021, TRON DAO announced that TRX had transitioned from an inflationary to a deflationary token. This resulted from implementing TRON Improvement Proposal 51, which (i) set the price of one bandwidth or energy at 0.00014 TRX and (ii) limited the fee of a single smart contract to 5,000 TRX. On Dec. 4, 2022, TRON Improvement Proposal 79 was passed, modifying the fee for one unit of energy to 0.00042 TRX and the upper limit fee for a single smart contract to 15,000 TRX.

In May 2022, TRON DAO launched an algorithmic stablecoin called USDD that is soft-pegged 1:1 to the US Dollar (USD) using a mint-and-burn mechanism. When the price of USDD is below $1.00, users burn USDD to mint TRX, and when the price of USDD is above $1.00, users burn TRX to mint USDD. Notably, USDD has not been minted or burned since July 17, 2022.

On April 7, 2023, TRON upgraded to Stake 2.0, which separated staking and delegation into two separate transactions. Additional notable changes included removing the previous three-day unstaking lock period and allowing partial unstaking to revoke only the voting power of unstaked tokens rather than the entire stake.

On June 2, 2023, Justin Sun announced that native TRX had been bridged to Ethereum via the BitTorrent bridge and was now available as ERC-20 TRX.

On Sept. 27, 2023, TRON DAO announced a new partnership with blockchain-based AI project ChainGPT. The project plans to integrate with TRON and provide users with a toolkit for the easy deployment of smart contracts and NFTs on the network. Additionally, ChainGPT’s AI model will feed TRON data, enabling its chatbot to interact with TRON users. Several projects on TRON are expected to integrate ChainGPT, including DexCheck, GT Protocol, and AITECH.

On Oct. 25, 2023, TRON mainnet was upgraded to GreatVoyage-v4.7.3 (”Chilon”). Chilon is a non-mandatory upgrade that improves the development experience on TRON by (i) fastening the speed associated with node startup and initialization, and (ii) optimizing the performance of network infrastructure. A full list of changes associated with the update can be found here.

On Dec. 6, 2023, Justin Sun announced four key initiatives for TRON:

• Enhancing inscription support on TRON.
• Integrating TRON with BRC-20, a fungible token standard using ordinal inscriptions on Bitcoin.
• Launching a $100.00 million developer fund.
• Reducing energy costs on TRON to attract more users and developers.

In February 2024, Justin Sun announced the introduction of a Bitcoin Layer 2 solution and outlined a multi-stage roadmap for its implementation. At the same time, Circle announced that it is "discontinuing support for USDC on the TRON blockchain in a phased transition."

By March 2024, The TRON developer community released the GreatVoyage-v4.7.4(Bias) version, and has advised node operators to upgrade to the new version. By June, the version was further upgraded to v4.7.5(Cleobulus) successfully, adjusting energy costs, and improving the check logic of block messages.

In July, Justin Sun announced the development of a new solution for gas-free stablecoin transfers.

By December 2024, the GreatVoyage-v4.7.7 (Epicurus) was released. Key changes included migrating the pow operation from java.lang.Math to java.lang.StrictMath to ensure cross-platform computational consistency.

By April of 2025, the Canary Capital Group LLC filed a Form S-1 with the SEC for the Canary Staked TRX ETF.

In May 2025, the GreatVoyage-v4.8.0(Kant) was released. Furthermore, by May, the Chainlink and TRON teams announced the Chainlink Data Feeds came live on TRON as the network's official data oracle solution.

Between June and July of 2025, Tron prepared to go public on the Nasdaq exchange via a reverse merger with Nasdaq-listed SRM Entertainment in a deal orchestrated by Dominari Securities. By July, SRM Entertainment announced a corporate name change from SRM Entertainment, Inc. to Tron Inc. The company began trading under the new ticker symbol “TRON” on the Nasdaq Exchange in Jul. 17, while retaining its existing CUSIP number 85237B101.

In October, a native WBTC was brought to Tron, adding over $10M in BTC liquidity.

In November 2025, Dubai court froze $456M linked to Justin Sun’s bailout of TrueUSD issuer Techteryx. The freeze followed a regulatory scrutiny over the stability and backing of stablecoins like TrueUSD.