Tron: Beyond the Hype

The Disclaimer: This is not financial advice. Just the observations of a mad cartoon without a clue.

This is a small list of good, bad, and the unknown and through it, hopefully we can get a realistic sense about Tron. I wanted to make sure to hit the most pertinent parts of this crypto and really avoid the hype. It's certainly not exhaustive.

Tron: The Good

• Justin Ma

Justin is pretty accomplished given his fairly young age. You can do a quick google search if your curious about them. I wanted to instead highlight an aspect of his personality that I thought was important. His willingness to defend his stake in Tron through Twitter and other social media platforms is, in my opinion, a good thing especially when you're building a product in an extremely competitive area. I'm wary of products in which the owners won't go to bat. Building a business/tech is tougher than people give it credit for and the willingness to fight for it is usually healthy. You see this with Cardano's Charles Hoskinson, EOS' Dan Larimer, and even Monero's Riccardo Spagni. Each one of them is willing to fight for what they believe in while managing the expectations of their product and not coming across as complete jerks.

• Cryptodoggies

Yes, it's basically a Chinese knock-off of an easily recognizable brand. But that's huge business in China. While most of the Western world needlessly turns its nose up at knock-offs, the rest of the world is buying. Despite what you make think, this is healthy. Apple's biggest rival Samsung, arguably, rips off some of Apple's more popular features and designs to the dismay of Apple fan-boys around the globe. At the end of the day, who cares if the end consumer is happy with their purchase? I'm willing to bet that Cryptodoggies won't be the success that Cryptokitties was. But does it even matter? If people are willing to use it... it's a success. Of course, only time will if it will be in the long run.

• China

China is no friend of crypto, that much we know. That said, any company that can find a way to navigate the political waters has a better shot at success. It's crony to be sure, but it's a truth about modern business. To that end, Tron, with its partnerships and Justin's friends in high places, it has the potential for success where other tech may fail. Sometimes the best tech doesn't succeed because it can't make its way through the regulations.

Tron: The Bad

• The Hype

Man, there's a lot of hype around this one. The result of which is that the price is probably more volatile than other similar altcoins. It's a shame really because it's attracting the wrong people to the show- namely the new crypto traders who buy and sell depending on the winds of hype and the shameful hype-men who use FUD and FOMO to try and fluctuate the price for short term gain. That also means it's scaring off solid investors who would otherwise give Tron a second look.

• The Partnerships

We have no idea if these partnerships will pan out. Furthermore, since Tron doesn't even have a working product we can't even say in what capacity these companies will be partnering. This is bad. Any savvy salesman can go out and collect interested parties and call them partners. It's just too easy. Here's a small list of current partnerships It's still way too early to tell if these "partnerships" are more than just lip service.

Tron: The Unknown

• China

Decentralized tech it can't directly control is a threat to their authoritarian system of government. We have no idea what they're planning for crypto. All we do know is that they tend to ban first and regulate later. And we should note that something will eventually happen. If it can be regulated, China will find a way to do so. The big question is: Will Tron find itself on that crypto chopping block?

• The Actual Software

The current Tron "coin" is just an ERC20 token. The software is currently being written and has a relatively active development community. While that bodes well, we really don't know if the tech will hold up to scrutiny just yet since it's too early to tell. Over at reddit, one poster named coinengineer does a semi-regular, and fairly honest, assessment of the code as it's being developed giving us some of the good and bad. At the moment, it's looking better and better. Here's one such post.

• Basic Attention Token (BAT)

The Basic Attention Token is a token which performs similar functions for the entertainment industry as Tron. The big difference is that it's completely integrated into the Brave web browser and is actively being used- Tron, sadly, is nowhere near this stage. This means BAT already has users as well as an established code-base. It's API can also be integrated into other web browsers as well but I couldn't find much in the way of who's using it and how successful it's been. Suffice it say... BAT could potentially be a serious rival. Of course the real question is: Can BAT make its way into China? If not, then Tron may not have any real competition there. Again... time will tell.

Let me know what you think!