Cryptocurrency exchange Binance has become a Super Representative (SR) for the Tron blockchain. The exchange froze 12 billion TRX and voted itself to become a SR. This resulted in Binance being the biggest player in the Tron blockchain by far. The company got 59.54% of all the votes, followed by Sesameseed with 2.52% and BeatzCoin with 2.16%.
A Super Representative like Binance gets to vote on the development of the Tron network. There's a maximum of 27 Super Representatives. These Super Representatives can be individuals with lots of influence or companies contributing to the network. TRX holders can vote by 'freezing' their tokens. After that they will receive voting power which allows them to vote.
Potential backlash
It's unclear why Binance made this move, even though the relationship between the exchange and the Tron Foundation has always been quite friendly. The exchange allows staking Tron on their platform since October 1st. Additionally Tron used Binance's services to launch their BitTorrent Token (BTT) last year.
Crypto enthusiasts consider the voting system for Super Representatives a proper way to spread out power. Now Binance has basically bought 59 percent of the voting power over the entire network. Their investment is 18 percent of the total supply of TRX, worth almost 169 million dollars. Without a doubt it can be considered harmful for decentralization of a blockchain when a third-party is able to buy itself so much power.
It wouldn't be the first time Tron is being criticized. However, most of the time it's CEO Justin Sun who's the guilty one. Justin Sun jumps on Twitter every opportunity he gets to boost his products, even though he has nothing to show for. On top of that he buys fake social media followers, all while bragging about the amount of followers he has. Earlier this year he even publicly apologized for his behavior, as he was self-promoting too much.
What's the Tron blockchain?
Tron is a blockchain-based decentralized platform meant for a global digital content entertainment system. They want to use distributed storage technology, and allows easy and cost-effective sharing of digital content. That's why they bought BitTorrent in 2018. That's why they launched BTFS this week.
Justin Sun and the Tron Foundation pride themselves in the number of transactions per second that the network can do. The newly launched Sun Network introduces the opportunity to run a side-chain, which makes transactions even cheaper. This is very interesting for software, like video games, that require lots of transactions to determine ownership.
Besides file sharing using BitTorrent, there are already some video platforms on the network as well. TronTV and BitTorrent Live are the best examples. The network is also home to some games, even though gambling is still the most popular type of game.
Posted from my blog: https://www.nederob.nl/2019/10/02/binance-now-super-representative-on-tron-blockchain/